Review: Little Machine Shop HiTorque 3960 Tabletop Mill
Major Pandemic 09.09.14
Functions
With all these features, one would ask, “What type of cool projects you could make with a Little Machine Shop HiTorque 3960 mill?” My first project was transform a few scrap pieces of Lexan into luggage tags for the kids’ camp bags with initials milled in them. This was a simple little project to get acclimated to the controls before I started on more complex projects.
My next project was to work through a variety of 80% AR-15 lowers to make my own AR-15 pistols and rifles. Some of those 80% lowers were forged 7075 aluminum, others were fancier billet 7075 lowers, and some even polymer. In all cases the Little Machine Shop HiTorque 3960 performed perfectly and accurately without stuttering or sputtering. The 3960 ran well across a broad array of materials and delivered great looking milled finishes on all materials. Mills and collets were easily switched, and the simple, easy, continuously variable RPM was a huge plus as materials and cutting speeds/depths varied.
As you can see on this Matthews Carbine billet 80% lower, the final project was very good and functionally perfect.
Final Thoughts
It’s one thing to be a DIY’er who paints or carpets a room, but another all together who is machining parts and items from solid chunks of material. These folks I term “fabricators.” I fall into this segment because I actually use a mill more than a couple times a month for various projects.
At this point the only feature I would really like to have is a little more height on the Z-axis (up and down). This would allow a little more room for the long bit on the drill press to work on taller pieces, but as spec’ed the HiTorque 3960 is an outstanding tabletop mill that delivers very high quality product and enough features to keep me from wanting more. It’s an excellent investment for the home fabricator.
Specs
- Little Machine Shop HiTorque 3960 High Torque Mini Mill
- Most powerful mill in its class
- Most low-speed torque in its class
- No gears in spindle drive
- Largest table and X-Y travel in its class
- R8 spindle (Includes R8 to 33JT drill chuck arbor, but no drill chuck)
The LittleMachineShop.com HiTorque Mini Mill is the best in its class. It has the most power, most torque, and a larger table than other mills in its class.
This mill has a solid column. It does not tilt from side to side. This construction is significantly stiffer than the tilting column on other mini mills.
The 500 Watt brushless spindle drive motor provides tremendous low-end torque, and you can vary the speed from 50 RPM to 2500 RPM continuously. There are no gears to shift, and with no gears, the HiTorque Mini Mill is the quietest in its class.
The large mill table provides 50% more table area than other mini mills. It also has 30% more travel in each direction. The resettable feed dials allow you to zero them at any point.
The HiTorque Mini Mill has drill press handles for drilling and fast motion of the mill’s head. It also has Z-axis fine feed with 0.001″ resolution for milling operations.
- MSRP $779.00
- Solid Column: Non-Tilting Column
- End Milling Capacity: 0.6″ (16 mm)
- Face Milling Capacity: .2″ (30 mm)
- Drilling Capacity: 0.5″ (13 mm)
- Table Size: 18.1″ x 4.7″ (460 mm x 120 mm)
- T-slots: 3 slots 0.47″ (12.0 mm) wide
- X-Axis Travel: 1.8″ (300 mm)
- Y-Axis Travel: 5.1″ (130 mm)
- Z-Axis Travel: 9.8″ (250 mm)
- Throat: 6.5″ (165 mm)
- X- and Y-Axis Feed Screws: 0.062″ (1.59 mm) per rotation
- Head Tilt: None
- Positioning Accuracy: 0.0004″ (0.010 mm)
- Spindle Taper: R8
- Spindle Motor: 0.67 hp (500 Watts)
- Spindle Speed: 00 – 2500 RPM
- Power Requirements: 20 V 60 Hz 8 Amps
- Machine Weight: 24 lbs (56 kg)
- Base Dimensions: (W x D) 8.5″ x 14.2″ (216 mm x 362 mm)
- Mounting Holes: Center to Center (W x D) 7.00″ x 11.88″ (177.8 mm x 301.6 mm)
- Overall Dimensions: (W x D x H) 23.2″ x 19.7″ x 29.1″ (590 mm x 500 mm x 740 mm)
- Weight: 161 lbs (73 kg)
- Crate Dimensions: (W x D x H) 23.6″ x 24.8″ x 27.0″ (600 mm x 630 mm x 685 mm)
Essential Tooling Package
- MSRP: $464.00
- Tooling Package, R8 Mini Mill Premium
- All the best products to get started with your R8 mini mill right now
- Workholding: 3″ precision milling vise, parallels, clamping kit, 1-2-3 blocks
- Toolholding: R8 collet set
- Cutting tools: end mills and center drills
- Blocks: 1-2-3 Ultra Precision2881
- Box: for 3″ Parallels2367 Box
- Center Drills: Cobalt Set of 5 (Numbers 1-5)4859
- Clamping Kit: 7/16″ T-Slot 144 Clamping Kit
- Collets: R8 Set of 13, Professional Grade4860 Collets
- Edge and Center Finder: Fisher 959
- End Mill Set: 6 Piece 2 Flute Cobalt4888
- End Mill Set: 6 Piece 4 Flute Cobalt4887
- T-Slot Cleaner 263
- Vise Mounting Kit: Mini Mill3125
- Vise, 3″ Precision Milling, Heavy 699
- More – edge finder, vise mounting kit, T-slot cleaner
SOURCES
Little Machine Shop – http://www.littlemachineshop.com
