put the Ill take it on some equipment

[country gent]

A older friend is liquidating some equipment do to issues. I put the "Ill take it" on several today. A 13 X 40 lathe. A series 2 Bridgeport with
9X42 table. Both machines come with a lot of tooling and needed equipment.
The lathe has 3 jaw and 4 jaw chucks D1-4 spindle 3 moarse taper collets steady rest follower rest dead centers live centers readout on X and Y aloris tooling several holders, lantern type post, coolant, a ball radious turning attachment, and some other odds and ends. He bought the lather roughly 6 years ago new.
The Bridgeport Mill is the dovetail ram series 2 variable speed head, 9" X 42" table. Bridgeport power feed unit on x and y, digital read out on X and Y axis. r-8 collets to 1" Weldon holders, rotary table with tailstock, dividing head with tail stock, 6" kurt angle lock vise and a 6" Bridgeport vise. both have swivel bases under them. Standard drawbar. 2 HP head. Several sets of parallels 2 set of accessory clamps ( studs straps and adjustable blocks ) a vise lift, boring heads a bridge port and forieghn made one. Table is clean no cuts or holes pattern still shows same with ways scraping pattern is crisp and clean. It also has the old style handles that don't have to be held tight to engage just held in. All 4 bolts on the swivel are good so no broken spider there.
Now to find a good 6X18 surface grinder and a 24"-36" shaper. I already have a small 36" wood lathe that's been converted to a buffing machine with 3 cotton wheels and a sisel wheel on it. Allows red green and white rouge with out changing wheels. A couple drill presses ( wouldn't turn down a good gear head drill press with reverse though).

[smokeywolf]

Wow gent! Just Wow!

What's the brand on the lathe? Radii turning attachment wouldn't be a Holdridge would it? With a tailstock coming with it, would the rotary table be a Bridgeport branded model with the angle attachment to use it at 90 degrees? Pretty rare to see a Bridgeport branded feed unit on the Y axis. Think I've only seen that once or twice. Usually a "Servo" brand feed unit.
Dividing head, an Ellis? On the Aloris tool holders, is the post the wedge or piston type?

What a great score. Good for you country gent.

[country gent]

Not sure what the rotary table is its horizontal or vertical and the tail stock is adjustable for center height. A lot of good equipment here. Might look for the key attachment for the Bridgeport though.

[Preacher Jim]

I think you were blessed with that find. I need a new lathe again but keep telling myself at 74 lot of money.

[country gent]

One of my many blessing Preacher Jim is for years in one shop my partner and Is main job was rebuilding truing the shop equipment from vises to mills to grinders and lathes. WIth a little patience time and effort its not hard to rebuild them. Most are change out bearings now then set end play. Beds can be more work either send out to have ground or scrape in. Same with carriage and tail stock fit some navel bronze wear plates and scrape in to height and parallel. Mill are more work as they require some special made tooling. ( On a Bridgeport style mills square is off the ram rotating surface as is parallel. That requires a big accurate square to transfer down to z travels dovetails and gibs. Surface grinders are a real chore due to the higher accuracy requirements expected of them. Mill vises and tooling is another story and a vise that's sprung may never be right again. I have a 6" cube for the grinder or mills I made that's square to .0002 in 8" and parallel to .0002. I may make a 3" cube yet.
After roughly 35 years in the trade Ive done a lot not everything though LOL. An edm would be a nice piece of equipment to have but they don't do well on phase converters and 3 phase isn't readily available where I am. SO that's one Ill have to pass on.

Ive always been blessed with the ability to look at something either the actual piece or pics and make it. When I see something new I see the process to make it also.

[country gent]

For all of you gentleman with older equipment in need of some work tlc. There is a book that covers a lot of it. Machine Tool rebuilding is the title I believe. Cant remember the author right now. I got my copy from the local colleges book store some years ago. It deals with a lot of the refitting, scraping, flaking, gages, and or fixtures needed. Its pretty good and informative.

