As I mentioned some time in the past, I wound up with an Abene miller.
The shop finally released it to me, and since I couldnt get it over
the mountain and home, I put it in a friends machine shop. Last night,
I powered it up and fiddled with it a bit. They promised to "lose"
some tooling in my direction, so I was uable to cut anything with it.

They also said they thought there were some accessories that went with
it, but were getting ready to move, to a new location, and were unable
to find whatever it was, hopefully the over arm
support..Crom..please...

Anyone have a manual for an early Abene? Operation I can figure
out..but something with some maint data would be great.

Mine apparently is a later model VHF-2B, but has a 40 taper spindle.

The original coolant pump appears to be missing and they stuck a sump
pump in the hole in the base casting/Reservior

The have mounted a group of control boxes, mostly the old Squre D two
button /stop/start boxes for feed motor, spindle motor and coolant.
The button for feed motor is not staying in, so needs to be replaced
if I can find one.

The original spindle control mounted just in front of the work light
is gone, nicely covered and a standard drum switch mounted on the side
fo the control casting. A bit unhandy..but usable.
The feed forward/reverse switch is going to fail before long, but is
usable for now.

Looking at the later Abenes with a control box mounted under the
table, I may well fab something similar, as this arraingment is better
than the older way. I have a Larios horizontal mill that has a
similar problem..precluding placing it in a corner because the
controls are in a bad place.

The table feed drum has markings from 15 1/2 down to 1/2

Are those inches per minute?, Centimeters per minute? The feed wheel
dials appear to be in standard, though Ive not put an indicator on it.
It was originally sold by Givens Machinery...as were many imports, so
I would assume its in standard rather than metric reading.

Im really looking forwards to making chps on this, as my Gorton
MasterMill doesnt have a tilting head, or any power feeds.

The .UK site indicates all the abenes have power feed on 3 axis..but I
assume this one only has table travel power feed? I cant figure out
how to engage anything else, if there is, as there are not enough
controls.

Lead screw for right and left has about .04 backlash, and in and out
has about .03, which isnt surprising considering its age and use in a
production shop. Something I can live with as a quick inspection
didnt show any split nuts etc to allow some adjustment of backlash? Is
there any?

Bullseye sightglass on spindle head is broken, so if filled above base
of sightglass hole, will leak out. Fortunately this is about at the
low end of oil level, so its not terribly important at this moment.

Where can I get a new sightglass, when I get the hole dimensions?
Obviously it doesnt need to be Abene OEM equipment..

Anyone know if Abene still supports this machine?

Any hints etc would be greatly appreciated

Gunner

Political Correctness is a doctrine fostered by a delusional,
illogical liberal minority, and rabidly promoted by an
unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the
proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.

Gunner Asch wrote:

Any hints etc would be greatly appreciated

http://www.practicalmachinist.com/vb...splay.php?f=14



--

John R. Carroll
www.machiningsolution.com

On Sat, 26 Apr 2008 14:30:35 -0700, Gunner Asch
wrote:


Anyone have a manual for an early Abene? Operation I can figure
out..but something with some maint data would be great.

Mine apparently is a later model VHF-2B, but has a 40 taper spindle.

Mine's a mid model VHF-3 so not much help here

The original coolant pump appears to be missing and they stuck a sump
pump in the hole in the base casting/Reservior

So did mine but I finally did away with it and use a separate pump
reservoir. The base is just to hard to clean out when the coolant goes
bad.


The original spindle control mounted just in front of the work light
is gone, nicely covered and a standard drum switch mounted on the side
fo the control casting. A bit unhandy..but usable.
The feed forward/reverse switch is going to fail before long, but is
usable for now.

Mine has the master switch on the bottom back of the machine. .

Looking at the later Abenes with a control box mounted under the
table, I may well fab something similar, as this arraingment is better
than the older way. I have a Larios horizontal mill that has a
similar problem..precluding placing it in a corner because the
controls are in a bad place.

It works pretty well.

The table feed drum has markings from 15 1/2 down to 1/2

Are those inches per minute?, Centimeters per minute? The feed wheel
dials appear to be in standard, though Ive not put an indicator on it.
It was originally sold by Givens Machinery...as were many imports, so
I would assume its in standard rather than metric reading.

According to the lathes.uk site those had a 1/4" to 15" per minute
feed rates. Slower than mine which is 1" minimum on everything but the
up and down which is 5/8".


The .UK site indicates all the abenes have power feed on 3 axis..but I
assume this one only has table travel power feed? I cant figure out
how to engage anything else, if there is, as there are not enough
controls.

Looking at the picture on the uk site doesn't show any of the
features needed for anything but table feed. I do like the knee lock
better than mine.

Lead screw for right and left has about .04 backlash, and in and out
has about .03, which isnt surprising considering its age and use in a
production shop. Something I can live with as a quick inspection
didnt show any split nuts etc to allow some adjustment of backlash? Is
there any?

Mine has a adjustable nut for back lash.

Gunner Asch wrote:

Bullseye sightglass on spindle head is broken, so if filled above base
of sightglass hole, will leak out. Fortunately this is about at the
low end of oil level, so its not terribly important at this moment.

Where can I get a new sightglass, when I get the hole dimensions?
Obviously it doesnt need to be Abene OEM equipment..

I replaced all the sight glasses on my Sheldon lathe with units
from McMaster-Carr. They had a couple different styles and a
bunch of sizes, but I think they were all inch. You might have
to make an adaptor ring if the hole is metric.

Jon

"Gunner Asch" wrote in message
...
As I mentioned some time in the past, I wound up with an Abene miller.
The shop finally released it to me, and since I couldnt get it over
the mountain and home, I put it in a friends machine shop. Last night,
I powered it up and fiddled with it a bit. They promised to "lose"
some tooling in my direction, so I was uable to cut anything with it.


you might start by contacting Rolf Nielsen at the Abene company - he is
knowlegable and very helpful - I got my manual from him - I think it was 40
euros? might have been a bit more. Also there is a seller on e-bay who was
the US distributor who is cleaning out old inventory of Abene stuff.

You will want to change the oil and probably replace the seals. the
controls operate a massive set of relays that (on mine) are located inside
the base. I run mine on a static inverter (one cap, one relay) that I fit
inside the box in the back. My manual won't help you, I have the next size
up.


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