# Before after pics of an Alexander Master Toolmaker Mill



## bob135 (Jan 15, 2017)

Hi , Heres a few photos of an Alexander master toolmaker mill that i picked up cheap(at least in the UK) last summer ,spent 3 months doing it up and quite pleased with the results of what should be a great upgrade for me from a Seig type mini mill. The alexander were made under license from Deckel until WW2 but still made up until around 1960`s,mine was made in 1953.
Bob


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## francist (Jan 15, 2017)

Beautiful job.

-frank


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## bob135 (Jan 15, 2017)

Thanks


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## petertha (Jan 15, 2017)

Very nice. I really appreciate the effort people like you put into these projects restored to bring their former glory (or better). I've never actually seen a mill like that before - all the different ways you can orient the table to spindle. Seems very functional. Did you have to much in the way of way scraping or modernizing the electrics? What kind of tooling (shank) fits machines of this vintage?


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## FOMOGO (Jan 15, 2017)

She's a beauty. Looks like you but a lot of hours into it. Mike


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## tweinke (Jan 15, 2017)

Very nice!!


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## Bill Gruby (Jan 15, 2017)

Very impressive work on a very impressive Mill.

 "Billy G"


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## bob135 (Jan 15, 2017)

Thanks guys,.
Petertha. I havent used the original electrics,as it was all 440V stuff and the original motor was an enormous 2 speed job and water damaged .Im just powering it off an inverter drive at 220v 3 ph and a 2 HP  GE electric washdown motor which i bought cheap as it was ex military surplus.
I must have been lucky as all the slideways etc,, were virtually unworn. The spindle takes 4 MT tooling . They often come with more accessories like a seperate high speed head (with seperate motor), a slotting head and other stuff like a dividing head ,but mine didnt have those. Though the overhead arm and arbor for horizontal milling was there.
Basically you can do almost anything on them within reason, only weakpoints are not a massive amount of headroom between table and spindle  and short quill travel. They only take up about 3ft x 3ft of floor space.
You can read more about them here:
http://www.lathes.co.uk/alexander/index.html


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## Ulma Doctor (Jan 15, 2017)

wonderful restoration!
did you scrape the surfaces? they look nicely finished!!


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## FOMOGO (Jan 15, 2017)

That was a good read. Very versatile machine. I'm guessing, now starts the search for accessories, or maybe creating them. Good hunting, or I guess as they say in your neck of the woods, tallyho.  Mike


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## HBilly1022 (Jan 15, 2017)

WOW, very impressive work!!!


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## mksj (Jan 15, 2017)

Truly amazing piece of machinery and a beautiful restoration. It really makes one appreciate how machines were made in the past and the versatility of their designs. Although this one is the first I have seen of this kind. Thank you for posting.


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## TomS (Jan 15, 2017)

Nice job!  Actually too nice.  Now bolt a vise to the table, clamps a piece of metal in there, smother it with cutting oil and start making chips.  No one likes a machine as clean as yours.  LOL

Tom S.


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## rwm (Jan 15, 2017)

Gosh that's beautiful. In the first pic I though it was made of wood....
R


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## bob135 (Jan 16, 2017)

Ulma Doctor said:


> wonderful restoration!
> did you scrape the surfaces? they look nicely finished!!


There was minimal wear to the sliding surfaces, which was good because scraping surfaces is beyond my experience.
Heres a few photos of the surfaces during restoration.You can see the gear stick used for x and z axis power feed . The only real issue was quite a bit of backlash on the x axis lead screw /nut. I do plan on making a new nut at some point and getting a dro,so the issue wont be much of a problem.


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## Uglydog (Jan 16, 2017)

Amazing machine!!

Daryl
MN


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## Chipper5783 (Jan 18, 2017)

Hi Bob, you have done a great job with the Alexander.  I'm a Maho man, MH 600 - which is probably the same size as your machine - very close to the FP1.  The search of the attachments is endless.  I was fortunate to get my original machine with most of the attachments and a bit of tooling, then landed a second machine nearly identical to the first with a couple more attachments.  I am still looking for the high speed head and the measuring tools specific to the punch milling attachment.

I find it a great machine to use.  Yes head room is an issue, so when the opportunity came up I a bought Cincinnati knee mill.


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## chips&more (Jan 18, 2017)

You do nice work! And nice mill too!


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## bob135 (Jan 18, 2017)

Chipper5783 said:


> Hi Bob, you have done a great job with the Alexander.  I'm a Maho man, MH 600 - which is probably the same size as your machine - very close to the FP1.  The search of the attachments is endless.  I was fortunate to get my original machine with most of the attachments and a bit of tooling, then landed a second machine nearly identical to the first with a couple more attachments.  I am still looking for the high speed head and the measuring tools specific to the punch milling attachment.
> 
> I find it a great machine to use.  Yes head room is an issue, so when the opportunity came up I a bought Cincinnati knee mill.




