Should You Buy A Cheap Mini Milling Machine? (Sieg X2.7L In-depth Review)

Even if you can find a way to clamp an end mill in the drill chuck I've always been told that milling with a drill chuck is a big no-no. The reason being that the drill chuck is only designed to push straight down. The drill chuck is usually only held on by a taper so can go flying off (or develop runout) if you apply side force to it.

This is by far the best review of the Sieg x2.7L mill that is on KRplus. Thank you for putting in the time to make it. Well done!

Probably one of the best reviews out there!
Thanks for sharing,
Cheers

A bit of a long one today, been in the making for a while. I hope you find this video useful and enjoy it. Cheers

Cheers from a yankee. Please keep us updated on this mill, and if you decide to do the upgrades to make it more rigid as you mentioned, please consider doing as detailed video there as you did here with your excellent review. Can't say how much it is appreciated that you took your time and expertise to share with the world your experiences here.

This press has worked like a charm for my projects krplus.net/upostUgkxajoEbapTfqWaadnqb04h6U576yxXp-FE . I didn't even secure it to my table top, mainly due to the fact that I was using a 15 lbs drill vise. It's not flimsy at all as to what others have claimed it to be. Make sure the locking nuts and levers are secured and there won't be any issues with light pressure and patience. I was able to drill through aluminum, plastic, and steel (steel took a while) with no problems at all. Yeah it took a little longer than a regular drill press, but I don't have the space OR the money for one.The instruction manual was worthless, but luckily assembling the press was intuitive. However, the manual would be good for ordering replacement parts if needed. There is a nice breakdown of the parts that are included in the kit. Before ordering, make sure it is compatible with your unit, it is clearly stated what models the press is compatible with.This was an excellent purchase for $40!!

Wow this has to be the most in-depth review I've seen in a long time. Damn great job!👍👍👍👍👍

One of the very best reviews I have encountered. So much better than any of the manufacturer or affiliated ones I have seen for benchtop mills. Thank you very much.

This was helpful to watch. Thanks for taking the time and effort to make and post this video.

What a wonderful review. Very concise and easy to follow details for any beginner enthusiast, and probably for more experienced users.

Cheers for that. I have been watching your journey with this mill with interest as I plan on getting a small mill soon. I have been leaning more and more towards one of these as you have shown the work you are doing with it. Your wrap up of your experience is really great for me, probably the only thing holding me back at the moment is the dealer here (I'm also in Oz) has them listed as out of stock.

This and your 2 year lathe review are really fantastic, subd, thanks for sharing

This video is the reason why a 124 kg crate was dumped by DHL outside my house yesterday. I live on the floor above ground level. My arms hate you...
Apart from that, thanks for a super nice channel!

I found one at a pawn shop way back and it definitely helped kick start my career making robotic components. Before that it was a drill press and angle grinder. Great learning tool as good as taking any college course. Buy one and start making stuff. I have a Bridgeport now and still have and use all my R8 tooling first bought for the mini.

This was exceptionally helpful. I recently got a milling machine and completely blanked on the collet chuck. Nice one, thanks!

Excellent well explained review. Thanks for taking the time to do it. Much appreciated!

excellent run down on this mill, thank you for your effort in putting this together

Nice video and very informative. Looks like a nice small mill to play around with in the shed. Thanks for the time and effort you put into your videos. Cheers Dave..

Well done video. I have a Jet knee mill with an R8 collet. Works fine. In addition to the greater travels you get a ram to increase the usable Y, a rotating column that can increase the area covered or allow hanging work off the side of the table and a tilting head that can go full 90° sideways for horizontal boring. There is a key in the spindle that prevents rotation of the collet. Changing collets is simple, just rotate the draw bar one turn and give it a tap, it frees the tool.
The biggest limitation for travels is in the Z. Everything you add to the spindle or table takes away Z travel. A vice & drill chuck just to start. If you add a boring head, rotary table or adjustable angle plate even more is lost. For most drilling I use screw machine drill bits. Their short length makes them much stiffer and less likely to flex. I've got two Taiwan machines and one mainland China. The Taiwan machines are considerably better made.

Well done. A good, useful and wonderful field.

Wow, mate!! Excellent "Meat and Potatoes" review, thanx so much. I've owned the Little Machine Shop's Sieg Mini Lathe for about 4 years now, and other than the "WIMPY" slop in the Crossslide movement, (the Allen Gib Screws that you point out) it's been a great little helper. God bless!

From France : Thanks for the feedback. VERY usefull. I watched and listened to all the footage at normal speed! I'm planing to buy a mini lathe and a mini mill within the next year. Christophe. Of course I subscribed....

