While keeping my eyes open for a mill, I came across a someone who is
selling two milling machines. A large milling machine which is a W.H.
Nichols And Sons, Horizontal milling machine #5-1-2078 which he says
may weigh about 1000lbs.($500.00)

The other one is smaller, older looking Whitney horizontal #6 milling
machine, which runs on 110 volts and weighs about 500lbs.($300.00).

I don't even have a lathe yet, but since so many of my initial projects
invovle parts that have 90 degreee angles as opposed to curves, I
figured I'd need a mill more than a lathe at this time.

Anyway, since space is at a premium even the small machine is too big,
and I was actually looking for something more compact, like a
mini-mill, but thought I'd do some investigating and was wondering if
anyone had a Whitney #6 horizontal mill. I haven't found any pics of it
on the interent and have no idea what the specs are.

There is one thread here on it, but not much in the way of details.

Any info would be appreciated

Thanks a lot.

Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York

Darren;
A few of us have the Nichols mill, its not a bad machine, but you need 3
ph or a converter to run the stock motor. I'm not sure which model you are
looking at, but the standard Nichols hand mill weighs 1175lbs, most of which
is the 550lb base. see my web site, westcanalcrafts.com , for pictures of
the disassembled mill.
gary


wrote in message
oups.com...
While keeping my eyes open for a mill, I came across a someone who is
selling two milling machines. A large milling machine which is a W.H.
Nichols And Sons, Horizontal milling machine #5-1-2078 which he says
may weigh about 1000lbs.($500.00)

The other one is smaller, older looking Whitney horizontal #6 milling
machine, which runs on 110 volts and weighs about 500lbs.($300.00).

I don't even have a lathe yet, but since so many of my initial projects
invovle parts that have 90 degreee angles as opposed to curves, I
figured I'd need a mill more than a lathe at this time.

Anyway, since space is at a premium even the small machine is too big,
and I was actually looking for something more compact, like a
mini-mill, but thought I'd do some investigating and was wondering if
anyone had a Whitney #6 horizontal mill. I haven't found any pics of it
on the interent and have no idea what the specs are.

There is one thread here on it, but not much in the way of details.

Any info would be appreciated

Thanks a lot.

Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York

According to :
While keeping my eyes open for a mill, I came across a someone who is
selling two milling machines. A large milling machine which is a W.H.
Nichols And Sons, Horizontal milling machine #5-1-2078 which he says
may weigh about 1000lbs.($500.00)

About 1100 pounds for mine.

The other one is smaller, older looking Whitney horizontal #6 milling
machine, which runs on 110 volts and weighs about 500lbs.($300.00).

Hmm ... "The Whitney" was the predecessor of the Nichols. My
Nichols is old enough to still have the "The Whitney" name in the base
casting.

Note that mine is the 1100 pound version. I've never seen the
500 pound version.

I don't even have a lathe yet, but since so many of my initial projects
invovle parts that have 90 degreee angles as opposed to curves, I
figured I'd need a mill more than a lathe at this time.

That makes sense.

Anyway, since space is at a premium even the small machine is too big,
and I was actually looking for something more compact, like a
mini-mill, but thought I'd do some investigating and was wondering if
anyone had a Whitney #6 horizontal mill. I haven't found any pics of it
on the interent and have no idea what the specs are.

No idea about the smaller Whitney -- but I strongly doubt that
you could get it upstairs if my larger one is a good example.

The larger Nichols has available a vertical head. I had to
adapt my older machine to accept it, but others are more likely to have
the adaptor ring already in place.

But -- if you really want to see what they made, download the
PDF file of the manual for the machine from my web site:

http://www2.d-and-d.com/NICHOLS-mill/MANUAL/index.html

The file is large -- 33 MB, so you are better off downloading it once,
saving it, and sending it to a printer from your computer.

And to see some information about my machine, and what I have
done to/with it, back up one level to:

http://www2.d-and-d.com/NICHOLS-mill/index.html

There is one thread here on it, but not much in the way of details.
^^^^
Where is "here"? This newsgroup? Currently, or from the Google
archives? We've discussed the Nichols mills many times here, as I have
taken part in the discussions.

I don't think that you can get it up your stairs. Those things
have *heavy* castings -- which makes them *good* machines. And I don't
think that I would want to be taking them apart on the ground floor and
risking having parts vanish as you are carrying other parts up the
stairs. Do you have a secure place where you can take things apart?

