Hello,I’m new to the forum and it looks like a great source of info..I’m a professional woodworker and I’m thinking of buying a legacy ornamental mill to increase the kinds of mouldings and turnings I can offer my custumers.I was wondering if anyone had any opinions or feed-back on this machine. Thanks for your help. chas011
Edited 6/27/2002 11:30:16 AM ET by CHAS011
Replies
Here is a link to Phil Bumbalough website were he reviews the Legacy Mill hope this helps and I hope he does not mind me posting a link to his page.
http://benchmark.20m.com/reviews/LegacyMill/toolslegacymill.html
Scott C. Frankland
Newfoundland Wood Worker
Thanks for your help. The site you gave me was a great source of info. on the mill and alot of other things too. Hope woodworking in Newfoundland is doing well! Charles
I have the first version of the mill, called a Woodchuck, but basically the principles are the same as the Legacy, with vast improvements over it's predicessors. I would strongly reccomend the purchase of one. I have had mine for 10 years now, and it absolutley changed the way I woodwork. There is not one other tool I can think of that so radically changed my designs and abilities to accomplish shapes, that once seemed beyond my dreams. I now can easily add some fluting, reeding, columns, etc. etc. etc, to my designs. As woodworkers and artists, we are always trying to accomplish shapes, and this machine does. Hands down, like no other. Buy it, today. You will never regret it. The learning curve is a little steep, but it won't take more than a few tries to figure it out. Then your imagination will take over, and that my friend is the only limitation. Good luck. By the way, they also have an excellent customer service set up. The 2 brothers who own and run the show are very nice guys.
Hi Mark.Thanks for your reply about the mill.I'm 99% sure that I'll buy it put it's always good to hear from someone who has used a tool before. I'm glad it takes some thinking to use it or it wouldn't be nearly as much fun. Maybe I'll be able to post some pictures in the gallery after I learn to use it.Hope all is going well and thanks again,Charles
Charles, it will test your imagination like nothing you've ever encountered. It will force you into a three dimensional perspective of things that you normaly wouldn't have to think of. You will absolutley love it. They have a website too. I think it's legacywoodworking.com But I'm not sure. I just hit the bookmark to go there. Check it out if you haven't already. I'll post a picture of a 36 inch tall column I did not too long ago, in a few days. Good luck.
I too have a Legacy. Yes it will change your perspective about woodworking and yes it is a challenge with a huge learning curve.
Three dimensional machining creates some very interesting scenarios especially relating to the resultant contours. Not only do you get different profiles but you can get some extremely non-intutive surfaces from your tooling. Don't expect that you can just simply attain some designs and dimensions by chance; there is a lot of complex math involved especially in the set up of multi-fluted spirals dependent on the bit sizes and your desired diameters. But then again you can end up with shapes that entirely new and different that seemingly come from nowhere. When you are machining in 3 dimensions, I guarantee that you will be machining wood in ways that you have learned not to do. You will be machining into and against grain such that chipping and tear-out are almost impossible to avoid. I can get fuzzing like you wouldn't believe on some species -- it has nothing to do with tooling sharpness but rather with the way the wood is machined that simply cannot be avoided.
The machine I have I consider barely passable. The first problem I have is maintaining accuracy. Their carrier tray is full of slop both as it moves longitudinally and for cross work machining. I think both of these problems are related to the lack of stiffness of the top rails and because of the guide systems. There is sufficient flex in the top rails that if you lean on them in any way, final piece dimensions will change. If you plunge the bit into the workpiece, that very action will result in a point of depression. I wish they would manufacture the connections to the threaded rods ( ie. the drive/lead screw) from something other than the Delron or whatever it is. I think it is too soft and it wears too quickly. The Delron is not good for maintaining the threads of machine screws attached to it -- they seem to strip out rather quickly.
Because of the difficulting in maintaining accurate tolerances (and by this I mean < +/- 0.010"), I have spent a lot of time, money and head scratching rebuilding parts of the machine to provide some umphh to critical parts. It is almost necessary to become a metal worker/machinist to get the machine accurate, fitted and maintained. I have found that I have to check squareness (to the rails) of the tailstock each time I move it. If it gets set catty wampus, it will throw off your accuracy. I have had to re-machine parts of the tail stock so that it would be centered on the head stock. My current dilemma relates to plunge depth. I need to figure out a way to somehow put an extension onto either the collet or the bits. Without such it is impossible to machine certain cuts especially if your are rotating the workpiece or indexing it.
The machine drive screw motor is horrifically slow and therein its production rate is very low. The lead screw motor should have a higher rpm. This coupled with the fact that you can basically only machine in one direction (the slop in the machine means that the tooling will follow a different path going toward the headstock vs going toward the tailstock. The slow return time is time wasted! Be very careful when you set-up the gearing system. If you don't do it just right, it can skip a tooth or disengage. If this happens near the end of a multiple machining sequence, you will have generated a very costly piece of firewood. The slow feed rate reeks havoc on the tooling -- my bits seem to wear and dull very rapidly simply because there is more rubbing than cutting. I rarely set my router rpm above 10,000 and I wish I could go even slower
My machine seems to have an incredible amount of vibration which equates to chatter and inconsistent surface quality. As such you will need to spend (what I consider) a lot of time sanding. And this type of sanding is all hand sanding
I do not consider the Legacy machine I have to be a production machine center. It would be a great asset and a wonderful "toy" for a very advanced hobbiest. I think that if they made a heavier duty unit, it could be a very useful asset to professional shops. With some additions and/or add-ons, it could be a very useful unit to machine wood other than "spindles". There have been many instances when I wished the machine was programmable!
