Newest acquisition: Mill

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G1K

G1K

Newly Enlightened
Joined
May 19, 2006
Messages
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Just got back from Syracuse to pick up this mill. It's a 1994 Supermax, a Taiwanese Bridgeport clone. The ram and head are off, the head was disassembled and then the project forgotten about. It has power feed and a Mitutoyo 2 channel DRO, and a Mitutoyo quill readout. Table is smooth across the full travels, no binding or slop. There's only one small scar on the table. I don't think this was used very much at all...

Looks kinda rough now, but it'll clean up just as nice and my old 10EE. (http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?t=218841)


Here are the pics, still sitting in the back of the truck until I can get a friend to help me unload it.

mill01a.jpg


mill02a.jpg


mill03.jpg



I'll be sure to post up some pics as I progress with the clean up and repaint.

Ryan
 
Supermax Mills are considered right up there as good as, if not BETTER than Bridgeports of that era, so...
 
cmacclel said:
So if it did not see much use why is the head apart???


Mac
Click to expand...

That's a good point. Maybe it would have been better to say that the table and ways don't look abused.

I have two quills for it, I wonder if there was a quill issue? Hopefully one of them is good, but I can check anything out until I finish a couple other projects first...

I'll keep my fingers crossed that what ever the problem is I can figure it out, and keep it inexpensive to repair.

Ryan
 
the head was disassembled and then the project forgotten about
Click to expand...
It would certainly be worth a phone call to the seller to see why they took the head apart. Normally, bearings are the reason, but sometimes it's the power down feed, other times it's a variable speed drive issue. I would want to know exactly what they found.
 
Update:

I got everything reassembled Saturday eve and threw the switch. I accidentally wound the varispeed adjustment chain on the wrong side of the shaft, but after a quick adjustment I happy to say everything seems to be working well. The head is quiet, the speed adjesment works as it should, it seems very smooth.

I still have to put a cutter in it and actually make some chips, I gues that'll be the true test.

I wound up replacing all the bearings on the top end while it was apart, rather than risk one or more of them being close to end of life. I also had to fab a new cable for the DRO, a replacement was out of the ballpark price range.

I still have to wire the cooling fan in the rear of the head, and find an auto downfeed clutch asm. The quill feed handle should be here tomorrow. I orderd an import from Enco, and the first time I used it to lower the quill the pin sheared. Enco offered to replace it, but I bumped up to the USA made one and covered the price difference. Hopefully it will be a bit more robust.

But the hard part is done I hope. Sometime in the not to distant future is a wild paint job to compliment the 10EE :)

mill08.jpg



R
 
That's looking good Ryan.

I would not have had the guts to take a machine like that and try to rebuild it without knowing what was really wrong. I tend to get too tied up in making the parts to make the jigs to make the part to fit the spot....

I wish I'd bought one with a variable speed head. You guys have me considering yet another upgrade.

In short, I'm envious.


Daniel
 
Small tool gloat. I saw an ad on CL for some end mills. Here's what I scored for $25. Quite a few are unused, but most are used but still useable. A couple will need to be resharpened or tossed.

endmills.jpg



R
 
G1K said:
Small tool gloat. I saw an ad on CL for some end mills. Here's what I scored for $25. Quite a few are unused, but most are used but still useable. A couple will need to be resharpened or tossed.

(snip pic)

R
Click to expand...

Nice score!
 
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