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

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