I sure hope there's no pedalling necessary...
What would be the main things to look at when judging the condition of a
mill??
The table is in pretty good condition apparetly, so what else would I look
for??

Cheers,

George Ricketts

"Ron Thompson" wrote in message
.. .
I've never heard of a chain drive mill. Do you have to pedal it?
If it is in any kind of shape at all, it should be worth that.

--

Ron Thompson
On the Beautiful Mississippi Gulf Coast
USA

http://www.plansandprojects.com

Where did everyone go? Oh, yeah.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/castinghobby/
Y'all come, ya hear?
*******
"George Ricketts" wrote in message
news
"George Ricketts" wrote in message
...
Hi everyone,

I'm looking at buying my first milling machine. Really as more of a
hobby
than anything - I just love working with metal



Bugger, pressed send accidentally.
Anyway, I've come across a "Pools horizontal milling machine" locally,
advertised at $NZ300 (~$US170).
The table apparently is 14" long x 3.75" wide and has a vertical
traverse
of
7.50". It's been converted from belt to chain drive.

I don't know anything about them, and was hoping one of you may have
heard
of them before.
To me it sounds pretty cheap, but I was hoping to get some opinions from
people that would actually know....

Anything in particular to look out for when I go take a look at it?

Cheers for any help,

George

"DoN. Nichols" wrote in message
...
In article ,
George Ricketts wrote:
I sure hope there's no pedalling necessary...
What would be the main things to look at when judging the condition of a
mill??

I don't know the brand, so I'll just have to put in general
things about horizontal mills.

The table is in pretty good condition apparetly, so what else would I
look
for??

Backlash in the feed screws (some is normal, but if you can turn
a half-turn between forward and reverse feeding without moving the
table, you'll need to replace the leadscrew and the nut on that axis.

Slop in the gibs, allowing the table to rotate a bit while
trying to reverse direction of travel.

Play in the spindle bearings -- leads to chatter and ugly work.

What is the taper in the spindle? Some types are harder to find
than others. My Nichols mill has a 40-taper spindle nose. This is a
good solid taper. Some have Morse tapers, some B&S, some (mostly
vertical mills) have R8 collets, and some use very hard to find tapers.

Motor style. Most are three-phase motors, in which case you
will either need to replace the motor, make a rotary converter, or get a
VFD. Single phase makes it harder to reverse the spindle quickly.

Do you have an arbor with it, with all the spacers to fill it
up? Do you have *multiple* arbors with different sizes? 1" is probably
the most useful, but 7/8" and others can be needed to fit certain
milling cutters.

Is the support arm present? It (usually) comes over the arbor,
then comes down and serves as a bearing mount for the far end of the
arbor, to minimize flex and chatter.

Can you *move* it? My Nichols weighs about 1100 pounds.

What kind of feed on the table? Most have leadscrews, but some
(like the Nichols) are so-called "production" hand mills, and are fed by
a lever. This is nice for repeat operations, feeding between stops, and
for certain other operations. My Nichols has both leadscrew and lever
feed. Some have lever only. Another version of the Nichols has
compressed air feed for automatic operation.

A horizontal mill will be more rigid than the typical vertical
mill of the same size, but more awkward for some operations, and a lot
better for others.

If it has power feed -- do all the feed speeds work? Do they
make a lot of strange noises? Internal gears may be hard to find
replacements for.

I'm sure that others will toss in lots of other things,
including things which I have forgotten.

Good Luck,
DoN.
--
Email: | Voice (all times): (703) 938-4564
(too) near Washington D.C. | http://www.d-and-d.com/dnichols/DoN.html
--- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---


Cheers for that Don - it really helps a lot

I should probably have said this in the original message, but the the
machine comes with a single arbor (not sure what diameter) and a single new
3/8 mill and spacers with which to position it. From this I assume it also
comes with the overarm, else the arbor would be kinda useless...
Also, the motor is a single phase, which I thought would be pretty standard
on such a small mill?

Now this may be showing my lack of knowledge, but if there was a fair amount
of lateral play in the gibs, aren't they usually adjustable? Or is this only
the case with certain machines?

Last question(s) - What is the typical way to mount end mills in a
horizontal? Just with a set of collets as in a vertical? How difficult would
it be to make up a set of collets with a mini-lathe if the taper was a
strange one? The trickiest part I can foresee would be the contraction
slits....dremel cutoff wheel perhaps??

