# Denbigh universal miller pre-1956



## digiex_chris (Oct 7, 2014)

http://imgur.com/a/V2lkl

Here's an album of the functional restoration of this Denbigh milling machine I've found. I found it in a welding shop in Alberta, crammed at the back. The owner said he used it once a year to cut a keyway, and the guy before him the same. The first owner appears to have painted the sliding precision surfaces, which sounds dumb but it worked in my favour. I have no idea how old it is, I can't find it on lathes.co.uk, but I at least know that because it's got the 3-3/8 overarm it's before 1956. It looks like it was designed to run with an over head shaft setup, but someone modified it to run with an electric motor. Everything seems well oiled, the dust had gathered and made some kind of paste that seems to have prevented rust on the shafts and exposed surfaces. None of the fasteners are seized or rounded off, an experienced wrench maintained it. I think it was well maintained and nearly unused. The oil holes were plugged with that oily crud, so I'm glad I fully pulled it apart to clean it well. I'm also using paint stripper to try to get that paint off the ways without harming the surface. I hope the guy didn't prep with sand paper, but it looks ok so far. Because of the paint I haven't been able to evaluate wear on the ways. There is a crack on the casting on the rear over arm clamp bolt. It's probably going to prevent tightening up that end. I don't know what I'm going to do about that just yet. I might just ignore it since I'm probably not going to be using it to it's full capacity that way anyway. Maybe drilling and tapping the end so I can bolt an external clamp ring to it.

The back gear has a funny arrangement (to me). The big gear at the front is keyed to the spindle and has a bolt. You loosen the bolt and slide it inwards and tighten it again, and that frees it from the step pulleys. Then you unlock and throw the lever to the right, which turns an eccentric and pushes the back gear shaft towards the spindle and engages the spindle gears. A bit of a dance, but the major benefit to me is it's an extremely simple and resilient mechanism.

The vertical attachment is NMTB40 (yay!) and not the same make as the machine, and probably a lot newer, but is 1:1 ratio unfortunately. I was hoping it spun faster. I haven't figured out the RPM ranges yet as I haven't powered it up yet, but I don't expect it to be much. I ran the math on the front bronze bearing and it looks like it's capable of running 1000 rpm with at least 500lb load before it starts to exceed the PV ratings for the lowest performing bronze I could find, so I think I could probably play with motor pulleys to get some speed out of it if I arrange a drip oiler or something. There doesn't seem to be any wear at all on the spindle bearings. Not a whole lot of vertical room between the table and the vertical attachment, but it sure beats milling on my lathe, and I can always use an angle plate. It came with an MT4 adapter that screws onto the horizontal spindle, so I can use my MT4 collet set!

The table swivels, which was super handy for removing about 250 lbs of weight to make it easier to get off the truck. Remove the two clamp bolts, pull straight up.

So, a few questions. Has anyone seen this model? Any information about it? What oil is typically used on a tapered bronze spindle bearing? The oil holes are just holes drilled into the bearing from the outside of the casting, looks like half a pencil sized hole. The inner surface of the bearing has an oil grove to distribute it. How often should you be adding oil while you work? Is there a SFPM rule of thumb for flat belts?


----------



## hermetic (Oct 7, 2014)

http://www.lathes.co.uk/denbigh/ Yours is an earlier model which is designed to run from overhead lineshafting via flat belts. none the worse for that of course, a good machine! Good luck with the resto.
Phil
UK


----------



## hermetic (Oct 7, 2014)

Just been through your pics again and I see the motor, looks like it has been converted from lineshaft to self contained, I am sure tony at Lathes.co.uk would love some pics to add to the Denbigh page when it is finished.
Phil


----------



## digiex_chris (Oct 7, 2014)

cool I'll send them over. It doesn't match any of the models on that page so I'm curious about it.


----------



## digiex_chris (Oct 7, 2014)

any ideas about possible age?


----------



## stupoty (Oct 7, 2014)

That has a lot of similarities with a ward horizontal milling machine ive got as a do er upper.  I l try and post some pics.

stuart


----------



## digiex_chris (Oct 8, 2014)

Darn. I think it was my fault too. My strap holding up the knee broke while I was trying to figure out how the bottom of the jack screw mechanism came apart and it slammed down to the bottom from about a foot up. I guess I'll quit being lazy and go get a torch so I can braze it up. It looks like it's a two stage jack screw, one screw inside another. The flange at the top of the outer inside threaded piece broke off, and the pressed in bronze nut in the top of the larger threaded piece pulled out when that cracked. The nut is too heavy for any of my torches to braze well, but I realized it's nearly a press fit into that shaft, so I measured, and yup, right within loctite's recommended tolerance for the green bearing retainer. I'm not so worried about that one since all of the heavy forces are pushing the fracture closed.