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 ---

wrote:

While keeping my eyes open for a mill, I came across a someone who is
selling two milling machines. A large milling machine which is a W.H.
Nichols And Sons, Horizontal milling machine #5-1-2078 which he says
may weigh about 1000lbs.($500.00)

The other one is smaller, older looking Whitney horizontal #6 milling
machine, which runs on 110 volts and weighs about 500lbs.($300.00).

I don't even have a lathe yet, but since so many of my initial projects
invovle parts that have 90 degreee angles as opposed to curves, I
figured I'd need a mill more than a lathe at this time.

Anyway, since space is at a premium even the small machine is too big,
and I was actually looking for something more compact, like a
mini-mill, but thought I'd do some investigating and was wondering if
anyone had a Whitney #6 horizontal mill. I haven't found any pics of it
on the interent and have no idea what the specs are.

There is one thread here on it, but not much in the way of details.

Any info would be appreciated

Thanks a lot.

Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York

I sent you a pic of a Whitney, but have yet to ascertain
whether your address kosher. If the pic resembles yours,
I do have the specs of the machine.

Tom
is

Gary Owens wrote:
Darren;
A few of us have the Nichols mill, its not a bad machine, but you need 3
ph or a converter to run the stock motor. I'm not sure which model you are
looking at, but the standard Nichols hand mill weighs 1175lbs, most of which
is the 550lb base. see my web site, westcanalcrafts.com , for pictures of
the disassembled mill.
gary


Anything like the Nichols was not even a possibility to consider. It's
power needs weight and size are definitely too much for me at this
time.

Have you finished it?

Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York.

DoN. Nichols wrote:
According to :
While keeping my eyes open for a mill, I came across a someone who is
selling two milling machines. A large milling machine which is a W.H.
Nichols And Sons, Horizontal milling machine #5-1-2078 which he says
may weigh about 1000lbs.($500.00)

About 1100 pounds for mine.

The other one is smaller, older looking Whitney horizontal #6 milling
machine, which runs on 110 volts and weighs about 500lbs.($300.00).

Hmm ... "The Whitney" was the predecessor of the Nichols. My
Nichols is old enough to still have the "The Whitney" name in the base
casting.

Note that mine is the 1100 pound version. I've never seen the
500 pound version.

I'll see if the seller can send me some pics.

-snip-

Anyway, since space is at a premium even the small machine is too big,
and I was actually looking for something more compact, like a
mini-mill, but thought I'd do some investigating and was wondering if
anyone had a Whitney #6 horizontal mill. I haven't found any pics of it
on the interent and have no idea what the specs are.

No idea about the smaller Whitney -- but I strongly doubt that
you could get it upstairs if my larger one is a good example.

I was beginning to think that also. Narrow stairs and turns aren't
good. I did however get 1/2 dozen full sized coin-operated arcade video
games up the stairs. But the heaviest was only about 300lbs. I did the
lifting and someone up top did the guiding.

-snip-

There is one thread here on it, but not much in the way of details.
^^^^
Where is "here"? This newsgroup? Currently, or from the Google
archives? We've discussed the Nichols mills many times here, as I have
taken part in the discussions.

Google newsgroups. I was actually referring to the Whitney Mill, which
is what I put in the search field.

I don't think that you can get it up your stairs. Those things
have *heavy* castings -- which makes them *good* machines. And I don't
think that I would want to be taking them apart on the ground floor and
risking having parts vanish as you are carrying other parts up the
stairs. Do you have a secure place where you can take things apart?

Yeah, but the door to the storage room would be too small to fit the
machine through. :-)

And renting me one of the four garages underneath me would probably be
going too far.

I'm not going to be working with big parts, but I need enough power to
work with difficult materials(like stainless steel), and "too big"
seems to be a bigger problem than "too expensive"(since I can always
save up). A large mill would make getting a lathe out of the question.

Perhaps I should just concentrate on an "intro" multi-purpose machine
like this one:
(ie:
http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=39743

Unfortunately, it has an MT1 spindle, and the ad and manual don't say
how heavy it is.

Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York.

Tom wrote:
wrote:

While keeping my eyes open for a mill, I came across a someone who is
selling two milling machines. A large milling machine which is a W.H.
Nichols And Sons, Horizontal milling machine #5-1-2078 which he says
may weigh about 1000lbs.($500.00)

The other one is smaller, older looking Whitney horizontal #6 milling
machine, which runs on 110 volts and weighs about 500lbs.($300.00).

I don't even have a lathe yet, but since so many of my initial projects
invovle parts that have 90 degreee angles as opposed to curves, I
figured I'd need a mill more than a lathe at this time.

Anyway, since space is at a premium even the small machine is too big,
and I was actually looking for something more compact, like a
mini-mill, but thought I'd do some investigating and was wondering if
anyone had a Whitney #6 horizontal mill. I haven't found any pics of it
on the interent and have no idea what the specs are.