Awesome review mate. At a standard of actual...practical use that many other youtubers should follow. Hello from Tassie.

Another good video, thanks for your thoughts
i bought a smaller version of this mill in the uk, an sx1 lp.
Very similar feature set with a fixed column, i wanted to avoid a tilting column preferring the rigidity that the fixed column gives.
I make smaller things and have a very small workshop and the sx1lp was the largest i could feasibly accommodate
I was surprised how well it actually performed and how close to tolerance it could actually get. Went with an er25 collet chuck and recycled a proxxon drilling vice from my old machine, very similar to the one you were using which has been pretty good and hasnt suffered from jaw lift. I also use a small rotary table from my old machine which has been pretty useful
Next thing to buy for it is a dro.
I was also surprised how well adjusted the machine was straight out of the box, i was expecting to have to tram everything in and faff with the table gibs but it was fine. I check it before every use, old habits die hard, and have only needed to tweak it once or twice. and havent had to tram the column at all which is surprising.
I paid about £800 in total for the machine, tooling, collet chuck and various other bits and pieces, so it has been reasonably good value. Only thing on this machine is that it has no way covers, so you have to sort something yourself, those things must be the cheapest bit on the machine so why they weren't included is a bit of a mystery.
Maybe i just got a nice one, its not a Friday special like some of the stories about these machines ive read

The Sieg mills are pretty good for quality and build. You will find a noticeable improvement in your rigidity if you bed the shimmed column joint on a metalised epoxy compound. Leave the shims in place when you bolt it back down tight after adding epoxy bedding compound.

I'm lucky enough to have a step father who is in charge of procurement for the tool and die shop at a "large aviation company" building near where we live. I have gotten a Monarch 612 and a 14, 3 Bridgeports (2 clones 1 original) a shaper a CNC lathe and mill and my 2 favorite pieces by far first the Sharp surface grinder (that sells it so far short) it retailed for $85k USD I got it because it was being phased out for $12k USD, because God forbid you take the time to sell a machine through a typical 2nd hand method. This type of stuff has allowed me to teach my two 14 year old daughters how to fabricate you in case their modeling careers fall through and their dance never gets to a professional level or they don't make it as KRplus stars. Also I'm hoping the machine oil smell will keep the boys away and the day it doesn't is the day we have a chat with the boy about his intentions as he is either "good stock" and looks past the smells and grease monkey looks or he is a fellow chip maker and I may need to either kick his ass or invite him back to the shop

Great video from beginning to end brother 👍👍

Thanks a lot for this great Video
Happy New Year 🥳🥂

Well done, I have a 30 year old Busy Bee bench top mill, lots of people ridicule these smaller machines but the do great work within their capacity. I use MT3 collets now and it makes a huge difference in rigidity and clearance compared to the Clarke/Posi lock holder that I started with. Ausee tools has a good range. Thanks for posting.

Great video mate! I have always wanted a mill and have looked at these. Be great to add to the arsenal!

Excellent vid, lots of info and fun to watch!
4x6 Bandsaw next? Your arms will thank you :)

Do consider the used market in your area. I was able to find a used 1980 Bridgeport model 1 for $500 within 10 miles from my home. This price isn't typical here in Florida and it did need some cleaning and adjusting but I'm glad I found it. I've found that many retired machinists are more concerned with finding a good home for the machines they can no longer use than how much money they will get for it.

Great review. Thanks. Really helpful

Brilliant analysis Art lots to think about, thanks for your thoughts.

Great Video man , lots of good info , thanks for sharing

That does indeed seem like the proper mill to purchase to actually get some work done. I've been warned off the smaller ones as being too flimsy to hold true to their cut. Very nice video with cogent info. Thanks!

I had the x2. found it to small, under powered and not ridged enough. looks like your mill is a huge step up from the x2. great video

Great review I love the videos you make they are very informative Im in the market for an X2.7 mill.

Thanks for the detailed breakdown :-)

Thank you for this.

Nice review. I find myself comparing my purchase choices to yours. For not a lot more money (excluding accessories like the DRO) it's very possible to buy a full sized bench mill instead if you have the space for it. The working volume is considerably larger, there's more power to work with, the machine is heavier/more rigid, and overall, a full sized bench mill is surprisingly cheap for what you get even when considering purchasing a new model. The only thing you have that I don't is the fact that your head is mounted to the column on a dovetail which is a feature I would really like. My mill (a Jet) only clamps to a round column, so I can't move the head and maintain position at the same time. That's the only limitation I've run into so far.