I need to figure out what to do with that flange though. That wall thickness might be thin enough for me to handle with my little torch.


----------



## Bill C. (Oct 8, 2014)

digiex_chris said:


> http://imgur.com/a/V2lkl
> 
> Here's an album of the functional restoration of this Denbigh milling machine I've found. I found it in a welding shop in Alberta, crammed at the back. The owner said he used it once a year to cut a keyway, and the guy before him the same. The first owner appears to have painted the sliding precision surfaces, which sounds dumb but it worked in my favour. I have no idea how old it is, I can't find it on lathes.co.uk, but I at least know that because it's got the 3-3/8 overarm it's before 1956. It looks like it was designed to run with an over head shaft setup, but someone modified it to run with an electric motor. Everything seems well oiled, the dust had gathered and made some kind of paste that seems to have prevented rust on the shafts and exposed surfaces. None of the fasteners are seized or rounded off, an experienced wrench maintained it. I think it was well maintained and nearly unused. The oil holes were plugged with that oily crud, so I'm glad I fully pulled it apart to clean it well. I'm also using paint stripper to try to get that paint off the ways without harming the surface. I hope the guy didn't prep with sand paper, but it looks ok so far. Because of the paint I haven't been able to evaluate wear on the ways. There is a crack on the casting on the rear over arm clamp bolt. It's probably going to prevent tightening up that end. I don't know what I'm going to do about that just yet. I might just ignore it since I'm probably not going to be using it to it's full capacity that way anyway. Maybe drilling and tapping the end so I can bolt an external clamp ring to it.
> 
> ...



I think the shops I worked in used 30 weight oil.  Anything heavier may seem thick until it warms up.  Usually non-detergent oil.  Nice milling machine, 

I like using the horizontal milling they had a GE.  We used it for squaring up plate stock and other heavy cutting projects.


----------



## digiex_chris (Oct 8, 2014)

How much slack should there be in a tapered bronze bearing to allow oil in? I'm about to put the spindle back in and adjust it.


----------



## ecdez (Oct 8, 2014)

I've moved a lot of stuff in my S-10, which is close to the same size as your truck, but never anything that big.  That's awesome.


----------



## digiex_chris (Oct 8, 2014)

ecdez said:


> I've moved a lot of stuff in my S-10, which is close to the same size as your truck, but never anything that big.  That's awesome.


Did about 3200km like that (2000 miles). It was very top heavy. In the wind I had to slow down to 90km/h (55mph) so it would quit feeling like I was sailing a boat instead of driving. It turned out to be no big deal, but it felt very odd. Would not recommend it. If I have to do it again next time I'm laying it down on it's back. I'm sure if I'd taken the table off and pulled the spindle it would have been much better. The suspension wasn't really up to it either, was less than an inch to the bump stops. Heavier than expected.

All in all, I think it's a useless truck. Takes as much gas as an F150 but can only take half the weight.


----------



## ecdez (Oct 9, 2014)

Now that's a trek right there!  I didn't want to drive 3 hours to pick something up but 2,000 miles.  Hats off man.

My truck has the 4 banger so gas mileage is right around 32.  I broke both of my leaf springs so I'm a little concerned about loading it up too heavy.  I'm considering building a small, heavy duty trailer and putting a proper hitch on mine.  That should increase my machine moving capability.  I have a large trailer and an old suburban but fully loaded it get's about 5 miles a gallon.  Not good for a long trip.


----------



## digiex_chris (Oct 9, 2014)

I've had too many crates with fork lift holes in them to not worry about shipping freight for something not really replaceable like this, so for my piece of mind I had no choice.

Wow, there's some metal ways under this paint! A couple scraping marks still visible too. The knee and saddle aren't worn! Next step, get the table off the saddle and clean that up.

I test fit the spindle back in after I'd cleaned up the bearings, and with the 45 degree front taper seated, I get about 0.003" side play with the 7 degree taper further in. I imagine with an oil film that'll need 0.001" end play increasing the side play by another 0.0014, totalling 0.0045ish. Does that sound right for a bronze bearing? It at least looks like if I have to make an adjustment, it's the easy way (scraping the front easy to access part of the bearing to seat the inner taper further). Should I bring the side play closer to 0.001"?


----------



## Bill Gruby (Oct 9, 2014)

I watching this rebuild and trying to keep up with mine at the same time. How about some more pictures to let us know how far along you are. From what I have seen you have a real project on your hands. keep up the good work.

 "Billy G"


----------



## digiex_chris (Oct 9, 2014)

I'll try to get some better quality photos than the blurry cell phone ones from the first post before I go much further. There's a lot of that I can be doing while waiting for paint stripper to work.


