The Home Machinist!

I finally "bit the bullet" and ran the bid up on a complete BP right angle attachment, complete set. I had been watching these individual items in seperate auction sometimes for too high prices or in poor condition. Even if the price was reasonable for the 90 deg head, I was never sure how long it would be before I found the arbor or arbor support at a correspondingly good price.
Yesterday, after sweating as I watch the bids creep up in a nice complete set, for 5 days. Every day or so I would re-evaluate my desire and go to Esnipe and bump my upper bid limit up $50-100. In the end I was ready to go as high as $655 for the set. Fortunately, it ended last night for $575. More than I intially planned on but the agony is over now and I can look forward to having just about every excessory for my JET (Bridgeport clone).
Should be playing with it in a few!!
Just thought I would share.

Steve
(divorced & don't have to "Ss'plain" to anyone)

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Jet vertical Mill, Champion 12X30 lathe, Amer. Mach. Tool radial drill, 24"X60" LeBlond lathe, Scharmann 3" Hrz Brg Mill, Steptoe 18" Shaper, South Bend Shaper, Jet 14" Power Hacksaw, B & S (No.4 36") Gear Cutting Mach., Wm Pilton vert. Slotter, Enco 12" horz. saw, McEnglevan MP36 foundry furnace, Rockwell 14"X42" lathe, K&T 2H univ horz. mill

In your list of machines, you don't list a Bridgeport.

On which machine are you going to use this?

Steve

Opps! I should have mentioned that I have nice, almost new JET mill (BP import clone). Sorry.

So far I have found that everything I have purchased, BP, has fit without a problem.

Steve

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Jet vertical Mill, Champion 12X30 lathe, Amer. Mach. Tool radial drill, 24"X60" LeBlond lathe, Scharmann 3" Hrz Brg Mill, Steptoe 18" Shaper, South Bend Shaper, Jet 14" Power Hacksaw, B & S (No.4 36") Gear Cutting Mach., Wm Pilton vert. Slotter, Enco 12" horz. saw, McEnglevan MP36 foundry furnace, Rockwell 14"X42" lathe, K&T 2H univ horz. mill

Jet mill is listed. I was just curious as to what it fit.

Steve

Yep! A "Bridgeport Wanna_Be".

I picked it up from the estate sale of my old friend Roy. He had upgraded it and added all the bells and whistles. 3 axis DRO, BP vert. slotter, table feeds. Column riser section (he was very tall), Valstro rotary cross-slide milling head, draw bolt puller and coolant mister Plus a cabinet full of tooling.
As part of his upgrades, he didn't like the variable speed head that intially came with it and put the pulley drive model in place. Now I have both.

I think I previously posted picture of this setup in a recent post when I was asking about the quill diameter.

Steve

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Jet vertical Mill, Champion 12X30 lathe, Amer. Mach. Tool radial drill, 24"X60" LeBlond lathe, Scharmann 3" Hrz Brg Mill, Steptoe 18" Shaper, South Bend Shaper, Jet 14" Power Hacksaw, B & S (No.4 36") Gear Cutting Mach., Wm Pilton vert. Slotter, Enco 12" horz. saw, McEnglevan MP36 foundry furnace, Rockwell 14"X42" lathe, K&T 2H univ horz. mill

Well it arrive this morning.. I should be happy but a little more that "slightly" disappointed with the condition. Not pictured or disclosed in the ebay ad. Mostly of concern was the R8 end of the arbor and a little scab on the running surface on the support end. I know i can clean it up with some scrapping and polishing before I assemble and draw it into my spindle bore, but just a shame.


I have machines that are over 100 years old and admittedly, they show evidence of some lack of attention over these years. However, in the "old day", before cleaning solvents, machines were left to languish in disuse with in their customary and honored coat of oil/grease and filth. This , for the most part protected from rust. My old Step Toe shaper (I'm told it is pre-Cincinatti, about 110 yo), the bare machined surfaces are in perfect condition other than considerable darkening. With some elbow work and a little scraping it would be with out pits and beautiful condition, thanks to the heavy oil that has preserved it.

A few years ago I purchase a very nice spacer from a production machine shop. It was so clean that I thought it was chrome plated. Just like new. Brought it home and set it in the unheated portion of my shop for the evening. Forgot it for about a day or so and when I saw it next I was as re-dish orange as a pumpkin. I looked some other tooling still in the car and similar condition. I called the seller/manager and complained and he admitted they had thought they were doing me a favor by solvent cleaning the stuff. Should have re-oiled the the surface and internal parts as well.

In the case of this angle head, it was obvious that it had been left sitting in one location/possition in a damp enviornment SD CA. for a long period of time since some were scabs of rust with minor pitting. Unheated or exposed.

Before sending a negative feedback, i sent a direct email to him, reminding him that he is just starting selling on ebay, with only 9 feedbacks, and he needs to disclose these condition, which are unsatisfactory to most purchasers or machinists. I don't want to return it since but want at least the satisfaction of letting the seller and others know my concern.

