Smithy’s 3-in-1 Metalworking Tools
By Chuck Cage
If your workspace isn’t large enough to accommodate both a knee-mill and a small lathe — much less their big brothers — Smithy’s offers a variety of combination lathe-mill-drill machines that may just fill the bill.
Their least expensive unit, the Midas 1220 (pictured here), starts at $1399 and measures 42″ x 23″ x 38″. It’s millhead and drill press accepts MT3 tooling, while its lathe can take MT4 and has a bore-through spindle that can accept 1″ standard bar stock. The more expensive Granite units (starting around $3500) are CNC (computer control) capable, and can be converted at quite reasonable cost.
Smithy has been selling these machines to the general public since the 1960s, so they offer a pretty impressive line of accessories as well, including a number of “kits” to help you get “tooled up” for each particular machining task such as gunsmithing, modelling, and small engine repair. They also offer videos to help you get started quickly and on the right track.
Our personal experience with customer service has been quite positive. (We have a much-modified older unit we purchased second-hand, yet customer service provided us missing documents and assistance whenever needed.)
All in all Smithy provides an easy way to jump in and add machine work to your small shop’s capabilities.
What Is a 3-in-1? [Smithy]
Metalworking Tools [Smithy]
Metalworking Accessories [Smithy]
June 27th, 2007 at 11:35 am
[...] We wrote about Smithy’s 3-In-1 metalworking tools — an easy way for the garage hobbyist to give machine work a try. We’ll let you in on a secret: we have a very old Smithy in the TM shop, though it’s been so heavily modified that the manual doesn’t mean much any more. Good stuff, if used correctly! [...]
December 27th, 2008 at 3:25 pm
Why not a 3 in 1 welder cutter machine?