Benchmaster Horizontal Mill---Questions Abound

tractorman44

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Last week I traded a piece of farm equipment for this Benchmaster horizontal mill. I am finding out that is hard to find information of these little guys..... It is fitted with an MT2 taper and the 5/8 cutter shown is what was in it when received. Where would the model and serial number be located? I've turned it everyway but loose and haven't found it yet....

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Two of the three arbors that came with it are MT3 and obviously not meant for use with this machine....(of course I could be mistaken).

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The third arbor IS an MT2, but the 1/2" 13 tpi left hand threaded end has to extend THRU the overarm bearing for the nut to be installed. I'm thinking that shouldn't be correct because the tightened nut would just bind the arbor TO the overarm bearing and not tighten the spacers (of which I do not have) against the cutter. What am I looking at wrong ??

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This also came in the mix and I can't find a place it matches up with on the little machine....

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An almost comical addition to the box of stuff was this 4" face mill... I'm thinking that too will work better on a much larger machine. Sorry for the fuzzy foto.

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....and ditto for this cutter also....

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....and this 1 5/8" cutter......

If there is anyone that could kinda steer me in the right direction, it would be appreciated. There will be a few more questions soon I'm sure. Thanks for looking.... oh, and by the way, the drill bit in the photos is a 1/4" standard bit for size comparison. ....and I'll work on the fuzziness in the future too.
 
Since your post is about to drop off the New Posts - have you tried looking at images on Google? There must be similar machines around and some pics should give you some clues. The cutting tools that you pictured look a little huge for that size of machine.
Michael
 
Take a look at the Benchmaster photos in my flickr album when you get a chance. I got it in fairly good condition, and I think the photos will answer a lot of your questions. I haven't researched these much, but I wonder if your model is older than mine. Your table might also be on backwards. Mine was the same way, but the brochures show the handle on the right side and the slot facing forward so I changed it around when I took it apart for clean-up.

My spindle is also MT2. When I'm not using the saw arbor, it's outfitted with a ER25 collet system and a drawbar I made to work with it. Mine also came without a motor, so I originally fit an industrial sewing machine motor to it and later a VFD/3 phase 1HP Baldor. Plenty of power now, but I wouldn't plan on swinging those large cutters you've got in the photos. It's a really nice little mill, but it has limits.

You might have more luck getting additional information from the Benchmaster Yahoo! group, but ping me if I can help. Certainly a number of good photos and related documents you can check out in the Yahoo! group. I don't use mine a lot, but it's a really nice little mill, and don't see getting rid of it anytime soon. I'm still glad I stumbled on mine.

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-Ryan

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Thanks for the information as well as the suggestions valleyboy. I will follow up as soon as I can. First with smudgemo's Flickr pics because as they say... a picture is worth a thousand words. I had found a few "related" threads as I posted this originally and perused those also. Smudgemo you could be absolutely correct about the table...maybe it was a lefty that set it up like that. I do have another table with the single slot, plus some T-nuts and other sundries. Thanks again for the quick responses.

Yeah...the huge cutters were kinda comical sitting in the box of parts. But hey, I sure wasn't going to toss them out of the deal just because they were a little big for the flyweight machine...

Being quite new on board....just where will this thread go when it leaves the "New Post" location??
 
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Cool little machine. When one hits "new post" like I do we get a page of whats new. If it gets onto the second page your views would go down I assume.
 
Smudgemo, I got the chance to peruse your flikr photos and thank you for all the information they provided. I still have no idea just what model this one is as the tag is gone, assuming it should be in the same location as yours. Also, no idea yet as to which is older, yours or mine.

On an interesting note, releasing the tool bar to remove the #2 taper holder resulted in tapping free a MT 2 to MT 3 adapter !!! Mine is actually set up for the MT 3 !!! Which means the two arbors in the picture above with the MT 3 taper ARE for this machine after all !!

Still scanning for information, including Tony's site.

By the way, your set up is awesome and it proves there is a lot of capability built into these bench top models too.
 
Ryan,
Would sure like a copy of that book you have that I saw on Flickr. Just picked up a Benchmaster MV-1 yesterday that has been sitting upstairs in an old theater for thirty years. The theater was turned into a gun shop and shooting range fourth years ago. image.jpgEverything in the building is a real mess. My son and a couple other guys are trying to re open the place up. Need to do a "little" cleaning.

Anyway, we managed to get it down out of the building. There was a big door and after taking a lot of it apart we lowered it down to the trailer. image.jpgGot it home ok. Just hope we have all the parts. There is a shaft with a step pulley that was with it. Looks like somehow it fits into the head area. Don't know how the belts and motor hook up.image.jpgAlso the motor has a rotating plate on the bottom that doesn't look like it came with the machine. image.jpgAny help or pictures you can give will be appreciated. I'm going to take it all apart, clean and paint it. Should be a good little machine when I'm done.
Barry

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Okay, I'll see what I can dig up. The step pulley looks like the vertical mill attachment. You remove the horizontal and put in the vert (easier said than done.) The motor mount is hinged so it provides belt tension by gravity in vert mode. you don't use the swivel in horizontal mode (at least mine doesn't.) The giant pulley would be good to slow the cutter speed, but doesn't do much for speed changes. If things are in good shape, adding power won't be hard.


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Finally managed to get my little mill finished. View attachment 87899View attachment 87900Have all the parts bead blasted, painted and laid out ready for reassemble. Wasn't to hard to get it back together. Aren't to many parts to deal with. image.jpgimage.jpgimage.jpgimage.jpgimage.jpgimage.jpgGot it all back together. Sure looks different than when we lowered it down from that two story building. I've rebuilt several machines over the years. Most of them I still have or have traded them up for something else. I'll probably trade or sell this one. It has all three different cutting configurations too. The only part I done have is the curved guard that goes over the front. Ready to start another project.

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