Another new owner of a VN 12

[Wilde Racing]

I just replaced my Taiwan JET-16 Drill mill with this beauty..








It needs a lot of cleaning and some work but I think I made a good choice.

The Old Drill/mill....



Getting it home was a lot of fun.....

 

[Tamper84]

Very nice!!! I like it

 

[HMF]

NICE!!

What year? If you don't know give me the serial number and I will tell you the year.

Now that my kid's cancer is in remission and the weather will be breaking soon, I will be working on mine again.
First step is to make a new index pin between the column and base to replace the one I broke dismanteling it.

Any questions, this is the place to ask.

 

[Wilde Racing]

Thanks guys,

Nelson, I'm sorry to hear about the family health problems.

I believe the mill is an early 1944 as the serial number is a 12-7683?

I was able to do a little more work. So far the only thing that doesn't seam to work is the table feed lever. tonight I pulled the lever and found it was missing the pin and had allowed the shaft to rotate. Easy fix.

I'm now at a cross roads. What do I do from here? Should I pull the mill completely down going through everything and paint it? Should I pull just the stuff that needs maintenance and use it? Is there anything else I need to watch for? ll the gears look good in the transmission.

Also any suggestions on cleaning products? Engine degrease is working o.k....

 

[ScubaSteve]

Wow...looking really nice! Mechanically, it looks really good. I'd probably clean the oil passages, etc. and just keep the major assemblies separate. No need to *really* take it apart...that's just asking for a headache....besides, you might damage something along the way.

I'm in the midst of my refurbishment of a VN12....I have the column stripped down to bare metal and will do the same for the ram, etc. Then I'll fill, prime, and paint.....or maybe I'll skip the filler, since it is such a PITA.

At any rate, it shouldn't be too hard to strip and repaint...that gets my vote. Be sure to post your progress....this forum seems to be the main one for all things VN12......

 

[Dan]

Great Machine! I love mine, I like the war finish decal, I have a US Navy property lable on mine. For me it's function is important before beauty, get it running first then worry about paint. Are you going to move the DRO's over to this one from your Jet?

Don't retire your jet yet, it has a quill this one doesn't,

 

[Wilde Racing]

I had to sell the jet to fund this project. I just ordered a cheap glass scale set-up and a vfd. I guess the plan is to pull the table and knee, clean up the gibs and and tables and reassemble. I'll also replace the oil in bothe gear boxes. Speaking of gear boxes, anyone have a line on the small site glass? Mine are bothe cracked.

 

[ScubaSteve]

Search around on this forum...there have been a few threads on the sight glass. +1 to keeping the mill/drill....but I kinda assumed you sold it when you upgraded. FWIW, it looked to be in good shape. Might have come in handy to make a straightedge for scraping the VN12 into accuracy.

 

[Cal Haines]

... I guess the plan is to pull the table and knee, clean up the gibs and and tables and reassemble. I'll also replace the oil in bothe gear boxes. ...

Do you mean pull the table and saddle? Pulling the knee is also a good idea if the table and saddle show signs of poor maintenance. There's no provision to supply oil to the knee's vertical way and krud tends to build up in the cavity on the back of the knee. I would suggest flushing the ram and feed gearbox with kerosene and filling with fresh oil. The cutter-head should also be flushed and filled with new oil and the rear bearing greased. Don't take the cutter-head apart unless there is a good reason to do so.

Post a photo of your cutter-head so that I can see which one you have.

Cal

 

[Wilde Racing]

What part of the cutter head are you talking about?