Anyone out there using a milling machine for milling the limb beds on 3 piece take downs? If so, what type of machine? Any suggestions on the smallest mill that would work for this?
There are people out there that use them. Most of the big companies now use CNC to at least rough out there product.
You wouldn't need a very big machine to do what you are asking. What you need to look for is the travel of the bed and the z-axis clearance. Also you would probably want a vertical mill.
If you want to buy a machine buy the BIGGEST machine that you can afford and have space for. This is stated for two primary reasons:
1)You will always be restricted to the size of a small machine.
2)You can do even really small thing on a big machine, and you have the size to do big projects and as soon as you have a machine and start using it you will always get an idea for a big project and wish you had a bigger machine.
At least that is what I get from my experience in machining.