Wells Index, The Beginning

Index Machine and Tool was founded in 1938 almost 80 years ago.  The company has a long history of producing the most robust precision machines in the industry.  The company's first became successful because of its compact heavy duty design.

Wells Index, Our History

The company initially supplied most of its production to the US War Department who supplied multiple machines to support England before the US entered WWII.

Over the years Wells-Index has supplied numerous machines to the US military supplying all 5 branches.  While in the past mills were being shipped to Europe for the war effort, in the present we still support our troops with machines being shipped to Iraq and Afghanistan.  Our mills are on military ships, amphibious vehicles, mobile units, and of course in maintenance shops.

Wells Index, The Big Difference

Well-Index mills have a completely different milling head design than any other milling machine in the world.  Most heads are based on a Bridgeport design and have been cloned by Taiwanese and Chinese manufacturers.  The Wells-Index milling head is a much more robust and durable design for heavy cutting with most components such as the spindle diameter, bearings, gears, and splines being 40% to 100% larger than its competitors.  The bullet proof milling heads were developed from its long history of working in battle field conditions, production machine shops, and technical schools where students often subdue machines to the wrong cutting speeds and depths.

While most competitors were focusing on selling volumes by designing machines lighter and cheaper.  Wells-Index focused on making its machines more robust to handle more powerful spindle motors to handle the transition to CNC applications.  Wells-Index was one of the pioneers in CNC development and even engineered and designed its own circuit boards.

Wells Index, Today

Today Wells-Index is the only manual or CNC knee mill made in the USA.  We produce our mills in Muskegon, Michigan and our castings are poured in the USA as they have been for almost 80 year!

For anyone looking for a robust heavy duty manual or CNC milling machine,  we guarantee Wells-Index will offer the best machine and options available on the market.