# 'Dual Dragon' Vintage Machining Centre



## Gary Ayres (Sep 18, 2014)

Hello.

This thread will document a project in which two vintage horizontal milling machines will be combined to form a unique 'machining centre'. The project will be a long-term one, as I'll be developing it at my workshop in France. I only get over there three or four times a year, and when I do I have plenty of other things to keep me busy, so this thread will develop very slowly indeed.

The base of the Twin Dragon will be an old, heavy and very Gothic French cabinet. It can be seen in the picture of the second machine, below. The top of it will be reinforced by a slab of thick plywood (stained and varnished) upon which the machines will sit. From the front, the machine on the left will be the recently restored Burke No.0 which was the subject of another thread . Here it is:




To the right of the Burke will sit a very interesting antique Swiss seven-headed machine which I bought in England earlier this year. I believe it came from a watch or clock factory in Switzerland and I suspect it isn't far off two hundred years old. One of the beauties of this machine is that a workpiece can be run past seven different cutters - all set to different positions - in succession:




Both machines will be powered by one motor. Because the spindles of the seven-headed mill are in 'parallel' and are also adjustable in two axes, the drive for the system will be quite complicated and will involve numerous idler pulleys, a serpentine belt and a counterweighted tensioning arm. The oak post which is just visible in the above picture will be the main support for the motor and drive, and may be braced by fixing to the wall. Other cross-beams will also be required, and the whole thing will be quite a contraption. I'm not sure yet whether to use the old single-phase motor and countershaft that I have, or to add a touch of hi-tech with a three-phase motor and inverter.

When the Twin Dragon is complete it should be a versatile setup for the milling, grinding, drilling and goodness knows what else of small workpieces. But when it will be complete I do not know...


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## JimDawson (Sep 18, 2014)

This sounds like a very interesting project.  I'll be watching the progress with interest.  I love that 100 year old machining center.


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## Gary Ayres (Sep 18, 2014)

*Re: Dual Dragon' Vintage Machining Centre*

Cheers Jim. I hope it doesn't take me 100 years to build it...


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## 12bolts (Sep 18, 2014)

After seeing your Burke Shaper rebuild this should be pretty impressive

cheers Phil


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## Gary Ayres (Sep 19, 2014)

Thanks Phil.

It will certainly be a challenge, and a learning experience.


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## Don B (Sep 19, 2014)

That will look great Gary, the cabinet sure suits the machines or vice versa, either way it will be a nice project and something quit pleasant to look at, how old is the cabinet do you think?


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## Gary Ayres (Sep 19, 2014)

Cheers, Don.

Yes - it will be a real Goth-looking bit of kit when it's done.

I'm no antiquarian, but I'd say the cabinet is pretty old, though not ancient. Maybe 100 years? That's a wild guess though. There's a big charity shop near my place in France where you can pick up old French furniture really cheaply. This cost me 30 euros. If I was into plundering the cultural heritage of a country for profit I could bring a piece back with me in the van every time I go and sell it in Guernsey at a profit - but I'm not.

Thinking about that reminds me of when I lived in Nova Scotia in the 1980's, and made a couple of trips to New York where I saw lots of mid-century retro bits and pieces from Canada for sale in trendy Greenwich Village shops. Didn't seem quite right...


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## mattthemuppet2 (Sep 19, 2014)

whoa

you know what your problem is Gary - you need to be more ambitious! Ha, I'm struggling to even understand how it'll all go together. So, please take more holidays in France


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## Gary Ayres (Sep 19, 2014)

Heh...

I have no idea how it will all go together either.

I'm not worried about that - I'll make it up as I go along, and - in principle - it will all work out.

I have done quite a bit of thinking - and taken advice - about the serpentine drive for the seven-headed beastie. The rest is detail. But we all know that that's where the devil is. And then there's the 200 years or so that it will take me to build it.

Watch this space. For a long time...


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## Gary Ayres (Sep 20, 2014)

Chuckorlando - thanks for the like on the first post.


I have decided to change the name of this rig from 'Twin Dragon' to _*Dual Dragon*_.

It's more accurate as the the two machines are different from each other (apologies to all non-identical twins out there).

It also has a better ring to it.

So there's some progress already...   )


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## 12bolts (Sep 20, 2014)

Gary Ayres said:


> I have decided to change the name of this rig from 'Twin Dragon' to _*Dual Dragon*_.......It also has a better ring to it.... )



Will they fight to the death or something? 