Excelent review - thank you !

Looks like you got yourself an excellent machine. I have the Grizzly version of the X2 (tilt head)... they had a similar rigid column with the larger table but 25 years ago it was 3x's the cost of the smaller one. Nice idea about the extruded Al blocks... hope they're working well for you. Looks like you'll get years of use out of it.

I really loved your video thank you so much for taking the time to make it , I’m new to machinery and want to give it ago.

Nice video, I debated endlessly between the Sieg X2.7L and a used Enco RF-30 for same price, ended up going with the RF-30.

Excellent vidéo pour une excellente petite fraiseuse ! Juste ce qu'il fallait pour bien la connaître et y apporter des améliorations 👍👍👍

You make my day today! I’m at home super sick, close to a non-Workshop depression. So, your video comes in just right ✌️☺️

Overall it looks like a really nice machine, I also like the slightly larger Sieg SX3 mill. For the last 40 years I have been using British, American, German, Taiwanese and Chinese machinery at work and at home, but I do like some of the Chinese made machines. We are fortunate that China produces affordable new machine tools as an alternative to much more expensive machinery from other countries, as long as we don't end up with a Chinese machine with too many serious manufacturing faults.
The adjusting set screws at the base of the column that you mention may not be adjusters at all, I have never seen any actual adjusters fitted on similar mills before. They may just be tapered locating dowels, the Chinese do use tapered dowels extensively to locate components on a lot of their machines and these tapered dowels have an internal thread that is used for extracting them.

Thank you for a fantastic walk-thru of this mill. I have an HBM BF25L Vario mill and it is quite similar to yours. I have been having issues with vibrations or some sort of incapability of milling properly. Maybe it is due to that I haven't tightened the mill properly to a solid base. I have yet to make a fly cutter in the lathe but that will be next. The end mill I have is probably of low quality and thus giving poor results. Thank you for a very inspiring video and also the other ones regarding your lathes. You have a new subscriber now 🙂

You helped me decide. Thanks.

Thanks mate great info!

The scale on the front of the table can be useful for centring your vise....and also for showing you just how short of X travel (I have the smaller SX2) you're going to be now that you've already got it all set up and indicated in!

thank you very much for your review!

Great video enjoyed it very much.

I used a tormach PCNC mill a bunch with an R8 collet chuck and I still had to whack it with a hammer to pop out the tools. The tormach TTS system uses an R8 collet to grab the tool holder which is straight instead of tapered so I have also had problems with tools pulling out in heavy loading cases like running half inch endmills aggressively. Morse taper would have been way nicer. That CNC mill is at a makerspace, if I ever need my own machine I'd consider one of these Sieg mills tho. Thanks for the video!

Thank you - good information

Great review.

Thanks for sharing 👍

Hey mate great info

Very useful video. Thanks.

No need to apologise for the length of this video, I don't think that you could do a decent review in a shorter video and this went quickly.
Good and fair review Artisan! Six months of daily work use equates to heck of a lot of machine time over what average hobbyists are ever likely to achieve.
If I were to get one, it would be to add to my skill set and my capabilities in steel, aluminium and plastic. I will have to put it on my wish list!
Keep up the good work!
Mark from Melbourne Australia

Having very few second hand says so much for the quality of these.
We have a WM 18 some issues with the motor getting hot but take the box off bore bigger holes in its base and fit an extractor fan. Yes the plastic gears are PANTS and a belt drive is half way installed/made. 5 m belt.
David and Lily England.

As a newbie am thinking seriously of getting a bench mill. I found your run down excellent with an affordable unit, it sounds great. Any further vids for updates? Adelaide boy here. .

I am pleased to see how you treat your machines and how accurate your work is.
I have a newbie question - how much space above mill do need to operate it ? (I have limited vertical space)

Yes, this was a long one, but very usefull!!! Thanks mate!

I think the big advantage of R8 is that you can get collets that fit in the spindle directly, not using much z space. That will also be far more rigid.
You have to tap the drawbar on all tool swaps on R8, you are incorrect thinking they will come out on their own. The shorter steeper taper doesn't wedge as tightly though, so just a single tap usually pops it out.

Well, the X2 mini mill in my hobby 'shop' has only 350W, and the SQUARE column is more than stable enough, even for milling steel - sharp tooling and light cuts being necessary. I must say though that I have added a 10mm stiffener plate to the rear of column and base and a poly-vee belt drive (lighting and tachometer too. My drill chuck (I use it for quick milling too) has a drawbar. Another add-on was a self release added to the spindle top, so no tapping and hurting the bearings, just a quarter turn with a small wrench and every MT3 tool drops loose. For longer and more precise usage I change to an ER32 chuck. Concerning the bearings - they are the same as in the mini lathes and are of quite good quality. If you want you may change them to (expensive) same sized roller bearings, but this may not be necessary for a machine which is not used for business.