There is one thread here on it, but not much in the way of details.

Any info would be appreciated

Thanks a lot.

Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York

I sent you a pic of a Whitney, but have yet to ascertain
whether your address kosher. If the pic resembles yours,
I do have the specs of the machine.

That's an old address from a defunct ISP. I'm at: Staten (dot) islander
(at) verizon (dot) net

I don't know what the machine looks like, and hope to get picsfrom the
seller.

From what I'm told here it seems as though it is too big for me, so if
anyone wants the seller info just let me know. He is selling a few
machines(Punch presses, surface grinder, Automatic screw machine,
milling machines, drill presses, tapper, tool and cutter grinder,
ect.). and he is in Rhinebeck.

Darren Harris
Staten Isalnd, New York.

According to :

Gary Owens wrote:
Darren;
A few of us have the Nichols mill, its not a bad machine, but you need 3

Anything like the Nichols was not even a possibility to consider. It's
power needs weight and size are definitely too much for me at this
time.

The power needs are not that great. Mine has a 1HP three-phase
motor, and a VFD does a nice job of driving it, and offering variable
speeds between the belt steps. You will need 240V, which may be
available from an outlet for an electric stove, or a clothes dryer (if
you have the later in your apartment, instead of a laundry room).

It is even possible to sneak the power from two outlets on two
breakers, if you can't get an outlet with 240V in the apartment.

However -- the task of getting one up your narrow stairs would
certainly preclude it.

Note that there is one thing which I have not yet seen mentioned
concerning using tabletop machines in an apartment. Do you have
carpets? If so, you will want to put down something over the carpets to
keep the metal chips from getting to the carpets. Those chips
(especially the stainless steel ones which you are so eager to produce)
will embed themselves in the carpet in such a way that separating them
will be a very slow and painful process.

Put a housing of plastic sheet around the machine, and tape the
bottom edges down, to keep the chips on the tabletop until you can
remove them with a shop vac.

And a nice hardwood floor will also not do well with chips
getting underfoot. Probably something cheap, like linoleum, would be
the best flooring.

Enjoy,
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 ---

On Sat, 14 Jan 2006 04:15:40 +0000, (DoN.
Nichols) wrote:
According to :

Anything like the Nichols was not even a possibility to consider. It's
power needs weight and size are definitely too much for me at this
time.

The power needs are not that great. Mine has a 1HP three-phase
motor, and a VFD does a nice job of driving it, and offering variable
speeds between the belt steps. You will need 240V, which may be
available from an outlet for an electric stove, or a clothes dryer (if
you have the later in your apartment, instead of a laundry room).

Much simpler to make a 240V receptacle if there isn't one that you
can borrow now - most apartments that were built as such have
individual power meters and a small sub-panel inside the unit with
your breakers. It is trivial to install a box at the baseboard
directly under the panel and put a 30A or 50A 120/240V 4-wire
receptacle there, and if there are no more open spaces in the panel
you can swap out two adjacent single breakers for a Quad.

When you move, you pull the breaker you added and place two breaker
blanks in the cover holes (or pull the Quad breaker and put back what
was there), and you remove the 240V receptacle and blank off the box
in the wall. Leave the box, cap off the wires inside the wall and
inside the sub-panel with appropriate wire nuts.

You might have to buy some heavy duty SO cord and make a special
long extension cord to get from where the panel (and new outlet) is to
where the lathe is, but that's much more practical than tearing up
someone else's building to get the receptacle in the right room.

Do not try this if your building has Master Metering and the
sub-panel is out in the hall - the rental agreement might have a
clause about excessive use of power that goes along with the 'flat
rate' power charges rolled into the rent. But when power rates went
through the roof 20 years ago every building I know of that still had
master metering switched over to individual unit meters.

It is even possible to sneak the power from two outlets on two
breakers, if you can't get an outlet with 240V in the apartment.

NO! A 240V circuit needs to come from a two-pole breaker with a
handle-tie and common trip, so both sides trip off together. When you
use the two receptacle circuit hotwire dodge, you create a very
hazardous condition when one side trips off - there's still 120V on
all the wiring from the other breaker. Someone opens up the lathe to
find the problem, and they can get bit from the side that's still hot.

-- Bruce --

--
Bruce L. Bergman, Woodland Hills (Los Angeles) CA - Desktop
Electrician for Westend Electric - CA726700
5737 Kanan Rd. #359, Agoura CA 91301 (818) 889-9545
Spamtrapped address: Remove the python and the invalid, and use a net.