Thanks again for the help,

George

On 29 Jul 2003 21:00:29 -0400, (DoN. Nichols)
wrote:


Is the support arm present? It (usually) comes over the arbor,
then comes down and serves as a bearing mount for the far end of the
arbor, to minimize flex and chatter.

Can you *move* it? My Nichols weighs about 1100 pounds.

What kind of feed on the table? Most have leadscrews, but some
(like the Nichols) are so-called "production" hand mills, and are fed by
a lever. This is nice for repeat operations, feeding between stops, and
for certain other operations. My Nichols has both leadscrew and lever
feed. Some have lever only. Another version of the Nichols has
compressed air feed for automatic operation.

I have a customer with one of these (air over oil) Nichols for sale, in
VERY nice condition, for $550. VERY nice condition.

About a 6x 24" table, with 1" arbor

Located in Van Nuys, California.
Email me for name/phone/contact

Did I say it was in VERY nice condition?

Gunner

"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty
is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote!"
-- Ben Franklin

In article ,
George Ricketts wrote:

"DoN. Nichols" wrote in message
...
In article ,
George Ricketts wrote:
I sure hope there's no pedalling necessary...
What would be the main things to look at when judging the condition of a
mill??

I don't know the brand, so I'll just have to put in general
things about horizontal mills.

Cheers for that Don - it really helps a lot

I'm glad.

I should probably have said this in the original message, but the the
machine comes with a single arbor (not sure what diameter) and a single new
3/8 mill and spacers with which to position it. From this I assume it also
comes with the overarm, else the arbor would be kinda useless...
Also, the motor is a single phase, which I thought would be pretty standard
on such a small mill?

Well ... my Nichols, which has fairly small table and travel
(10" on the X axis, IIRC) has a 1HP three-phase motor. I'm not sure how
much smaller your prospective mill is.

Now this may be showing my lack of knowledge, but if there was a fair amount
of lateral play in the gibs, aren't they usually adjustable? Or is this only
the case with certain machines?

1) If there is a lot of wear, some of it may be concentrated in
a relatively small percentage of travel (especially if it was
used in production making the same part over and over for most
of its life). This would mean that if you tighten the gibs to
remove the slop in that area, they will bind in other areas.

2) The adjustment on the gibs on the Nichols mill involves
unbolting one side of the dovetail, and grinding on its mounting
surface to move it closer to the main casting and thus narrow
the dovetail width, thus tightening the gibs. If it is this
sort, you will need a reasonable size of surface grinder to do
this.

Last question(s) - What is the typical way to mount end mills in a
horizontal? Just with a set of collets as in a vertical? How difficult would
it be to make up a set of collets with a mini-lathe if the taper was a
strange one? The trickiest part I can foresee would be the contraction
slits....dremel cutoff wheel perhaps??

Well ... part of this depends on the spindle taper. Some are
designed to accept R8 taper collets directly. Others (like my Nichols
again) a solid taper (NTMB 40). Still others have Morse taper, or even
B&S or Jarno, or proprietary tapers. The NTMB tapers start with a 30 (I
think), which happens to be what is in the quick-change spindle for the
Bridgeport CNC that I have. And there are adaptor cones to allow you to
use 30-taper tooling in a 40-taper spindle, which I have found
convenient.

With Morse taper (or B&S with greater difficulty) you can find
collets for end mills.

With R8 -- it has the collets fit the spindle right away.

With NTMB 40, you have the choice of a collet holder of several
flavors, or end-mill holders. (I prefer the end-mill holders, as they
are better at keeping a spiral-flute endmill from being sucked out of
the collet and into the workpiece, removing more metal than you
intended. (These are available in Morse taper, perhaps in B&S, and
certainly in R8 taper as well.)

Now -- you *could* make your own collets, with the problem that
you are probably not in a position to harden them and then grind to
final dimensions, so they will wear faster.

The horizontal mill, with a slitting saw, would be the tool of
choice for cutting the slots to allow contraction.

However, I would suggest that you buy (if you can find it), or
make an arbor to act as a closer for some commercially available collets.
One of the double-angle size, in particular the ER series, which cover a
wider range than the R8 collets do, in case you have to deal with a
metric shank diameter.

I've found some at Cabin Fever, and others on eBay. (First, you
need to know the taper of your spindle, of course.)