Cheers Phil


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## Gary Ayres (Sep 20, 2014)

Probably... with the two of them ganging up on me, that is. I think they will win...


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## Ulma Doctor (Sep 20, 2014)

I have no doubt that you'll make this one look as good as the last!!!
thanks for sharing
mike)


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## Gary Ayres (Sep 21, 2014)

Gary Ayres said:


> Probably... with the two of them ganging up on me, that is. I think they will win...



Mike -

thanks for the vote of confidence. It encourages me.

If the Dual Dragon ends up looking like it does in my mind's eye, it should look good.

I think that machines - first and foremost - have to _work_. However, they also need to look good. A big part of looking good arises from them being efficient and suited to purpose without unnecessary elaboration and frills. However, aesthetic choices can be made - within the boundaries of functionality - in terms of colour, texture, form and so on.

My sense is that virtually anyone would do better work on what s/he perceives to be a beautiful machine than on an ugly one, even if there was no difference in functionality.

Cheers,  

gary


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## Gary Ayres (Sep 21, 2014)

Gary Ayres said:


> machines - first and foremost - have to _work_. However, they also need to look good. A big part of looking good arises from them being efficient and suited to purpose without unnecessary elaboration and frills. However, aesthetic choices can be made - within the boundaries of functionality - in terms of colour, texture, form and so on.



For example, look at the beautiful work done by this guy (via my Pinterest page).


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## Ulma Doctor (Sep 22, 2014)

Gary Ayres said:


> For example, look at the beautiful work done by this guy (via my Pinterest page).




wow!!!!
that is a beautiful piece of work on your pinterest page. 
i wish i had that kind of time....


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## Gary Ayres (Sep 22, 2014)

I wish I had that kind of skill...


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## CoopVA (Sep 22, 2014)

This should be really cool!  Keep us posted on the progress!

Subscribed.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## Gary Ayres (Sep 23, 2014)

Thanks CoopVA - I will.

BTW does anyone know how I can change the title of this thread (from 'Twin Dragon' to 'Dual Dragon) if it's actually possible at all? I have clicked around all the settings but can't find anything that lets me do so...


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## JimDawson (Sep 23, 2014)

Gary Ayres said:


> Thanks CoopVA - I will.
> 
> BTW does anyone know how I can change the title of this thread (from 'Twin Dragon' to 'Dual Dragon) if it's actually possible at all? I have clicked around all the settings but can't find anything that lets me do so...



Ok, changed to Dual Dragon.  It won't change all of the post titles, but from now on it should come up as you requested.


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## Gary Ayres (Sep 23, 2014)

Wow - excellent!

Thank you Jim.


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## luckyramu (Sep 24, 2014)

Well, this looks like a very interesting project.  I can't wait for updates on the dual dragons!
Way to go, and keep up posted.

Jonathan


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## Gary Ayres (Sep 25, 2014)

Thanks Jonathan.


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## Gary Ayres (Oct 31, 2014)

Well, I have been in France for the past week and - despite having a lot of other stuff to do - managed some progress on the Dual Dragon.

The top of the cabinet needed to be reinforced, so I went for some thick plywood. I have noticed that some of the plywood they sell in France has a nice dark reddish veneer on it and - unlike the stuff they sell in the UK - looks pretty presentable as it is. So, I had a bit of that cut to size. While I was in the shop, I had an eye out for some beading to hide the edge of the plywood. Imagine my delight when I found some chunky, serrated strips of beech which look exactly like the spiny ridge that runs the full length of a dragon's back - you know, these spikes that dig into your butt when you're riding a dragon on some quest or to rescue a damsel from the top of a tower. They also happened to be exactly the same width as the edge of the plywood. I have never seen these in the UK:




I gave the plywood three coats of super-hard water-based varnish and - staying with chunky - fixed it to the top of the cabinet with hex-head coach screws before attaching the beading with round-headed brass screws. The whole thing looks a bit 'new' but I think it will tone down once it has been subjected to wear, tear, cutting oil and general machining grime:




