Sieg SX1LP Milling machine

Those following my J6 thread will have seen my prayers for a milling machine.

At Chris's suggestion I had been researching benchtop milling machines and I have been looking at similar specification machines from Warco, Axminster, Arco Euro, Clarke and Chester.

I happened to mention that I was looking to a fellow modeller, who immediately said that he had a Sieg SX1, bought via Arc Euro and that he would have no hesitation in buying another from them albeit that his model had recently been superseded by the SX1LP.

I was only window shopping until funds allowed and it was a good job I was, because pretty much every example that I had been reviewing was out of stock (presumably on a ship from China, somewhere at sea).

After the hearty recommendation and the fact that the SX1LP has a brushless motor, direct belt drive, and higher spindle speeds than the competition that I had looked at. I had pretty much made up my mind but they were, out of stock. I was therefore most surprised when Chris said that she was ordering one for me from Arc Euro and having relooked at their site they had stock!

It was ordered last Friday afternoon, just before 5pm we had an email asking us to contact them regarding delivery. which I did on Saturday morning. Delivery was arranged for Tuesday, it arrived just before lunch and the sun stayed out long enough to get it unpacked and clean all the Chinese anti rust grease from it.

Here it is in its place on the bench.



Most frustratingly once Chris told me she was ordering one I went online to order an ER25 collet chuck that would take my existing collets. I found one and placed my order then on Saturday morning I ordered a set of slot drills to get me started.

When the slot drills arrived on Wednesday but no sign of the collet chuck (ordered from the same place) I started searching for the order. To my surprise I couldn’t find anything and rang up the supplier (RDG in Mytholmroyd) a very helpful lady quickly checked and confirm my suspicions that I had been distracted and hadn’t actually completed the order Grrr, gnash, gnash… So now I patiently await the collet chuck before I can have a play.

 

Ha, ha

I need to get to grips with the basic machine before I think of making it more complicated...

 

Hi Jim,
It was fully assembled. On the day of delivery I prepared for it by having the driver put it on one of those folding step platforms that you use for decorating etc. This meant that I didn't have to pick it up off the floor.

I unpacked it on the stand and cleaned off most of the anti rust grease that it was coated with while it was still outside. Then I carried it in to the work bench. It proved easier than I expected.

 

Hi Jim,

I have done a small amount of milling with it having made a complete "mullock" (insert expletive of choice here) of ordering a collet chuck twice and waiting almost three weeks before I finally got my hands on it. While the milling worked as expected, my measurements weren't and I didn't end up with enough milled material to do what I wanted but it was only a test run after all.

To be honest the key to getting the best from it is not the actual milling. It's how to securely the part for the milling operation and learning how to work out where the part is in relation to the quill and how much you want to take off in what plane.
For example I learned that each turn of the handwheel equates to 2mm the graduations are marked in 0.025mm and the bezel is marked 0.025-80

This differs from my lathe where each full turn is 1mm and the graduations are 0.05mm

 

Hi Jim,

I have to confess I haven't greased them yet. Like you I will have to buy in some lithium grease.
One thing that I have discovered with mine is that the Drawbar that comes with the drill chuck that's fitted is 3/8" and the spare is the 10mm one as advertised. So if you buy a 10mm threaded Collet chuck you will need to swap out the draw bar each time you change between them.

So far I have been fitting my drills in the appropriate sized collets and have used the collet chuck rather than swapping to the Jacobs type drill chuck. It's a bit fiddly but no more so than swapping out the chuck each time.