HBM 29 CM Lath/Mill out of China

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araspitfire
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Joined: Thu Feb 13, 2014 1:26 pm

HBM 29 CM Lath/Mill out of China

Post by araspitfire »

As I've seen so little about this machine on the internet, I thought I'd create a thread of my commissioning journey here.

I just bought this lathe here in The Netherlands.
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HEREis the website of the lathe.

The lathe is apparently made by Weiss Machinery.. Lots of suppliers brand it, including Optimum, Busy Bee Warco, etc.

The ways are apparently hardened, I bought the 290 over the 250 as it was all much beefier, and came with a DRO option.

After a couple months of research, and trying to decide to buy a used non-import, I finally decided to buy a new one. The professional machinists at work seemed to think the company was OK for home purposes. Time will tell.

The journey really started when the delivery driver jacked it up my driveway:
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Some help from Friends (with an engine lift) and a decent trolly, and the 310 kilo beast was getting close to it's home.
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Prepared the bench, used silcone to seal the holes under the pads:
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I found that this was an ideal place to lift it from, though it wants to tip back, so I held it upright with a loop.
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A bit of 2x4 to protect the rope from the casting:
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I've spent a couple days cleaning and test running it. No metal cut yet, but I have taken a couple measurements.
The runout at the Spindle (MT5) was a couple of tenths, suprisingly just as the Chinese check-sheet said.

Right after that I clamped a 12mm ground bar into the chuck and found 7 thou runnout... Measured the outside of the chuck and it was just over a thou... so I swapped the jaws around and found a spot.. (#1 jaw was CCW of the 0 mark, instead of across from it), where the runout was about 1 thou. I think that's pretty good for a cheap chinese chuck.. I'll see what the runout is on other diameters later.

I have low expectations, but so far I'm not feeling dissapointment with the purchase.. other than the below pits, and some interesting placement of the DRO scales. (right over the carriage lock set-screw), it's cleaned up quite nice.

One negative was this pitting found on the compound slide under the tool holder.
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I mentioned this to a salesman at the shop today and he said to send the photo in by email to customer service.. hopefull they will replace it.. it just happens to be the most visible place to have casting pits... I will have a QCTP in a couple weeks and the pits will be exposed.

Another quirk that was a bit 'off' was when I asked how to put oil in the mill head (as there is a sight-glass on the side). The salesman said not to oil as there are plastic gears inside and they will swell.. (not to mention that the oil will likely leak out). I guess the sight glass is there to make people think the mill is greater quality than reality?

This brings me up to the present, I'll check back in a day or two with more of my journey.. Please feel free to comment on my methods (I'm pretty inexperienced at this and want to learn as much as I can).

Al...
1911ly
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Re: HBM 29 CM Lath/Mill out of China

Post by 1911ly »

Looks like it just might turn out to be a nice machine. I look forward to some reports on quality in use. The DRO is going to be great for you. I am in the middle of adding it to my lathe mill. It's a PIA so far. I am just about done. I found some bad spots in my casting on my 3 in 1. And in a fairly obvious place to. Makes you wonder how they make it threw QC. In some areas the work is amazing.

Have fun with the new toy. Please post how it goes. I am new here and am enjoying all the great info and the help that you all give!
toddalin
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Re: HBM 29 CM Lath/Mill out of China

Post by toddalin »

If the lathe/mill have a power feed feature, manually test the limits of the table before relying on any provided scales. My ShopMaster table can move 11" in the "Y", but on the scale goes 6.5 in one direction (actually off the scale) and 4.5 in the other. The first time I ran the power feed on the lathe, I got just past 4.5" (plenty to spare right???) and snapped the spline shaft. After cutting down and rheeming a shaft from a Smithy, (on the mill portion) I moved the pointer for the scale to the actual center.

A rookie mistake for sure, but a lesson learned. Go over everything before trusting anything on an Asian machine.
araspitfire
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Re: HBM 29 CM Lath/Mill out of China

Post by araspitfire »

I am limited, but by the DRO cables.. not the pickups. I think I'll loosen them up a bit (just an inch or so) and see how it goes.

I have been moving slowly, but got first chips yesterday. (Using a threading tool, as that was the only thing I had ready that had enough angle to get aluminum to cut).
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Spent most of the day getting the area lit and organised, so I haven't done much...