Next, the pillar which will support the motor and drive system. This is a massive piece of oak that was one of the vertical supports for a dilapidated outbuilding that I demolished a couple of years ago. The bottom end of it had been soaked in water for quite some time as the building deteriorated, and the wood had rotted a bit and split because of that. However, the wood is fundamentally sound, heavy and hard. I dug out the rot and took it back to healthy wood. The split end will be the top of the drive support pillar because IMHO it looks good and funky and will be seen (whereas the bottom end will be hidden by the cabinet):





 I then planed and sanded the pillar (not too fussily, you understand), treated it with xylophene just to be on the safe side, gave it three coats of beeswax and buffed it up. The result is a lovely nut-brown satiny sheen:




And now to the machines. The antique Swiss seven-headed machine has had a brown colour to it since I first bought it. Because of this I thought that much of it was made of bronze. However, it's actually a finely textured layer of superficial rust. Some tentative experimentation with WD-40 and Scotch-brite revealed that the machine is made of some kind of silvery steel (I'm no metallurgist). See the spindles nearest the camera:




It seems to me that in time, and with patience, it might be possible to achieve the kind of finish that can be seen on _this _beauty. It will certainly be worth the effort as the seven-headed machine is exquisitely engineered - real Swiss quality.

Meanwhile, it would seem unfair to post a picture of one of the machines without posting one of the other, so in the interests of even-handedness here is a recent photo of the Burke No.0:




So, to get an initial sense of what the Dual Dragon will look like when it's done, I sat both machines on the cabinet and propped the pillar up behind them, all in roughly the right positions:




I may move the whole thing in due course so that I can bolt the top of the pillar to one of the oak roof trusses for extra stability.

And that, guys, is as far as I got this week. At this point I'm looking to use a three-phase motor and variable speed control. However, I'm going back to Guernsey tomorrow and won't be coming back to France until April or May next year, so nothing will happen until then. This is not short-term stuff...


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## Ulma Doctor (Oct 31, 2014)

Looking Great Gary,
the old oak post and the beading are nice touches, giving a lot of character to your work.
nice work!


the shot of your Burke looks like it could go into Vogue Magazine!
she really looks beautiful!


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## countryguy (Oct 31, 2014)

Awesome project!  Brilliant!   If you find links/info to the equipments actual history or prior uses I would love to hear about it!    Fun stuff!     CG.


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## Bill Gruby (Nov 1, 2014)

The post titles are all changed now. It is officially the Dual Dragon. Awesome project.

 "Billy G"


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## Hutch (Nov 1, 2014)

Very nice work.


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## Gary Ayres (Nov 3, 2014)

Thanks for all your comments.

@ Mike - I have just realised that I should use my DSLR more often instead of the compact...

@ countryguy - the Burke No.0 is pretty rare and the seven-headed machine is - as far as I can tell - pretty much unique. A google search for the Burke No.0 will bring up only two or three of them, one of which is mine (before and after restoration). There are lots of Burke No. 4's around but very few No.0's. The '0' is a tiny machine - smallest mill I have ever seen. It has rack and pinion lever feeds on the X and Z axes, suggesting it was designed for production manufacturing of small workpieces. I guess it's about 100 years old. I bought it from a seller in England who was unable to tell me much of its history other than the fact that it had lain untouched in his Dad's workshop for about 30 years (which means of course that it wasn't getting any wear for a third of its life). This other thread shows my restoration of the machine in some detail. As for the seven-headed mill, there doesn't seem to be any info on it anywhere on the net, and no-one I have asked knows anything about it - not even this guy. Tony Grffiths has posted some photos I sent him of it on lathes.co.uk as an unknown machine. I bought it from an amazing gentleman in the South of England who - in his 90's - is building a half-scale aeroplane. He has been an engineer all his life and had considerable contact with the watch and clock-making industry in Switzerland, which was where he acquired this machine. It appears to be designed for production runs of small workpieces, as a blank can be run past seven different spindles, all of which are fully adjustable. This would allow for repetition work as long as the workpiece was the same size and mounted to the table in the same way. My understanding is that sometimes these Swiss horological firms would make one-off machines for a particular purpose, and this could be the case here. Thanks for your interest.

@ Bill - thanks for changing the post titles. Great attention to detail in your role as a moderator. Much appreciated.


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## Gary Ayres (Nov 9, 2014)

This diagram shows how the Dual Dragon will be set up. My thanks to Mike, aka Ulma Doctor, who has been generous with his advice. His suggestion of using a drive roller strikes me as being a much better solution than the row of idlers I had previously planned to use:


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## Andre (Nov 9, 2014)

Great project so far!!!

