Operating The ARGO 3VH Turret Milling Machine – Made in Taiwan

This section of the ModelEngineeringInThailand.com website is dedicated to my experience of operating the Operating The Taiwanese ARGO 3VH Vertical Turret Milling Machine I bought in Thailand to make the 6″ scale Little Samson Traction Engine. I will be providing operational instructions and technical advice based on my own experience of using the milling machine.

Over time this section of the website will become a real “operation” manual for the Argo Mill and it’s parent the Bridgeport milling machine.

These superb Argo milling machines are a modern clone of the renowned and ubiquitous Bridgeport milling machine but these models by Argo have been “metricised”.

On the Argo website, Argo claim that ARGO stands for Accuracy, Reliability, Gracious, Opportunity.

Well I can agree with the first one, accuracy, at least as far as my 3VH mill is concerned, but the other descriptors are concerned I’m not so sure.

 The Bridgeport Milling Machine Heritage

The original Bridgeport milling machine dates back to the late 1930s and it has been made in thousands since then. So popular was this mill it has been cloned by many manufacturers mainly in China and Taiwan.

There was only ever one size of Bridgeport and although the clones offer a range of sizes, the differences are small.

According to this article a company called Hardinge of the USA took over manufacture of the Bridgeport milling machines in 2002.

The advantage of this long history of the Bridgeport milling machine is that there is a mass of information about the Bridgeport out there on the internet. there are also user-groups and blogs on the subject.

So if finding information on my Argo Bridgeport clone is not so easy it is easy to find the information for the Bridgeport.

Buying A Bridgeport Clone Milling Machine – The ARGO 3VH In Thailand

I bought a used Argo 3VH milling machine together with a large KINWA CH 430×100 centre lathe from an associate in Bangkok, Thailand,  as described on the Buying A Big Lathe In Thailand Page on this website.

At the time I hadn’t heard of Argo (nor Kinwa come to that) but since obtaining and using the machine I am beginning to appreciate it’s heritage (Bridgeport) , it’s versatility and it’s accuracy.

The For Sale And Wanted Machinery Pages

I bought these two machines – the Argo milling machine and the Kinwa lathe from a contact made through this website.

I have subsequently sold a combined lathe and mill made redundant by the purchase of these machines again through a contact made through this website.

I realised that there are  quite a number of people in Thailand looking to buy and sell lathes, milling machines and other workshop machinery and equipment.

In response to this need I have set up a “For Sale and Wanted” section on this website where people can buy and sell workshop equipment, models, and materials with a free classified advert listing.

[sp]

[join]