I did put an indicator on my mill and test it a bit though.. I have .0005 runout on my collet body (haven't tested the Morse Taper yet), but the two different sizes of collet I mounted gave me about a thou on the output. It's pretty easy to get my indicator to move 7 or 8 thou with a bit of lateral pressure on the tool.. tightening the slide stops makes a small difference to the overal movement, but it does change the indicator position as they tighten up by over 8 thou. I spent 20 minutes trying to get the Mill head to move up and down on the dovetails without moving the indicator. I started with about 5 thou movement over 6 inches, and after making it worse, got it down to a couple thou.. I need to verify my 12mm bit of ground rod (from an old printer) before I go to town on this stuff...

Al...
araspitfire
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Re: HBM 29 CM Lath/Mill out of China

Post by araspitfire »

Had a good start to the day today.

I decided to play with my insert tools and attempt to make a Cylinder Square out of a bit of SS hand-rail pipe that I had laying around. The insert parting tool did it's job, the turning and facing tools performed great.. lots of spirally chips. I used my DRO to turn it down to a nice round number, and part it off to length.
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I guess the internals stresses on the bit of pipe are quite high, as measuring it with my micrometer yielded some variation from round. There is a welded seem in it.. :oops:

Later in the day I moved the belt to high speed and made a random SS spacer out of a bit of 8mm rod, with a 5mm hole in it. I didn't turn the outside so the hole is off center a tad.

Very happy with the lathe's ability to turn SS.

Things were great up to the moment I tried to eject my chuck from the MT3 socket in the Tail-Stock. I guess the Brass threaded nut-insert in the barrel of the tail-stock wanted to exit out the back rather than giving me enough force to eject the tool. To further add insult, I put an allen key on the "lock" set-screw, and it gave a nasty crack, and the hex was stripped. I'll have to do some modifications in there I guess (after drilling out the set-screw).. the brass insert went back down (with lock-screw still in the hole) with a couple taps of my dead-blow. (it was only half way pulled out)

Now I'll need to grind some HSS tools and play with Aluminium some more... (and mess around with the Mill to see what it can do before buying more tools and a vice for it)

Al...
Torch
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Re: HBM 29 CM Lath/Mill out of China

Post by Torch »

araspitfire wrote:Very happy with the lathe's ability to turn SS.


Just bear in mind that there's stainless, and then there's stainless. Some grades (eg: 303) machine very nicely. Others, ummm, not so much.
Things were great up to the moment I tried to eject my chuck from the MT3 socket in the Tail-Stock. I guess the Brass threaded nut-insert in the barrel of the tail-stock wanted to exit out the back rather than giving me enough force to eject the tool. To further add insult, I put an allen key on the "lock" set-screw, and it gave a nasty crack, and the hex was stripped. I'll have to do some modifications in there I guess (after drilling out the set-screw).. the brass insert went back down (with lock-screw still in the hole) with a couple taps of my dead-blow. (it was only half way pulled out)
Ouch. Warranty?
araspitfire
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Re: HBM 29 CM Lath/Mill out of China

Post by araspitfire »

I'm going to try for warantee. I hand-pushed the live center into the taper, never even pressed it against a workpiece and got it to pull the nut again.
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I'll take the part in on Thursday, and the compound slide and see what they do. If they dissapoint me, I'm pretty sure I can fix it myself somehow.

On the plus side, I mounted a bit of aluminium (no idea what kind, I've got lots of scrap around here) into my DP vice and ran my 16mm long end-mill across it, as well as taking 3 passes along a side of the part to see how it would behave. I found out my Drill press vice is not very square, and that climb milling is producing a better finish.

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Al... (need to grind some HSS tools so I can machine alu and other soft metals.)
araspitfire
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Re: HBM 29 CM Lath/Mill out of China

Post by araspitfire »

A bit more news.
I took the Compound unit in and they exchanged it with the showroom one.. no pits... big win.

And they repaired the Tail-Stock nut by drilling and tapping it for a larger set-screw.. I took it apart when I got home and inserted 4mm of steel rod in the bottom of the hole so that the set-screw pushes against the bottom of the hole.. (the original cause for the failure I think) Win #2.

Bought a bunch more stuff from the same shop as other choices are much further away, and if I could buy high quality, I'd get killed by my wife at the cost.... I an replace the less usable import stuff with quality as I learn what I need.

Most of the stuff is usable, if not awesome. For the most part, things are true where they need to be true. (using a 0.5 thou graduated indicator to check)
I'll try to take some photos of all the stuff.. I decided to get established with most of what I know I need right up front.. it's been a fun week of playing with toys, such as dividing heads, and surface-plates, and drill-press tap drivers, and slitting saws.

