Does anyone use a mini milling machine in any of their mouthpiece work?  If so ,is there a preference and model no?

Assuming you mean one of the Chinese benchtop mills-drills. I had one a while back, used it to bias cut tables a few times and take down the tip opening on a SS Berg but there's no good way to do anything else with it. Workholding is necessarily very cumbersome compared to the size of the machine, even the largest (X3 maybe?) size.  OTOH, you could use it to make tools -- tip gauge, maybe fixturing for tip work or something. With a lathe you can at least repair and extend shanks, so it may be marginally more useful for refacing/repair type work. FWIW my lathe and CNC mill I never use in any repair/refacing capacity except to turn the occasional shank band.
 

 But if you do want a milling machine (nevermind mouthpiece stuff, they're good for making stuff in general), for the price of a new Chinese toy (don't kid yourself, these are toys) you can get an old Bridgeport which will do a much much much better job of anything.

I use a small Atlas horizontal mill (and even an old Atlas metal shaper) for some processes.  The Bridgeport series 1 is very versatile old iron (2400lbs).  For even more stability (working with stainless) I'd look at the old hor./vert. Van Norman #12 or #16s, Abene VHF-2 or 3, or smaller Deckel FP2 or Hardinge TM-UM.  If you want to convert to CNC, the consensus is, go with an older bench mill.  Funds unlimited - a 5 axis HAAS machining center is nice.

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  On Thu, Mar 17, 2016 at 6:14 AM, frymorgan@... [MouthpieceWork]<MouthpieceWork@yahoogroups.com> wrote:       
Assuming you mean one of the Chinese benchtop mills-drills. I had one a while back, used it to bias cut tables a few times and take down the tip opening on a SS Berg but there's no good way to do anything else with it. Workholding is necessarily very cumbersome compared to the size of the machine, even the largest (X3 maybe?) size.  OTOH, you could use it to make tools -- tip gauge, maybe fixturing for tip work or something.
With a lathe you can at least repair and extend shanks, so it may be marginally more useful for refacing/repair type work. FWIW my lathe and CNC mill I never use in any repair/refacing capacity except to turn the occasional shank band.
But if you do want a milling machine (nevermind mouthpiece stuff, they're good for making stuff in general), for the price of a new Chinese toy (don't kid yourself, these are toys) you can get an old Bridgeport which will do a much much much better job of anything.