I hope that this helps,
DoN.
--
Email: | Voice (all times): (703) 938-4564
(too) near Washington D.C. | http://www.d-and-d.com/dnichols/DoN.html
--- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---

In article , says...

Well ... part of this depends on the spindle taper. Some are
designed to accept R8 taper collets directly. Others (like my Nichols
again) a solid taper (NTMB 40). Still others have Morse taper, or even
B&S or Jarno, or proprietary tapers. The NTMB tapers start with a 30 (I
think), which happens to be what is in the quick-change spindle for the
Bridgeport CNC that I have. And there are adaptor cones to allow you to
use 30-taper tooling in a 40-taper spindle, which I have found
convenient.

And don't forget the Hardinge horizontals, most of which
were shipped with spindles that accept a 5C collet directly.
So finding a collet for those requires nothing more than
a short walk over to the lathe bench.

Granted that collets are not the best way to hold end mills
for heavy cuts. But hey, if I want to shift a lot of stock
in a hurry, I don't use an end mill. For that the arbor
goes in the spindle and I use a plain milling cutter.

Jim

==================================================
please reply to:
JRR(zero) at yktvmv (dot) vnet (dot) ibm (dot) com
==================================================

Well ... my Nichols, which has fairly small table and travel
(10" on the X axis, IIRC) has a 1HP three-phase motor. I'm not sure how
much smaller your prospective mill is.

I always thought your Nichols was just an older version of mine, but maybe
it is smaller.
My table is 30" X 8½" and the travel is 17½" X 6"
I knew mine had 3 T slots where yours only the center slot was a T.
--

Ron Thompson
On the Beautiful Mississippi Gulf Coast
USA

http://www.plansandprojects.com

Where did everyone go? Oh, yeah.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/castinghobby/
Y'all come, ya hear?
*******

DoN. Nichols wrote:
In article ,
George Ricketts wrote:
I sure hope there's no pedalling necessary...
What would be the main things to look at when judging the condition
of a mill??

I don't know the brand, so I'll just have to put in general
things about horizontal mills.

The table is in pretty good condition apparetly, so what else would
I look for??

Backlash in the feed screws (some is normal, but if you can turn
a half-turn between forward and reverse feeding without moving the
table, you'll need to replace the leadscrew and the nut on that axis.

Slop in the gibs, allowing the table to rotate a bit while
trying to reverse direction of travel.

Play in the spindle bearings -- leads to chatter and ugly work.

What is the taper in the spindle? Some types are harder to find
than others. My Nichols mill has a 40-taper spindle nose. This is a
good solid taper. Some have Morse tapers, some B&S, some (mostly
vertical mills) have R8 collets, and some use very hard to find
tapers.

Motor style. Most are three-phase motors, in which case you
will either need to replace the motor, make a rotary converter, or
get a VFD. Single phase makes it harder to reverse the spindle
quickly.

Do you have an arbor with it, with all the spacers to fill it
up? Do you have *multiple* arbors with different sizes? 1" is
probably the most useful, but 7/8" and others can be needed to fit
certain milling cutters.

Is the support arm present? It (usually) comes over the arbor,
then comes down and serves as a bearing mount for the far end of the
arbor, to minimize flex and chatter.

Can you *move* it? My Nichols weighs about 1100 pounds.

What kind of feed on the table? Most have leadscrews, but some
(like the Nichols) are so-called "production" hand mills, and are fed
by a lever. This is nice for repeat operations, feeding between
stops, and for certain other operations. My Nichols has both
leadscrew and lever feed. Some have lever only. Another version of
the Nichols has compressed air feed for automatic operation.

A horizontal mill will be more rigid than the typical vertical
mill of the same size, but more awkward for some operations, and a lot
better for others.

If it has power feed -- do all the feed speeds work? Do they
make a lot of strange noises? Internal gears may be hard to find
replacements for.

I'm sure that others will toss in lots of other things,
including things which I have forgotten.

Good Luck,
DoN.

I have a book (1915) that shows the Whitney Hand Miller, the machine that
W.H. Nichols bought the rights to, as an overhead belt driven machine. It is
remarkably similar to the 1950's Nichols Hand Miller. Finally got a correct
Nichols Arbor, BTW, and would like to recommend Howard at Mal Machinery in
Bristol, CT, as a good guy to do business with.