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I’ve always wanted a mill (who doesn’t!) but had no plans of actually getting one until this popped up on Craigslist… Owner was moving, just wanted it gone, priced little more than scrap value. It was in storage so no way to hear it run… called and there was a showing that night, figured why the hell not.  Were a few interested buyers - business types looking for a beater mill. Owner had used this at his first job to build parts for one of the Apollo missions, when the shop closed he bought it and opened up his own machine shop, that closed and been in storage doing odd jobs ever since. It’s in physically rough shape but mechanically it checked out – biggest concern for me was the quill since those bearings are SUPER expensive. No runout even with it fully extended and a dial indicator barely registered with all my weight against an end mill. The Y axis has some play and ways are definitely worn but eehhh…. Figured it’d be better than my current mill (I don’t have a mill) and told the owner I’d take it! MOVING DAY Youtube helped bigly figuring out how to get this home. A forklift and flatbed is the preferred method... A rented engine hoist and a Subaru makes an OK stand in.   Tiny bits into ziplocks and loaded everything that’d fit into the back of the car. Two trips got everything save for the pedestal and knee home.  Not many pictures since I was rushing to finish but you get the idea. Owner was nice enough to help me get the base home in a UHAUL. First time it’s seen the sun in a few decades!  So easy to move with a hoist…  Turret back on before returning the crane and there she sits!  Now that it was in the garage, I spent the next few days getting the parts sorted and figuring out what the hell I actually bought. This is the older “Series 1” “J-Type” mill with drill press style belt and pulley drive, since I need to run this off a VFD not having to deal with the newer J2 vari-speed belt and cone pulley mess is preferable! Another neat thing, ‘57 was the first year they made Bridgeports with the dovetail style ram, so this came from the factory still using the old style casting for the base with the 4 bolts holding on the turret.
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Jul 19, 2017 17:55
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| # ? Apr 25, 2024 14:31 |
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I decided to tackle the head first – These mills are mostly lumps of cast iron so not much to ‘fix’ unless you get into scraping etc... The head makes it all happen; determining if those guts are good is a great way to tell if you bought a machine or someone else’s scrap. The Series 1 head breaks down into 4 self-contained parts:  This is a good thing to know if you need to move one, they are loving heavy. I learned this after  Motor runs fine, no surprises in the belt housing… back gear housing had damage from someone not understanding how C-clips work… one bad bearing and shittly repaired casting. What the hell.  All was forgiven when getting to the quill assembly and what appear to be new spindle bearings, either way they are in great shape! All that remains…  I’m not one for having pretty machines, but the factory VISTA GREEN paint and whatever passed for Bondo in the mid 50’s is just falling off… Wire brush and bucket of naptha later we’re down to clean metal!  Lower quill scale bracket was cracked: drilled, tapped, screwed, JBweld...  Bondo sucks   I normally  seeing people Bondo and smooth machine tools but this is how it came from the factory so think I’m justified…. Be kinda dumb to do all this work for a machine that looks worse than it did new. Overall, head was in decent shape! The cracked backgear clip housing is… how the gently caress do you even manage that… annoying, but will not affect accuracy. All the important parts are there, no broken gears or wear atypical for a machine old enough to retire. While the head was drying, started cleaning up the shiny bits   That's where it sits! hoping to have the head done and primed this week... Despite the size, this has been the least complex machine tackled to date - there's not much to it, just all the parts are massive. Dirty Beluga fucked around with this message at 18:19 on Jul 19, 2017 |
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Jul 19, 2017 17:57
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Zima still exists?!
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Jul 19, 2017 18:45
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hell yeah dude, it's back!
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Jul 19, 2017 19:15
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drat, that quill bracket looks ugly. Any way to actually repair with without re-casting that whole mass? Also, not knowing anything about machining, what the hell do you use that for?
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Jul 20, 2017 18:47
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Mister Dog posted:drat, that quill bracket looks ugly. Any way to actually repair with without re-casting that whole mass? Also, not knowing anything about machining, what the hell do you use that for? Sadly not, welding cast iron is tricky and unless ya are REALLY good will warp the casting the good news is the bottom quill bracket doesn't need to be exact, i'll likely have to run a grinder thru there and clean things up before reinstalling the reversing lever but it should be ok. I've ground down the screws and filled with Bondo, if all goes to plan shouldn't be able to tell!As for use... I make custom parts for the reef aquarium hobby and general messing around. Last winter I rebuilt a South Bend 9 lathe, this seemed like a nice challenge 
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Jul 20, 2017 18:58
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That's awesome, how much do you have to worry about accuracy due to overall wear, especially in the beds? I was thinking of buying a Deckel but without much knowledge of these things I might be safer with a new Chinese Bridgeport clone. In the land of Aus where I'm from no one sells a mill cheaply.
