ADJUSTABLE HEIGHT MILL

The ability to adjust your mill head up and down is  absolutely  essential  for any milling machine to be truly functional . In addition, the ability to hold that position rigidly is necessary for quality work.  We spent years developing the BRIDGEMILL system in order to create a truly functional combination machine with equal capacity as both lathe and mill.  If you want real milling in your shop, do not even consider those 1980's machines which have the mill head hanging off a single column.  That outdated  design simply cannot maintain rigidity and tolerances under any sort of cutting loads.   Trust us, we have " been there-done that ".  See our HISTORY section for the story.  Our design is unique in the world, with the mill head supported and moving on 4 ground steel columns, which in themselves are far more rigid tan any other 3 in 1 machine, but to top off the design, we added a 5th column on the tailstock end to lock this massive assembly down rock solid. 
      

PATRIOT precision ground lift columns

As an added bonus for our customers we have added a power feed mechanism mount for moving the mill up and down.  The standard machine uses a crank handle turning a shaft and worm gear assembly to drive the acme screw which raises and lowers the head.  The acme screw runs in thrust ball bearings for smooth precise motion.  Because the columns are precision ground and run in a jig bored casing, the friction for lifting this massive head is quite low.  The mount we supply can be used by the customer to adapt a simple motor with a switch for up and down, or, for our CNC customers, a 4th drive motor can be added to control the mill head position under CNC control.