Time for a bit of analysis. What did we learn?
Wow! Talk about surprises. VERY different from the Lathe story.
My first big surprise was the obvious elephant in the shop. Over half of our active members have a big Knee mill. 41 out of 71 or 58%. Looked at another way, about half have floor machines and half have bench mills.
20 of 71 (28%) have square column mills - both small and large
16 of 71 (22%) have round column mills.
The other end of the spectrum had other surprises.
Only one member had a combination lathe/mill. Given that several of my friends have combination machines, this was a huge surprise for me. I had expected the waterfront to be split pretty evenly between large knee mills, square column, round column, and combination.
Only two members have bench knee mills. Given how much I love these machines, I was again quite surprised. But maybe I should not be. Bench top Knee mills are not easy to find.
I was not at all surprised to see how many (5 of 71) didn't have a mill at all. I've always believed a machinist should get a lathe first and then a mill. It looks like our membership thinks so too.
Only 6 members have CNC. I expected WWWAAAYY more CNC.
Oddly, all three members with x-y tables on their drill press also have regular mills too.
Looking at it from the other end, there are 98 mills spread across 66 members. an average of 1.5 mills per member having a mill.
All-in-all, another very informative survey even with all the surprises.
Obviously not perfect again, but I'm still happy we did it.
A HUGE Thank you to everyone who contributed.