On Thu, 6 Sep 2007 22:20:31 -0700, "William Noble"
wrote:

used 5 hp 3 phase motor should cost you $35 or so. maybe less. The phase
converter I built for my mill (6 hp spindle, 2 hp ways) cost under $10 --
one relay, one capacitor, both surplus. It's one thing to buy new parts for
a production run, but if you are building one of an item for yourself, your
costs can be dramatically lower.

The phase convertor was under $10? Any chance you have a wiring
diagram of some sort you could share with me? If I can do it for
under $100, it'd probably be worthwhile- I just don't want to be into
thousands of dollars for a tool that is most likely almost 100 years
old before I make sure it's working well.

I think you may be right about the used 3-phase motors- they seem to
go cheap, probably because of the power supply issue.

I did get it all moved this morning, though- it looked pretty big in
the shop it was in, but I think it grew when I put it my shop...
Going to be a few weeks or months to clean and relubricate it, before
I even power it up, but the very nice thing is that a lot of the parts
I had thought were rusty are simply very dirty. A quick swipe of a
rag on the ways showed that they are still almost mirror bright
beneith the grime and cosmoline- aside from a dinged up section about
6" long right below the chuck, it should still be a pretty accurate
tool.

My only real concern is the turret- I can't get it to feed with the
hand crank or swivel it, but I haven't found as much as a single
seized bolt on the thing, so I suspect there's a lever or combination
of levers that is preventing me from doing it, rather than any actual
problem. I've got my fingers crossed hoping that there will be no
need for me to remove it to get it up and running- aside from the fact
that it probably weighs 300 pounds, there's a lot of stuff going on
under that turret, with the multiple stops and lead screw. It does
seem as though the knob that engages the lead screw is stuck, so that
may be the only problem.