I am also less than satisfied with their customer service. I bought my machine about 5-6 years ago and I have yet to receive any notification of updates, modifications or new offerings. I found out about one critical one only because I happened to meet someone who purchased a later version of the Legacy. Therein I think that their committment is to the next sale rather than to their existing cliental. I also found that I very quickly exceeded their technical support capacity.
The manual I have sucks! I have had to develop some essential formulii so that I could get close to somethings I need. The adjustment scales provided are almost useless!! If I have to move the rails up or down and want them to be parellel, I use a combination square to control/set the depth. I have yet to find a good and quick method to actually center the router directly above the workpiece unless close enough is good enough. It is also mandatory to have both a dial caliper and feeler guages if you want accuracy (especially related to setting depth with a plunge router which ultimately controls workpiece size).
It would be best if you could try the machine before purchasing it. It will allow you to do things you never thought possible but conversely, it will not do some things that are obviously (so you think) in its capacity. You need to know some of this before you make a pretty hefty investment in the machine, the tooling and the time needed to both learn how to use the machine and to finally operate it.
It is a pretty amazing machine center but over all, I am seriously disappointed in its quality and performance.
I've experienced most of what you speak, but not nearly as radical as you. It is a very hands on machine, with a fair amount of slop, at least my older Woodchuck does. But I have managed hundreds of pieces over the years, with the only real firewood producer being my own negligence or inatentativness. I have made a couple of stabilizers the span the rails that seem to stiffen it substantially. Bear in mind I have a much larger, longer machine than you, with much more flex in the whole thing. Something I thought they would have fixed in the newer machines. As for centering, I simply put a mark on the top of the tail stock, centered between the top rails, then with a center point bit, line it up. As for the complicated math. It's not that bad, once you figure it out a couple times, it's simple multiplication and division, granted you need to be able to visualize what's going to happen in 3d. I have been machining Oak, Walnut, Maple for years, and simply hone my bits before each project. If you use an Eliminator router chuck, you can get some added depth of cut, about another 2 inches or so. I take a little exception to the term "toy" and "advanced hobbiest". I happen to be a master craftsman, with over 25 years of experience in most all phases of woodworking, and while the machines do have some shortcomings, I've managed really well with it. Without much hassel at all, and consider it a vital part of my shop, not just a "toy" It has made me thousands of dollars over the years. Anyway, I don't mean to sound mean spirited or anything, but I just don't find all the problems you address, as critical as you address. Is it a machine to run 10 hrs/day, 7 days a week, probably not, but then the price doesn't warrant that kind of use either. How and why did you buy yours? And with what intent?
Mark:
I guess you could say that I too have made thousands of dollars from the machine; I have also made thousands of dollars from my shaper. I consider my shaper (Powermatic) to be a machine center that is capable of "production" work that will maintain a high degree of precision but which cost me considerably less than the Legacy machine.
I have certainly blown plenty of pieces due to inattentiveness; there have been a significant number of pieces of firewood that were generated by slop and slippage. The former I can attribute to my faults; the latter I attribute to Legacy design faults.
I cannot speak to newer design modifications because I have never been informed of these changes and upgrades. My Legacy has capacity for a workpiece about 60" in length. I have yet to need such length. When I originally considered buying one, I sought one of short dimension but that offering was no longer available. I maintain the length provided because to shorten the unit would require me taking certain parts to a machine shop for remanufacture.
I also have developed a stablization system for both the top and bottom rails which does reduce some of the vibration. This is part of the investment I indicated was required to improve the performance with an associated time and money expenditure. I personally don't think it should have been necessary for me to do this; Phantom could have provided such either an add-on or as some recommendations in their manual. The stablization system requires some tweaking with each set-up dependent on the length of the workpiece (and hense the working length of the rails) again inherent due to rail flex. If I don't get an equal distance in the rails between the headstock and the tailstock/stabilizer, then the carrier tray will either bind or have excessive racking movement. If there is such variation, then TDC will change; and if the tailstock cross bar is not perfectly square, then the tailstock center point will change. If this happens, you will induce taper into the workpiece. I personally think that all this checking and rechecking of alignment and positioning to be tedious and time consuming. And with stabilization of the top and bottom rails, it still does not eliminate vibration in the bars that the tailstock rides on -- that too needs a stabilizer to effectively dampen machine vibration.
