Bought a Smithy Midas and it was delivered on Friday. I got it cleaned up yesterday and will get it dialed in today. It's off the shelf accuracy is .002 but if you shim it properly and add a DRO (coming next week) it can be quite accurate. I wish I had the power and room for better equipment but I don't so this will have to do.

Mine arrived with some shipping damage but they will replace the broken switch and motor capacitor cover. This machine has two 110v motors and runs easily on a 15amp breaker but they do recommend a 20amp.

So, just so you know, the machine is made in China and then brought back to the Smithy facility and run through their testing process. Out of the box at it's final destination it is not ready to run so you do need to know a little bit about machinery to get it up and running. The video is o.k. and the manual with all it's spelling errors edges toward sub par. That said, with persistence, you can get it dialed in and start making precision parts without outside assistance.

I did not buy their stand. Instead I went in search of a tool cabinet and got lucky finding a discontinued Lenox 52" cabinet that was perfect. It has wheels on it now but as soon as I settle on an exact location and get the levelers machined, I'll remove the wheels and let it sit directly on the deck for better height and stability.

A 2 ton engine hoist is all that's needed to lift the machine and move it around. I got one at Autozone that's rated at 1/2 ton with the boom fully extended and it did the job safely and effortlessly. I also had mine delivered to my home for an extra 70.00. I have a lifted pickup and I could have saved the 70.00 if I picked it up at the terminal 20 miles away but then I would have had to disassemble it to get it out of the truck since the max height of engine hoist is 82". My advice is to pay the 70.00 and I think you'll save in the long run. Time is money..

Had a chance to use the Smithy on a couple of 80% lowers over the weekend. I did get my DRO's but the mounting kit it still back ordered so I was attempting this from a manual standpoint. It's definitely doable but the amount of back lash in the Smithy makes it a challenge. Still, for the price, it wasn't bad enough to stop me from proceeding.

More challenging than the back lash was finding a decent set of blueprints for an LR .308 lower. The ones I did finally settle on cost me a few dollars and were converted from metric so some of the dimensions were pretty odd ball numbers and some even made me think that someone just tried to copy a completed upper and transcribe it.

My first attempt wasn't bad but I over cut the area around the safety detent and made the pocket way too wide. That one is junk now. The second one was much better and usable but not to my standards. I actually went ahead and built it out and put it on the upper. It will probably work just fine but I did order another 80% lower that I'll machine with the spec's that I've established based on my mistakes.

Even as bad as I've deemed the prints to be, they did get me started and after a few mistakes and corrections to the prints I'm now ready to mill my next one to exact measurements. I feel like I just lit up a couple of hundred dollar bills but I gained invaluable information that just doesn't seem to be readily available any other way.

Oh, and yes, I did order the Jig from 80 percent arms that you can use with a router but it is backordered 4 weeks. This is the 4th week so maybe it'll ship soon. I have the router they prefer for use with it but will probably use the mill since it's going to be a lot less of a mess to clean up when I'm done.