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Jul 26, 2017 13:09
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Mudfly posted:That's awesome, how much do you have to worry about accuracy due to overall wear, especially in the beds? Accuracy suffers on older mills, even if perfectly maintained (lol) time and friction take their toll... if your goal is to make perfect parts with 100thou accuracy, an older mill isn't going to be a good fit... If you put the time and money into a 50 year old mill it CAN be just as good as new, it rarely makes sense to do so. Depending on how stuff is worn it could be an easy fix. Most machines with dovetail ways have gibs - flat (or tapered in the case of BP's and their clones) pieces of metal that let you compensate for wear:  you can adjust or replace them to compensate for wear in the machine surfaces. This works to a point, eventually you run out of gib or the ways get worn unevenly and they start jamming at the high spots. Most machines get worn towards the center of the travel since that's where a majority of work takes place - you end up with a dip in the center and high spots at either end. To restore accuracy you need to get into scraping! Depending on who you talk to, scraping is either a ~lost art~ that can only be done by grizzled old men costing several thousand dollars a minute or something you can learn from Youtube. Basically you find a flat reference surface, smear some ink on it, smoosh it against your ways and slowly, by hand, scrape all the high spots until you have X contact points per square inch. unscraped part - the blue is the high spots:  finished scrape job:  Unlike lathes, backlash on the leadscrews of a mill isn't the end of the world, Most mills are equipped with digital readouts (DRO's) with sensors mounted to the table. They will show you true movement and compensate for anything weird going on with the handles. You rarely use the dial faces when operating a mill with a DRO so you dont care if their motion is reflected accurately. This does become a problem if you were to do a CNC conversion but that's a whole different story. This mill has some serious wear in the Y axis and some slop in the table. it will need to be scraped and new gibs installed.... I'm still on the fence if it's worth it - I don't have the need to make super accurate parts and often cut really light material (acrylic) so it should be fine. I do want to learn scraping down the road so who knows! It does not pay to hire someone as the cost would be WAY more than I can just buy a new import mill. Mudfly posted:I was thinking of buying a Deckel but without much knowledge of these things I might be safer with a new Chinese Bridgeport clone. In the land of Aus where I'm from no one sells a mill cheaply. If you can get a Deckel those are srs quality machines. In good shape they'd fetch a ton here in the US.... it will be a project just like any used machine but parts are out there. Having a used parts ecosystem for machines is HUGE - one of the reasons I went with a Bridgeport - I can amazon prime poo poo for this thing and ebay is overflowing with stuff. If restoring isn't your idea of fun and you want to start making chips (or actually need the machine for making money) an import would be the way to go.
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Jul 26, 2017 16:30
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Oh neat. This thread is most definitely something I'm interested in. And I just watched This Old Tony's youtube videos on scraping the ways of his surface grinder. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjwKQCiDgBQ Please keep posting so I can live vicariously through your restoration project.
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Jul 31, 2017 20:31
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Out of curiosity, just how TALL is a bridgeport? Im keen to get a lathe and a mill for my workshop, but only have about 2300mm of clearance so...
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Aug 5, 2017 08:00
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Quick measurement, like around 2240mm, so euhhhh...... tight fit? Have fun? But there are some that are taller/shorter. So I guess you just gotta have a look and see what size they are.
Rotten Cookies fucked around with this message at 14:47 on Aug 7, 2017 |
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Aug 7, 2017 14:44
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| # ? Apr 25, 2024 14:31 |
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Ferremit posted:Out of curiosity, just how TALL is a bridgeport? Im keen to get a lathe and a mill for my workshop, but only have about 2300mm of clearance so... the series 1 is approx 78" tall - you'll want a couple more inches clearance on that to tilt the head / generally not be frustrating. 2300mm is around 7.5ft so just shy of normal ceiling height - should be fine Not a lot of progress on the mill lately, I'm at a point were I need to finish my compressor project before continuing... Got the head masked and primed!  This primer really needs to be sprayed, got an even coat with my tiny artist airbrush but took forever and felt like a retard.... Once the compressor is done I'll get out the HVLP and finish up.
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Aug 7, 2017 17:16
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