Lots of info you don't normally get, very good, cheers

Thank you very much for this . absolutely useful in so many ways.
My wish is that (seemingly) no manufacturer produces a drill press with built in Quill lock.
My requirements are no so much metal machining, but true calibration in X,Y,Z axis`s for wood . Consequently I now find I have to search in the milling field for my requirments.
Again, thank you.

Good information here, thanks. Try to avoid the overuse of rising and falling intonation.

Nice job with the review! Here in the USA, I think Americans expectations of the inexpensive Chinese machines is far too high, especially at the low prices points they sell at. I also think "hobbyist" machinists want unrealistic fit/finish and tolerances from these inexpensive lathes. In reality, not many need to make or create parts that would go on a spacecraft. I have the small lathe that you have with all the same shortcomings. Despite them, I'm still able to use it making small parts I need and to remanufacture small parts.
A lot of the KRplus American machinists are using very old and worn big lathes, mills, etc.. If they or us hobbyist machinists were making parts to sell, we wouldn't be using this equipment, whether new inexpensive or worn out old American made.
I needed a nice Milling machine and bought a Precision Matthews branded Taiwan mill. I've been extremely impressed with it so far. I bought it with a DRO mounted. The Taiwan machinery is certainly a step up in quality over the Chinese versions.
As you noted, the machine costs are nothing compared to all the tooling you need, especially for the milling machine. I'd only add to not buy the cheap end mills on Ebay or Amazon. Most are junk that don't last long at all. Try and buy the best tooling you can afford as it will save you money in the long term.
I'm really enjoying your channel! Keep up the good work!

Nice Video!

I use my pillar drill for milling,
It is slower but does the job.

Great video

At work I use paper shims ritualistically. In oil and coolant rolling papers .001 and standard paper between .0025 to .003 for equal shims use the same sheet of paper. We have paper shims old as dirt they handle compression very well.

13:30 actually great thing that you said that ^^ i just now bought a mill, because i couldnt get the taper out of my old drill press, well party, and also, mill super useful lol,
anyway long story short, altho i was not able to remove the chuck, simply plugging in a milling bit and trying to mill, and its out, easy as that.

hahahaha! Even the closed captions hears mule instead of mill! Great video BTW!

I don't know about the US market since I'm in the UK, but my mini mill was sold to me by a UK based company and it has the R8 spindle taper. Of course the first 'tools' I bought were the ER32 collet chuck and a full set of collets. Fortunately I was able to raid my bolt, nut, etc drawer to supply a suitable drawbar as the supplied one for the Jacobs chuck didn't fit. Then it was on to the end mills. To date there aren't many, and none of them exceed ~10mm in diameter. Being financially _embarrassed_ at the moment, larger diameters, facing mills and facing fly cutters will have to wait. My first project is to manufacture a few T nuts and hold down components to supplement the small milling vice I got off the Bay of e. Wish mine came with the quill and DRO, but the price at the time was too tempting to leave it even though it has the tilting column. My pet peeve with that, is that the scale on the column is on the opposite side to the handles, making it difficult to read while in operation. That alone is a good reason to fit a DRO!

Thanks for showing this. Why would they not differentially harden the end mill to allow a jaw to key in? Do the premium ones do this?

R8 is common in the uk. It is rigid and versatile. The drawbar is 7/16" unf but these are common and easy to find here. I chose R8 due the vast range of tooling available in metric or imperial.
Great review and I like the detailed information.

Nice home mills... my fav home brew coolant is 70% alcohol (isopropyl) mix with light oil (3 part alcohol and 1 part oil). For plastic, I only use alcohol.

Use More Coolant.
Doesn't matter who you are or what you do with your milling machine,
as long as there are no puddles in your workshop, this advice stands.