Not so good is a 4" KURT style vice.. I found that my fixed jaw is not vertical, but leans in by just enough to cause my fixed-jaw-side parallel to come loose when tightened. Hammering (dead-blow) won't bring my 123 block down onto it. The lean is just barely showing up as light coming through the bottom of the solid-square, and I can just see the square move when I push it in.. I'll hand-stone the jaw mount (as it's also leaning by the same amount) to true it up. I took the rest of the vice apart and am not completely displeased with the overall quality.. better by far than this clone: http://www.docsmachine.com/projects/4vise/4vise-01.html

I also bought a Die holder with MT-3... but it stays loose in my tail-stock.. DOH!.. it's just barely loose though, so I'll turn a shoulder down to parallel to get it to tighten up.

Considering what I've bought, a couple of issues are not unexpected, and I could take this stuff back and exchange it, but I'd rather fix it myself TBH. I only took the tail-stock back because I wanted to make a point and test the customer service of the shop. I'm pretty happy.

Al...
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Harold_V
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Re: HBM 29 CM Lath/Mill out of China

Post by Harold_V »

araspitfire wrote:I'll hand-stone the jaw mount (as it's also leaning by the same amount) to true it up.
I wish you luck with that idea. It may sound rational, but it's not. Now if you have scraping ability, that would work quite well.

Begin by inspecting the vise, which should be placed on a known flat surface (a surface plate, or a mill table will suffice). Try inserting a .0015" feeler under the vise in various places. Odds are, it will go in, as less than high quality vises tend to not be stress relieved before finish machining, so they gradually relax, losing flatness. Anything you do to improve the vise will be pretty much wasted time until you have the base flat, and the ways of the sliding jaw parallel to the base.

Once you've established that condition, you can then fly cut the fixed jaw base, creating a dead right angle to the base, which would be mounted to an angle plate (known to be true). Make sure the head of the mill is dialed true.

Harold
Wise people talk because they have something to say. Fools talk because they have to say something.
araspitfire
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Re: HBM 29 CM Lath/Mill out of China

Post by araspitfire »

Yea.. I stoned... and stoned... and managed to flatten the drilled holes, and put some shine around the outer edges... After which I gave it up as a bad job.

I talked with the machinists at work and they offered to straighten it out on their larger milling machine.. (their surface grinder gave way to a waterjet years ago)

This evening I put a 4mm tall strip of quite thin paper under the fixed-side removable jaw and tightened it up.
The two parallels now tighten up together when I thump it with a deadblow. The nice thing about this is if the paper squeezes out I'll know right away as the parallel will stop tightening up.

I find it amazing how small an angle (couldn't get my .001 feeler gauge into the gap at the bottom) makes such a difference to the way the work-piece sits.

When I get good enough that I notice the imperfections in the vice, I'll do something more permanent about it.

I've got to shim my mill column back a bit too. I notice that the front side of my larger cutters is slightly low. (I could see it when I tram with a dial indicator, but wasn't sure how much was too much).

I've also got to take apart my apron and take some metal off my Carriage lock strip (the bit of iron that tightens UP against the bottom of the ways).. as it doesn't lock the carriage when the LH end stop bolt is tightened. The one on the RH end works, but it's hard to get to as the DRO pickup is in the way most of the time. I've been putting a 4 thou feeler guage in it and tightening it, which works, but is a pain.

I did manage to mill something though... twice actually as I didn't like the way the first copy came out and wanted to optimise what I learned.

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This is the bad one.. I had some carriage drift while milling and one of the hinges is thin... plus my radius mill was allowed to cut a bit deep on the back-side.
Also, I moved the part and drilled the hinge hole, then put the part back upright, and while finding the surface, left a tool-mark on the surface.

Still my first milled thing off of a drawing and I learned a ton,which I corrected in the 2nd copy. I used my DRO and a starret edge finder for everything. No layout or centre-punches. I centre-drilled the holes from the DRO readings.

Al...
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juiceclone
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Re: HBM 29 CM Lath/Mill out of China

Post by juiceclone »

that machine is mfg. by a company called Sumore Tools in Shanghai. Google them and you will recognize your mach. I have a similar model. Had to import it myself.
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LX Kid
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Re: HBM 29 CM Lath/Mill out of China

Post by LX Kid »

Very nice!!!!! Congrats!
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