----------



## digiex_chris (Oct 10, 2014)

Time to get the paint off the precision surfaces of the table. I was scared that under the paint would be lots of scars and a beat up set of t-slots, but after the first pass with the paint stripper, it looks like it's in really good shape. The bottom corner of the t-slot has some raised burrs though, but luckily the machine has enough range to cut it's own t-slots. I'll take a light pass with my 60 degree dovetail cutter to give a very light chamfer in that bottom corner, touching as little of the good side and bottom of the t-slot as possible, and make the t-nuts easier to slide in.

The saddle was attached to the table when I removed it from the machine for unloading, because I could just undo the universal swivel clamp bolts and lift it all off. The gib is keyed in place with two little dowels so I couldn't push out the gib to make the table slide off, so I reinstalled it on the machine to use the machine to hang on to the thing. I supported the table from above, lowering the knee to get tension on the hoist as required, then wound the table end to end, and discovered that if you wind it towards the power feed mechanism side, it will slide about 2/3 of the way off the saddle. So I left it there, removed the screw bearing blocks, and tried to push it off the rest of the way. No go. I can't back the gib screws off far enough to give enough slack to move by hand, so there must be some crud in there. My little 5lb dead blow hammer did no good against that 200 lb chunk of metal. I flipped over the right end bearing block so I could back the left one out a few inches, then stuck some wood between it and the table and used the screw to push it off. It didn't need any more tension than required to move the table back and forth so I figured if I was careful and gentle I could get away with it. 

Table off: 









the power feed worm wheel 




Leadscrew off. Slight bend, but it doesn't seem to be interfering. I'll check again when I can have full travel on the table without binding on the crud.




Then I could , with some blue in the face grunting, lift the saddle off the universal pivot and put it on a stool. Someone had painted EVERYTHING, including the swivel bearing surface. Loctite Chisel paint stripper is the most effective stuff I've found on this industrial paint.

First pass with the stripper. Nearly completely removed all of the paint. Just one more light pass and it's over. 







Hey look, there's a bronze bearing under that paint!




Some scoring on the thrust area of the bearing. Looks like some raised metal. A chunk of something must have gotten in there. It might have raised the metal enough to push the spindle forwards enough to give me 0.002" too much side play in the rest of the bearing. I'll try to find some specs on a similar spindle on a lathe or something and think about that. It seems to turn well and smoothly, I might just run it and try it out. That key goes into the large back gear. The bolt in the slot on the gear engages a slot in the step pulley.







Yet to be cleaned vertical attachment. Can't remember the brand, but it's American, so wasn't original for this machine.




Dividing head that came in a 150 lb milk crate with the machine. How can you tell it used to live in a welding shop? 







Now, I've got to clean the mixture of dust, oil, and chips out of the t-slot that have solidified into some kind of industrial fruit-cake. It's got the consistency of hard dried mud, and actually has some mud in it. I've got a bunch of stuff to get out of the bolt slots in the upper saddle too, with no good access to get a scraping tool in there. I'm thinking of taking the table and upper saddle to the car wash and getting some pressure involved. I'll bring the bottle of wd40 with me to displace the water when I'm done. Good idea? Bad idea?


----------



## digiex_chris (Oct 10, 2014)

In general I'm finding very little wear. Mostly just dirt locking things in place. There's still the remnants of scrape marks on most surfaces. It was a little hard to recognise at first because with the very (very!) light mottling from age related corrosion, it looks like it was scraped, but not flaked. I had to compare with my lathe's scraped t-slot plate to realize it.


----------



## digiex_chris (Oct 14, 2014)

Since I forgot my camera card full of pictures of the status of the machine at home I thought I'd write a bit about what my goals were for this project. I don't necessarily want a brand new looking machine, I just want 100% functionality out of it. My plan was to completely dissassemble and clean everything. I wanted to unstick any stuck fasteners or shafts to halt any futher deterioration that might later make it impossible to remove pulleys or taper pins. I wanted to clean out all of the oil passages and get all of the grit out from under the slides. And if the slides or spindle bearings were severely worn, scrape them into true again. I was planning on 3 dissassemblies. The first to clean, reassemble, adjust, and test. The second to scrape, reassemble, and test, and the third to paint it. It's fully dissassembled, paint stripped from the precision surfaces, cleaned, and reassembled. It looks like there is extremely little wear. I may be able to skip the second dissassembly and scraping, the machine is in a state that is far exceeding my expectations! WIth the gibs snugged down, none of the slides tighten up at the ends!

While cleaning the dials, I realized ithey're graduated for .125 per turn! It's going to be tough wrapping my head around that one. I'm so used to .100 and .200 per turn dials. 

There is so many projects waiting for a milling machine that I might stop here and use it for a bit as is. 