Actually, I think in Europe and Asia they use ISO30/NT30/30 taper for large mills. Mine weights 1400kg and uses NT40 taper. They like R8 in the US because the original Bridgeport Series 1 uses R8, but honestly R8 is really puny compared to even NT30. The NT/ISO/whatever taper has a positive drive key so there's absolutely NO chance the spindle would slip in the taper, even for a very heavy cut. Plus all the industrial machines, CNC, etc. all use those. One nice thing about my mill is if I wanted to buy a VMC in the future all I have to do is cut the knob off the NT40 tooling, and stick a pull stud on it, and it's instantly BT40 compatible. I've got some BT40 tooling too and all it takes is removing the pull stud and extending the draw bar to engage the thread. That last knob isn't that important (and CNC machines don't use them) and the drive key makes sure no slippage happens.
But if you are machining, get carbide end mills and forget those cheap Chinese HSS end mills. With carbide you will get much better finish because you can run your mill at very high RPM and the finish will look great. But the problem with mini mill is that their lack of rigidity means the carbide end mill will get chipped especially when machining harder materials. I've seen a difference between machining 4140 with a 4 flute carbide end mill on a Grizzly G0704 bench top mill (I think it's a Weiss mill originally), vs using the same tooling to machine 4140 on my current mill. The tool wear on the larger mill was nonexistent whereas the end mill dulled very quickly on the G0704.
If you got the space you really should buy used knee mills. They will have far better capability. Mine cost about 1200 dollars because it was very used (was made in 1981). The only problem is I have like 0.8mm of backlash on it...

Good day Sir, appreciate and enjoyed your video. I cannot say I've ever had an R8 taper tool just fall out after loosening the drawbar...however, that is only experience from 2 or 3 different Bridgeport clones, not a Chinese hobby machine although, if the taper is correctly made, should be no difference. I mention this as added info for someone

Thanks a lot👏👏👏👏👏❤️❤️

Amazing

What if you were to partially submerge the rear side of the column in epoxy granite. Obviously do some surface treatment to the column to promote adhesion. And maybe just partially submerge the very bottom of the base into reinforced concrete or more epoxy granite. You could have J bolts set in the concrete to mount the base and maybe even more J bolts alongside the base to use toe clamps to hold the flange of the base down to promote rigidity. Epoxy granite and concrete both have very good vibration dampening properties as well as rigidity and heft.

bought one new and the z column was knife thin at the top where the dovetails met the metal. I returned it but the store was hesitant and gave me troubles. Got a second one, same thing but at the bottom of the column where the bolts hold it. A bridgeport style mill is the best choice when possible...

Thanks for the review! Regarding the USB led lights, Ikea has nice ones for 3€

Get yourself some sutton carbide endmills, especially one of the E543 types for finishing in steel, the surface finish will blow your mind compared to how HSS behaves in these smaller machines

Great video. In a 16’x10’ building tools fight for space so if I get one be like that. First of year maybe November or December if ole lady nice to me. Lol. Let me get early. Love video’s. Keep up good job. From ur ole hillbilly buddy stay safe.

seeing the depth of cuts ur making in steel, be very glad you didnt get the x2d! in retro I def wouldve saved longer for yours...

I have just bought the SX2.7L. I measured the Y-axis travel and only get 170mm (with the rear bellow removed), spec says 190mm? What is your travel?
I also made a couple of improvements:
I added 2 very thin magnets to the spindle spanner, now it stays in place while I change tools (and hangs on the front face when not used)
I added 2 paint marks to the outside of the spindle where the spindle spanner holes are, much easier to find and insert the spanner now
Still waiting on some tools to really get into it

I love my super x3 which I have made in to a cnc machine

Nice video, very informative. Can I ask if you compared Sieg to any other brands? I am looking at buying my first mill and I am comparing sieg with similar spec hafco machines. E.g SX4 vs HM46B. The sieg seems more expensive for similar specifications, is the build quality better? (Cast iron bed vs steel etc?)

Great to watch just bought a TGMD400 Geared head drill/milling machine and no one has info 9n how to use it...I'm stupid enough to not use things until I understand them. Can anyone help.

G’day. Nice video - again. What else have you done with the mill & lathe except made parts for the…mill & lathe. lol. Joking, your parts are always great to see.
Also, much cheaper to buy a mill with cheapest motor and then replace the motor with a more powerful brushless. They’re cheap as chips!
[The USB ports: one is for charging your phone and USB port 2 is for loading your CAM files. 😉 ]
Hey, I got a “temporary pleated black blind” from Spotlight. About 6ft x 6ft for $15. GR8 way cover! Just cut what you need. 👌
A quick question: what is involved in increasing the Y axis movement? Is it doable? (within reason as everything is ‘doable’) Michael, Albury NSW

I have a project idea for you! Power feed for the head so your arm dont get tiered ;)

I bought a small milling machine with a fixed colem similar to yours but mine is close in size to the x2 milling machine .
Love the full information video 👍.

I will say, the harbor freight mill I just axlcquired uses an R8 collet instead of a morse taper. So you don't lose space getting a chuck that needs collects.