Hi David, yes the Maho are similar in design but i believe the way the different attachments go on is different from the Alexander and Deckel. I dont want to get into a constant search for attachments as it gets really expensive and i dont really need them for my strictly hobby use.  There is an Alexander dividing head on ebay at the moment but its at the other end of the country from me and missing the arm and tailstock.  I think ill manage with the small dividing head and small rotary table i have. The guy i bought the Alexander from was selling the slotting head seperately for more than i paid for the basic machine with a few bits of tooling ,i said no thanks!
Is yours 4MT and what sort of tool holders are you using if it is???  I got a few bits like shell mill arbor , clarkson chuck with a few collets,etc... all MT4 . Also the collet adapter and a few collets  with the 20mm x 2 thread.
Heres a photo of the only bits i got with mine ,some bits i dont know what they are for such as the round flat (faceplates???) with the slots across.
I did get the original manual with notes on it telling the date it was made/sold and who to(a watch and aircraft clock/dial making company  called Louis Newmark).


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## Reeltor (Jan 18, 2017)

I have to join in to say that your restoration makes the mill look like it just came off the manufacturer's line.  Truly a beautiful machine.


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## Firestopper (Jan 18, 2017)

Beautiful job! That machine looks like she came off the assembly floor.

Someone been trying to sell this machine on CL in Tucson . I thought some of you might appreciate it.
* DECKEL FP1 Horizontal Milling Machine - $2000  hide this posting*
image 1 of 23


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## Chipper5783 (Jan 18, 2017)

bob135 said:


> Is yours 4MT and what sort of tool holders are you using if it is???  I got a few bits like shell mill arbor , clarkson chuck with a few collets,etc... all MT4 . Also the collet adapter and a few collets  with the 20mm x 2 thread.
> Heres a photo of the only bits i got with mine ,some bits i dont know what they are for such as the round flat (faceplates???) with the slots across.
> I did get the original manual with notes on it telling the date it was made/sold and who to(a watch and aircraft clock/dial making company  called Louis Newmark).



Cool that you got some history on the machine as well.  I do not recognize what those round flat plates with the slots may be??

My machines are #40 taper and I have stuck with the S20x2 thread (I have a 5/8-11 drawbar but it has never been used).  It has taken me some searching, but I have U2 collets from 1/8th to 5/8 x 1/16ths (seems to be the standard imperial set) and the SK40 collets 1/8 to 1" x 1/8th and a few sub arbors and the horizontal arbors.  I like having the collets right up inside the spindle and use one of the collet arrangements almost exclusively - head room is precious on such a small machine (I often end up cutting drill bits to use with the drill chuck or reduce the shank to the nearest collet).  I would like to fill out my U2 collets x1/32nds, but those have been hard to find.  I don't have any tooling for the slotter (other than a scriber I made for engraving lines) - I'm not even sure what slotter tooling would look like.

Do you like the Clarkson holder?  I have one for my other machine, but the threaded shank end mills are less common around here.


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## petertha (Jan 18, 2017)

bob135 said:


> You can read more about them here: http://www.lathes.co.uk/alexander/index.html



Very interesting. I wish the far east cloners would have considered copying that particular format of mill. Well.. maybe with some more prevalent arbor standards as a small ask . It would sure make for a kick butt & versatile hobby machine, that's for sure.


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## Chipper5783 (Jan 18, 2017)

petertha said:


> Very interesting. I wish the far east cloners would have considered copying that particular format of mill. Well.. maybe with some more prevalent arbor standards as a small ask . It would sure make for a kick butt & versatile hobby machine, that's for sure.



They have.  You can probably still get Deckel knock offs.  I think there have been quite a few machine makers in Tiawan, China and any number of other countries in asia making this style of machine - often with some sort of German affiliation.  If you go to their web sites it is often hard to tell where the machines are made (perhaps a German company and "Head office" address in Germany, with "international" affiliates).  Of course you can still get the German offering, but they are very proud of it (cost you about 20x Grizzly's finest).


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## willthedancer (Feb 22, 2017)

Beautiful restoration!

Are you certain of the Morse taper?  Brown and Sharpe taper?

Sent from my Moto G Play using Tapatalk


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## British Steel (Feb 24, 2017)

Really nice piece of work Bob, sort of mill I'm hunting for too...
Quick question, I'm told the early Alexanders had pickoff gears to set feed rates, looks like yours has a second  'box in the column? Any idea when/if they swapped over?

Dave H. (the other one)


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## bigtrev8xl (Mar 9, 2017)

Great restoration, how did you clean the machined surfaces so well
I'm about to start a total restoration on the Palls mill
Cheers


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## brino (Mar 9, 2017)

@bob135

I guess I'm a little late to this thread, but I just had to say what an amazing job you've done restoring that mill!

Thanks for sharing the photos.
-brino


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## Ski (Mar 11, 2017)

Nice job!


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