Did some research on that dividing head, looks like The Garvin Machine Co was around between 1889 and 1925, and since this mill was sold to 3 different people and included that dividing head each time, I suppose it's possible the machine is that old too.

http://www.waltergrutchfield.net/garvin.htm

Now I need to go read "Care and Feeding of your Flat Belt"


----------



## digiex_chris (Oct 16, 2014)

Picture time! 

Table off, leadscrew off, a look at the power feed gear. Well protected by grunge.




Underside of the table. No wonder the ends were hard to crank.




The guy painting it didn't remove the chain before painting. I was unsure it was safe to lift here, but apparently they did it. I lifted around the protrusion under the rear spindle and under the vertical attachment.




Drive system back on. Gotta replace those bearing blocks, they're open, packed with crap, and impossible to clean.




Spindle drive and the sad degrading rubber/fabric belt




Bolt to engage/disengage the gear from the step pulleys for enabling back gear




Back gear shaft and eccentric lever




Mouse house in the magnetic starter. Wired it back up, rewired the motor 220, and it works!




Knee and saddle handles, right at knee smashing height. It's an ok height if you run it while sitting on a stool. 




Silly dial graduations







Table back on. I'd installed it backwards first, and it wouldn't slide on well. THought it was weird, pulled it off, swung it around, and it slid on with just hand pressure. Then I noticed the power feed wedge, which tells me which way was correct. 





Not a scar on the table! Those holes have set screws, they're oil holes.




Closeup of that vertical attachment. No. 1 1/2 News, Yamatokoki Mfg. Co. Ltd., Tokyo, Japan.




First test cuts using the terrible, made by welder, vise. It cut like nothing was happening. Had no audible or vibrational indication that a cut was underway. I REALLY like the rigidity of the machine. The vertical head howls a bit though, in one direction but not the other. It's still due to come apart.





Time to make a mess and make something to install the drip oilers




Drip oiler installed




I still have to strip, install, and inspect the over-arm, strip and clean the dividing head, and strip and figure out the howl in the vertical head. I need to confirm the vertical head is centered on the spindle correctly first, because it's not registering on anything, it's just bolted to the face. I'm going to install two dowel pins to locate it once I've adjusted it into perfect alignment.


----------



## digiex_chris (Jan 29, 2015)

several months and after a pile of broken endmills getting used to a mill stiff enough that it doesn't even make a noise to tell you you're pushing too hard, I decided to do something about the facts that 1) my horziontal taper doesn't match my vertical taper and 2) the horizontal taper is an oddball taper and isn't in great shape.

The vertical attachment with an NMTB 40 spindle has been extremely handy, but it doesn't have a lot of spindle to table space. I've started gathering some NMTB 40 tooling. I was going to try to bore the horizontal taper to fit a straight cylinder to MT4 adapter inside as a press and loctite fit, but I changed my mind and decided to take advantage of the threaded spindle end that's used to mount chucks. It's a 3.5" back, with a 2.5" 10 TPI thread.

This started out as a 4.5" chunk of 4140 HTSR. My poor little 10" Craftex lathe didn't go slow enough. At a .020" depth of cut, I made it work. The thread was some work too. Then I took the cross slide and compound off the lathe, clamped it down to the mill table, and bored the taper right on the mill. Then with a few grades of emery paper, I smoothed out the machining marks.

I grabbed my most trustworthy endmill holder, blued it up like I'd done in the past when scraping in a T-slot plate, and using scraping techniques but with the emery cloth on a stick, scraped in the taper to be a fit that surprised me. Best taper lock I've got in any of my machines, next to maybe the vertical attachment. Nearly perfect.

I'm quite pleased. Lots of work, but it was worth it. Now I can use modern tooling in the horizontal spindle. just waiting on a good cobalt tap (because I'm scared of tapping that metal with my old dull carbon taps).












Gotta make a wrench that fits over those NMTB40 lugs in case I manage to get it stuck on there...

Couple more pictures of it working

Breaking a slitting saw




Trying out a roughing end mill as deep as I could




Adapter chuck adapter for the dividing head that came with it, The dividing head is all cleaned and put back together




Almost the first thing I did with it was make a few QCTP holders




Nice and level, so that I could use the level to set stuff up in the vise. I haven't once done that, but at least coolant flows to the correct table drain.


----------



## Ulma Doctor (Jan 29, 2015)

i had not seen this manufacturer before this thread.
Excellent work!
it looks like the kind of thing i would buy if were ever to come my way!!!
nice machine


----------



## Downwindtracker2 (Jan 29, 2015)

The mill I worked in had a Denbigh camel back drill press. At the closing down auction it went for couple of hundred, I got a Delta Toolmaker surface grinder. It had been sold by Ackhurst. They are still in business.


----------