For some reason I thought both machines would be combined into one......:jester:

That cabinet is beautiful! Even better with machines on it :biggrin:


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## Gary Ayres (Nov 10, 2014)

Thanks Andre. Glad you like.

I don't have the know-how to combine two machines, but who knows what they'll get up to when my back is turned...


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## Gary Ayres (Dec 12, 2014)

A possible revision of the concept has suggested itself. The Swiss machine is integral, but I'm considering using another machine instead of the Burke No. 0. This:




It's the head of a George Taylor vertical mill which I have just bought. Dating from the early decades of the 20th century, it has been cruelly dismembered by someone but the remains that you can see here are in superb condition. Who would do such a thing, and why? You can see here what this machine would have been like in its original form, complete with stand and flat belt drive. Drool...! It would have cost me considerably more in this kind of condition, though.

I have paid for this bit of kit, but - as I live on an island - won't be collecting it until the Spring, at which time I should be able to judge whether it will work as part of the Dual Dragon in terms of scale. If it's just too big, I'll use it for something else and stick with the Burke.

If I do use The Geo. Taylor, the drive system will be interesting because one of the appealing factors is the table feed powered via that lovely cardan shaft and it would be a crime to lose that. If this machine is small enough not to unbalance the setup it may well be a better solution than the Burke, as it will give the Dual Dragon vertical as well as horzontal milling capability. Also, it is quite a dragon-like beast in its appearance. And furthermore, it would free up the dinky wee Burke Zero for something else...


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## Ulma Doctor (Dec 12, 2014)

that is one beautiful mill you have there Gary!!!!
:greenwithenvy:

She looks like she's in very good shape, not even considering her age.
you did real good Gary!!!!!


i'm sure concessions can be made to drive both mills.
 that's the beautiful part of creation- if you can see it in your head, it can be done with a plan and some effort.
i'm looking forward to seeing more!!!!
mike)


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## Ulma Doctor (Dec 12, 2014)

hey Gary,
what type of collets does the new mill use?
just curious...:thinking:


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## Gary Ayres (Dec 13, 2014)

Ulma Doctor said:


> that's the beautiful part of creation- if you can see it in your head, it can be done with a plan and some effort.
> mike)



A great philosophy, Mike. I totally agree. Where there's a will, there's a way.

Re: collets - Tony on Lathes UK says

'It is almost certain that the  miller would have been offered with a variety of spindle nose fittings  and examples have been found with a No. 2 Morse, Brown & Sharpe and  Jarno tapers - and also, incredibly, a plain bore. Almost certainly in  line with the change to anti-friction bearings the spindle was further  modified with a 26° taper to accept direct-mounting "double-split"  collets of a type not dissimilar to the modern "ER" type'.

However, a set of collets comes with the machine, as can be seen in the pictures. Here's a better view of them:




 I suspect they are the 'double split' type that he refers to.


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## Gary Ayres (Dec 21, 2014)

Or come to think of it maybe not, given that there are three splits in each collet!  :thinking:


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## Gary Ayres (Aug 22, 2015)

Managed to unearth the second oak pillar from the bottom of the woodpile. It's a restoration job in its own right! 





Have now decided to definitely use the Geo. Taylor alongside the vintage Swiss machine, and to have a go at converting the Taylor to CNC as part of the project...


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## Ulma Doctor (Aug 23, 2015)

good to hear from you again Gary!
the oak will do nicely.


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## Gary Ayres (Sep 6, 2018)

Thanks Mike (say I, after a long silence...)

I mentioned above that this will be a long-term project. I wasn't kidding. Since my last post I have changed my thinking about the Dual Dragon in the light of a bigger project I have started on, namely the installation of a small lineshaft in my workshop in France. The lineshaft will power the Dual Dragon and some other machines. The overall configuration of the DD will remain as it was (I think) but gone will be the variable speed motor as it will now take its power from the lineshaft, and the drive roller will either be connected to or will in fact be one of the lineshaft's countershafts. The videos below show how far I have got with the lineshaft:


























gary


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## DiscoDan (Sep 6, 2018)

Well, how about an update with pictures????


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## Gary Ayres (Sep 6, 2018)

DiscoDan said:


> Well, how about an update with pictures????



I guess you posted this while I was in the middle of figuring out how to add youtube videos to my post...


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