I have found that to correctly attain workpiece diameters for various profiles of multi-fluted spirals, some sophisticated math is absolutely manditiory. I spend a considerable amount of time figuring out a workable formula that involves trigonometry and that considers the functions of pitch, # of flutes, workpiece length, # of workpiece rotations, etc.. When I was trying to figure this out, I passed it by my nephew, who is a math teacher with a BA in Math, and he could provide no help. It is very apparent, for a spiral, that the resultant profile on the workpiece is different than that of the cutter profile. If you do not know how to compensate for this variable change, the transition from design to machined product will become a guessing game. This very real difference was never alluded to in any of the promotional material I have seen and it was not discussed within the manual.
I helped one individual who had an Eliminator chuck on his machine. I guess his concern for accuracy was considerably less than mine because the first thing I noticed was that the tooling in that chuck was spinning eccentically.
I agree with you about the necessity for honing the tooling -- I think this is necessary because without super sharp cutters chatter and burn can become excessive. Honing I think is necessary because of excessive wear due to the low feed rate to cutter rpm ratio. Honing takes time (which is not production time) and a fair degree of skill. I have seen the edge sharpness of many shops tooling and it is well worn -- too dull in most instance for a quality surface from the Legacy machine. Some woods are less critical than others -- walnut does well but chatter on white oak or burn on maple or cherry will become a labor intensive hand sanding nightmare.
I purchased my machine because I thought that the complex and ornamental profiles I would produce would allow me to market a distinctive and unique product line and therein give me a competitive advantage. I certainly was able to attain wonderfully different and beautiful designs. A primary problem was that the production rate was so slow and the surface quality (directly from the machine) too low that I could not manufacture the items at a competitive rate (unless I wanted to work at a wage level equivilent to that of a developing country sweat shop worker). I was attempting to balance the setup time required for each step compared to some level of limited number of production run items and the numbers never worked out.
I will most likely keep the machine I have, it does have its uses. I was simply expressing some problems I think are inherent in the machine that are less than perfect and that a potential buyer should be aware of. You seem more positive about yours but at the same time affirmed many of the shortcomings I indicated. I guess it eventually comes down to what an individual wants to produce and at that point, research is required to determine if the Legacy is the best option or if something else better is available, AND will the Legacy perform as needed.
I've been looking for other ornamental mills but have only seen the Lagacy.Do you know of any others?
Chas:
Holtzapffel if you could ever find one! And that is an entirely different piece of work.
I once ran across a guy demonstrating his Holtzapffel lathe at some show. This was at least 25 years ago and I offered him $10,000 for it with the condition that he would keep it until he either died or could no longer work it. He smiled and politely turned me down (no pun intended).
Please don't get me wrong -- the Legacy can do some absolutely amazing things. It offers an opportunity to do things that are not currently possible without going to some very expensive equipment. It is, however, a very finicky critter that requires a lot of precise/precision set up time and at least to my standards, seemingly does not "respond" with the same precision in final product dimensions and surface quality. You also have to be focused and paying attention during its operation so that you don't omit some step in the procedures; conversely once started (correctly) in a cut, my mind can go numb as it proceeds with glacial speed (hense my comments about it not being a production machine center and the need to increase the lead screw rpm). I don't want to completely turn you off to the possibilities offered by the Legacy but then again I don't want you to be uninformed about its limitations as well.
And with regard to sanding (which I HATE), once you begin to open that wood up with all those contours and twists, the surface area that develops becomes huge. Four sides flat is very easy to sand. A circle, as a shape, encloses the greatest area for the smallest perimeter is easy to sand -- cut six spiraling flutes with a classical plunge bit pattern and you have increased the surface area to be sanded by maybe an order of magnitude (eg 10x's). Cross-grain, rising grain, diving grain, spiral grain, tear-out, chipping -- the stuff I was making had to be sanded super smooth, was very visible so that any defect showed and people were continually feeling and touching the finished surface.
Several years ago (1999), I was down at the LA Woodworking Machinery Show doing a presentation/seminar and there was another manufacturer that had an offering. This firm was in Massachuetts (sp??) around the Boston area, but I totally spaced on the name of the company. Their machine was about 6 or 8 times the price of a Legacy but then again so was its production rate. The only contact I have (I saved his card) was that of one individual who was helping out with the demonstration, a Brit by the name of Barrie Field with phone 0908 582089 and fax of 0908 281044 (Great Britain numbers).
What exactly are you attempting to do with the Legacy machine anyway? Which wood species will you be using? Those are two very primary issues that could make a big difference.
Hello.The woods that I would mostly be working with are cherry,walnut,maple and mohogany.I wouldn't be using the Legacy as a production tool as so much as a "gap filler".I own a small woodworking shop(myself and two employees). Our work ranges from reproductions to laminate counters and boxes to restoration.I spend my time doing all the finish work and working on the more detailed pieces.I also deal with the costumers and be a salesman(I guess someone has to do it).When we do more laminate work and our back log is high I have some free time.After being in business for nine years I think I have the right to "play" alittle.That is were the Legacy comes in. I want to be able to build more furniture of different styles and shapes while my workers handle the regular jobs.I would like to be able to sell my work and make more money, but if that doesn't happen I have a very understanding wife,no kids,and a large house that can always use more furniture. You can see a small part of the work we do at my web site http://www.featherbedlane.com. Talk to you later.
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