[Three44s]

country gent,

Better watch your back haulin’ all them goodies home! All I can say is ... “What a haul you are making there!”

Congratulations! .............. and enjoy!

Since I posted here in this section last I had some more iron “find me” and I had not started a thread on it yet. I PM’ed member cwheel a time or two about it but never followed up. I guess summer and farming got in the way. What we added was a Brown & Sharpe 3a Universal Standard horizontal mill, a Cincinnati model 24 duplex horizontal mill and a Sunnen hone. Practically no tooling though but I am still on the trail of what may be a good haul of the stuff that belonged with the mills but instead fell in a kid’s hands that bought a lathe at the same sale ahead of me. I have not gotten anything hooked up yet including the radial drill from last spring either. I don’t know what I will do with the model 24 horizontal but for cost of all three pieces I can sit on it, because it was peanuts.

This fall a fellow but semi-retired farmer who runs the same sort of hay balers etc. as we do turned me loose in his 40 year spare parts inventory .... oh what a haul that has been.

Best regards

Three44s

[Three44s]

For all of you gentleman with older equipment in need of some work tlc. There is a book that covers a lot of it. Machine Tool rebuilding is the title I believe. Cant remember the author right now. I got my copy from the local colleges book store some years ago. It deals with a lot of the refitting, scraping, flaking, gages, and or fixtures needed. Its pretty good and informative.

I found a reference to a “Connely’s Machine Tool Rebuilding” .... does that ring a bell?

Then I refined my search and was directed to a site named .... machinetoolpublications.com and a book they are selling.

Best regards

Three44s

[country gent]

Connelys is it yes Its a hard cover book with a red cover. It gets into the true rebuilding of machines by hand thru stab grinding, scraping, flaking, and filing. Its very good. While its cheaper to grind a lathe bed back to flat and true. Finding a shop with a surface grinder big enough and skilled personel to set it up is another issue. Same with a mill table or other parts. Connelys book gets into the rebuilding and or tuning of these machines.

The best thing you can do for a mill is move the vise around from end to end front to back same with the ram on bidgeport style machines. Keeping the vise in the center of the table and centered on the ways travel always in the same spot centralizes the wear and makes a spot that can be adjusted out with the gibs. Moving it around evens the wear out and gib adjustment can remove most of it then. Ran an old boring mill with the gibs set to the center of the table for proper play it lost 8" of travel on each end of the table as it bound up on the ends. If over the years the use had been spread around it would have worn more even and have been able to be adjusted better.

[Three44s]

country gent,

Well that clinches it, I will have to get that book. They want about $100 for it but for a good book such as that, I can justify it on just our old farm lathes. The cross feeds are loose on both of them and I have not found anyone knowledgeable and available to help me with it. Mostly it is going to be in the Gibbs for now. One is a Hamilton, set up for 3ph, turns 22” I believe with a 6’ bed. The other a LeBlonde from around 1903, also 3ph. turns about 16” but with an 8’ bed.

I have been watching the you tube channel for vintage farm machinery dot org put on by Keith Rucker as well as a number of other video sources and that seems pretty helpful but a good old school text will also be invaluable in my opinion.

Thank you for the tip!

It makes sense about spreading the wear patterns around when you can. The trouble is, these are old machines and what was done over many decades to them is baked in. Now I can in the course of using them certainly work them in areas with less wear and do my part to not make things worse than they already are but the reality is the amount of running I will likely get to do will be minuscule compared to their history to date.

Best regards

Three44s

[country gent]

The one problem with the old machine rebuilds is unless you can find something that interchanges parts have to be made to fit in with extra to be fitted. localized wear can make a lot of hand work. You cant always build up low so the larger areas that are high have to be taken down, this can require new adjustable gibs to be made or purchased. I believe Bridgeport sells 3 different thicknesses of adjustable gibs for the mills.