So this, must as my last "project post", will be a living archive. I in the past tried this with practical, but was , shall we say, less than successful in engaging the audience.
I posted in the "it followed me home" about this mill, but for those who don't know, its a Brown and Sharpe No2 Light Type, plain miller. This one is from the later 30's and is missing almost all the "accessorys", but I happen to have a "universal" version of this machine as well, that has some of the bits and bobs.
My plan, is to NOT restore this machine. I am sure that I will come back on this in a years time and laugh.
This was pick up day.
And this was when it made it into the shop, thanks to a friend with some heavy equipment
I used my little towmotor to push it into its home, and then got to the electrical.
This mill is 575V, so I would have thought that some care would have been taken in the wiring. I was wrong. The switch box up on the upper right of the machine had wires with brittle and falling off insulation and very badly burnt contacts. These machines have a built in motor starter set that is operated with the engage/brake lever on the upper left of the unit. So off the switch box came, along with all associated wire. Unlike my universal, this one only has one motor to worry about, so that was a fairly easy job. I forgot to take a picture of this. Once done I flipped the RPC on and made sure that machine itself wasn't live. For those who don't know, one of the safer ways to do this is to use a single lead of DMM, if any voltage registers at all, you've got a live machine. Fairly certain that the machine was going to power on, I grabbed a wooden stick and flipped the engage lever to on, and it came to life! Another meter check to make sure the motor wasn't leaking pixies, and I finally felt confident touching the machine.
At this point I ran it though all the paces, and every gear it has. EVERYTHING WORKED!!!!! The only thing that I noticed, was a slight squeak, and the oil pump seemed weak. So time for some general servicing.
This is the setup I like to use for sucking oil out of things that are otherwise a PITA to drain. It's very simple, and works remarkably well. shop-vac to big end of 5 gallon bucket, small vent drilled to 7/16" with a 1/4"NPT chunk of oil airline threaded in. Tilt the bucket on a 45 so the oil doesn’t get sucked up immediately by the vacuum, and away you go. On the rainy day list is to add an aluminum baffle plate so I don’t have to tip the bucket anymore.
Sludge and metal in the bottom of the oil sump.
Found a few surprizes in there...
Now where did this come from.....??????
Such an amazing gearbox, and this is only one of three in the main body, the knee and table have their own!!
Well, there it is.... Let me say, that was 4 hours to get that key set back in there........ This was the squeak, that key was running on the over plate. Now I just need to get some oil, as per other Brown and Sharpe machines of the same vintage (cannot find a manual for this particular unit) I require "oil with a S.U.V of 300 seconds at 100 Degrees, or S.A.E. 20w". By that I believe that mobile DTE medium/heavy would be correct (and impossible to get reasonably around here) or KBC, EEZ 22w spindle oil. Any thoughts on this would be great.
I posted in the "it followed me home" about this mill, but for those who don't know, its a Brown and Sharpe No2 Light Type, plain miller. This one is from the later 30's and is missing almost all the "accessorys", but I happen to have a "universal" version of this machine as well, that has some of the bits and bobs.
My plan, is to NOT restore this machine. I am sure that I will come back on this in a years time and laugh.
This was pick up day.
And this was when it made it into the shop, thanks to a friend with some heavy equipment
I used my little towmotor to push it into its home, and then got to the electrical.
This mill is 575V, so I would have thought that some care would have been taken in the wiring. I was wrong. The switch box up on the upper right of the machine had wires with brittle and falling off insulation and very badly burnt contacts. These machines have a built in motor starter set that is operated with the engage/brake lever on the upper left of the unit. So off the switch box came, along with all associated wire. Unlike my universal, this one only has one motor to worry about, so that was a fairly easy job. I forgot to take a picture of this. Once done I flipped the RPC on and made sure that machine itself wasn't live. For those who don't know, one of the safer ways to do this is to use a single lead of DMM, if any voltage registers at all, you've got a live machine. Fairly certain that the machine was going to power on, I grabbed a wooden stick and flipped the engage lever to on, and it came to life! Another meter check to make sure the motor wasn't leaking pixies, and I finally felt confident touching the machine.
At this point I ran it though all the paces, and every gear it has. EVERYTHING WORKED!!!!! The only thing that I noticed, was a slight squeak, and the oil pump seemed weak. So time for some general servicing.
This is the setup I like to use for sucking oil out of things that are otherwise a PITA to drain. It's very simple, and works remarkably well. shop-vac to big end of 5 gallon bucket, small vent drilled to 7/16" with a 1/4"NPT chunk of oil airline threaded in. Tilt the bucket on a 45 so the oil doesn’t get sucked up immediately by the vacuum, and away you go. On the rainy day list is to add an aluminum baffle plate so I don’t have to tip the bucket anymore.
Sludge and metal in the bottom of the oil sump.
Found a few surprizes in there...
Now where did this come from.....??????
Such an amazing gearbox, and this is only one of three in the main body, the knee and table have their own!!
Well, there it is.... Let me say, that was 4 hours to get that key set back in there........ This was the squeak, that key was running on the over plate. Now I just need to get some oil, as per other Brown and Sharpe machines of the same vintage (cannot find a manual for this particular unit) I require "oil with a S.U.V of 300 seconds at 100 Degrees, or S.A.E. 20w". By that I believe that mobile DTE medium/heavy would be correct (and impossible to get reasonably around here) or KBC, EEZ 22w spindle oil. Any thoughts on this would be great.