Steve

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Jet vertical Mill, Champion 12X30 lathe, Amer. Mach. Tool radial drill, 24"X60" LeBlond lathe, Scharmann 3" Hrz Brg Mill, Steptoe 18" Shaper, South Bend Shaper, Jet 14" Power Hacksaw, B & S (No.4 36") Gear Cutting Mach., Wm Pilton vert. Slotter, Enco 12" horz. saw, McEnglevan MP36 foundry furnace, Rockwell 14"X42" lathe, K&T 2H univ horz. mill

I went ahead and scrapped and cleaned the internal rust in the mating surface of the angle head and polished the stub shaft that mates with the spindle R8 taper. According to preliminary measurements, my quill is the same as the Bridgeport and as I began to bring the quill down into the housing it seemed tight and I kept rotating the spindle until I was sure the key in the spindle was in the slot. Still plenty of resistance and not on even far enough to engage the draw bolt. Removed everything and check that the draw bolt dia and pitch were OK. That checked out. I re-mic'd quill and angle head. About .001 on the top land, could only check the lower land with a long nose caliper since the spindle stub shaft is in the way. Looked like an interference fit, ouch. Then I noticed a smaller screw between the two clamping screws on the housing. This one was to spread the housing bore slightly, I suppose. I took 1/4 turn on that and went back for another try. Almost, so I gave it a little more and cranked down one the quill feed. I could feel some progress and then it was far enough for the draw bolt to engage the shaft. From there on I use the draw bolt to seat the shaft and let off on any downward pressure on the quill feed to relieve any pre-load on the bearing. Works fine, just a very tight fit.

Now to the arbor support. It appears the JET (wanna-be) clone has a different dove tail angle than the Bridgeport. Not sure what the books say but the JET is 55 degrees and the BP is 50 degrees. Close on the width but about 3/16" too close on the top of the dove tail, gap at the bottom.

I hate to modify the arbor support. I could re-machine both side to the new angle and fit a gibb on one side. Centering wouldn't be a problem because the arbor support has an offset adjustment.

Any thoughts on this would be appreciated.

Thanks
Steve

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Jet vertical Mill, Champion 12X30 lathe, Amer. Mach. Tool radial drill, 24"X60" LeBlond lathe, Scharmann 3" Hrz Brg Mill, Steptoe 18" Shaper, South Bend Shaper, Jet 14" Power Hacksaw, B & S (No.4 36") Gear Cutting Mach., Wm Pilton vert. Slotter, Enco 12" horz. saw, McEnglevan MP36 foundry furnace, Rockwell 14"X42" lathe, K&T 2H univ horz. mill

This may help you out if it's similar
http://madmodder.net/index.php?topic=2083.0

I would be asking for at least some money back off the seller. We had a seller over here that called it flight rust, sure.

Dave

I may have a new and unused bracket with the proper angle. I purchased the right angle kit years ago, and found the bracket does not fit my BP. If you're interested, I'll try to find it and see what the angle is. Don't know where you're located in the state, but I'm on the west slope, about 15 miles east of I-5, near the towns of Chehalis and Centralia.

Harold

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Wise people talk because they have something to say. Fools talk because they have to say something.

Thanks again for the help Harold. I'm still living in E. Grays Harbor Co. about 40 miles from you.

If you still have it I would be interested and like to work something out. I have been sitting here considering building that upper portion of the support from scratch, to avoid modifying the original BP.

Seems all problems must have some solution. Just mention it here, right??

Steve

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Jet vertical Mill, Champion 12X30 lathe, Amer. Mach. Tool radial drill, 24"X60" LeBlond lathe, Scharmann 3" Hrz Brg Mill, Steptoe 18" Shaper, South Bend Shaper, Jet 14" Power Hacksaw, B & S (No.4 36") Gear Cutting Mach., Wm Pilton vert. Slotter, Enco 12" horz. saw, McEnglevan MP36 foundry furnace, Rockwell 14"X42" lathe, K&T 2H univ horz. mill

I still have it---the problem is *where is it*? I did quick search of the obvious places where it may be and came up empty handed. The vast majority of my things are still in boxes from our move here from Utah, so it's not obvious where it may be. Finding it could prove a daunting task, which you'd understand if you were to drop by and see our storage area (inside and dry, but not well organized, and stacked deep).

How soon would you like to know?

Harold

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Wise people talk because they have something to say. Fools talk because they have to say something.

No rush Harold, this project is on the long term "gotta-gett'r-done" list, as are most. Mostly I'm spinning my mental wheels here, waiting for the parts I order for my Scharmann Horz. boring mill to come in from Germany. The HBM has been a 7 year project and 90% completed.. None of what I have left to do requires Vert. Mill arbor. And if I do, I can use a stub arbor in the 90 deg. head for that.

BTW. Talk about loosing thing. I moved here 7 years ago from a 12'X20' shed of wood working machines and a little Harbor Freight mill/lathe bench type combo to 2500 sq.ft. of shop. Began making the rounds of estate sales, Craigs List from here to CA, IA and Neb. Plus many hours searching/buying on ebay. My actual heated machine shop is only 32'X24' and has almost all the machines I have listed, except the foundry stuff and 12" horz. bandsaw. Additionally I have a lot of welding machines fabrication equipment not listed. All pilled up through out the remainder of the shop. Two bays are use for auto repair side business of myself and brother. Come to think of it, that wood working machinery and hobby is buried someplace in this confusion of "things to do".

As always, Thanks

Steve

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Jet vertical Mill, Champion 12X30 lathe, Amer. Mach. Tool radial drill, 24"X60" LeBlond lathe, Scharmann 3" Hrz Brg Mill, Steptoe 18" Shaper, South Bend Shaper, Jet 14" Power Hacksaw, B & S (No.4 36") Gear Cutting Mach., Wm Pilton vert. Slotter, Enco 12" horz. saw, McEnglevan MP36 foundry furnace, Rockwell 14"X42" lathe, K&T 2H univ horz. mill