boltontool.com

I purchased this brake to bend 12 gage sheet steel to form bodies for a door transporter that I invented. I had trouble finding a machine that was compact but strong enough to handle the heavy steel. Bolton Tool came through shining! This brake is compact, affordable and stands up to th task. Thanks Bolton!

Well made and substantial product. Not cheap junk. VERY satisfied with product.

I like the vice very much but the two orientation tabs that are bolted to the bottom are too thick to be used on my BF20VL. Customer service is aware of this issue and I hope they come up with a solution soon. I hope someone changes the specifications on the BF20VL to reflect the fact that the table T slots are undersized. They are not 1/2 inch wide.

I received my new BT800 about ten days ago. It took me a couple of days to mount the machine on its stand because of the weight. That is just a fact. As I have cleaned the equipment and tested each function, I realized the instruction booklet could be far better written. For example, there is no specific information about adjusting the gibs bar tension even though this is very important. Also the maintenance function of "changing the head stock oil" does not give any instructions about how to do that. I recognize that this is a low cost machine but because of that, the target customer would usually be hobby machinists who may not be wholly proficient with an almost full size lathe/mill. The instructions should therefore be extra complete. (Videos would also work.) The lathe accuracy is good. I am still not sure of the mill head rigidity yet but one improvement is the z-axis micro control. The gear ratio is too coarse such that movement of say 0.002 inch will be overshot. Maybe you could offer another gear set to fix that.

Machine arrived very well packaged and without visible damage. Runs smoothly and with little vibration. 2 areas of concern though. The stand isn't rigid enough and requires additional reinforcement. The biggest issue however is the half nut engagement on the cross slide. It will not engage without hard force and jiggling of the handle. Am asking for assistance with this issue from Bolton. Overall happy with machine if the half nut issue can be adjusted.