Cincinnati Toolmaster 1-A

[allamateur]

1B owner here. Following along looking to pick up all I can.

My belt isn't too bad to adjust as long as I give it enough slack.

Someday I hope to go to a VFD. Really interested in how you feel after getting done.


BTW, how did you figure out the year?

Still mulling electrical things over. I think the belt tensioning setup on my 1-A gets caught before it can give me the last inch or so I need to move the bottom belt around, maybe I just have to hammer on it to get it forward.
The year can be figured out using the serial number on the front of the column, at the top of the V-way and this link here: http://www.lathes.co.uk/cincinnati/page9.html
Mine starts with 6J1V5E, the 5E corresponding to 1957.
Also my circuit interrupter has the date it was installed or made stamped on it as May 1 1957.

As far as the quill locking deflection goes, it's worse than I feared. I checked the quill deflection when fully extended and not locked, there's about 0.0025" deflection (at least, to the left, away from the quill lock). I didn't plan on doing any milling with the quill extended, but it may still rattle around in there while retracted. Plus drilling may be extra inaccurate now. As for the spindle inside the quill, there's about 0.0008" - 0.001" deflection with the quill retracted. Seems like a whole lot...Kinda down on it as it seems I bought quite a lemon.

 

[Gnpenning]

Sorry to hear that. Anyway to tighten it up?

What is the plan?


Thanks for the decoder. 1955.

 

[Phil_C]

If you decide to part it out, let me know what you'd want for the Y axis drive!
But for a 60 odd YO machine that doesn't seem bad to me for what I imagine you have in it.

The contactor and disconnect in the panel on mine were also dated mine mid 63.

the VDF I thought I'd just run them at 100% since the motors were old and not made for VFD's but those motors are really well made and seem in very good shape so I find I use the spindle drive a good bit.

 

[allamateur]

Sorry to hear that. Anyway to tighten it up?

What is the plan?


Thanks for the decoder. 1955.

I think I'm going to live with it for the moment. I think the mini mill had similar run out at 0.001". After getting used to it and seeing the limitations, I may take the head off and apart to see what surfaces would need looking at. The quill deflection is probably due to wear in the head's bore itself which I would have no idea how to tackle. The runout would probably mean a spindle grind which is also beyond me and expensive to have done. But opening it up may expose a simple locking nut or something that's done too loose or too tight, maybe I get lucky and the fix is something like that but probably not.

If you decide to part it out, let me know what you'd want for the Y axis drive!
But for a 60 odd YO machine that doesn't seem bad to me for what I imagine you have in it.

The contactor and disconnect in the panel on mine were also dated mine mid 63.

the VDF I thought I'd just run them at 100% since the motors were old and not made for VFD's but those motors are really well made and seem in very good shape so I find I use the spindle drive a good bit.

Yup I only have $2k in it after delivery, it was a sweet little $1600 which seems rare for a mill nowadays looking online at the usual places. Of course auctions have $1 mills but I'm not a millwright that can fix a rusted wreck. I had no idea the y-drives were so rare, I'll keep that in mind when I trade you it for a new mill!
But thanks for the reassurance, it helps to hear this isn't far out from normal. All these motors are rated for 440V, which I've read is as good as being inverter-rated in terms of insulation. Not sure if I trust that, so I'm still going to try to get used to changing belts!

 

[RandyWilson]

It's very concerning that you had to shim the head. That is not a Cinci trait.

 

[allamateur]

It's very concerning that you had to shim the head. That is not a Cinci trait.

It was out about 0.005" front to back over the 10" width of the table. I got it to 0.001" via plastic shims and called it good enough. I intend to check it with a ground parallel as well (more likely have to buy some long ground stock/specialty large parallels that cover more of the width of the table than a standard parallel), but didn't think of the irregularities in the table when doing the initial tramming. For all I know that 0.005" was in the table itself.

 

[Phil_C]

It's very concerning that you had to shim the head. That is not a Cinci trait.

Glad to hear that, in my research I didn't see that as a concern. I haven't done all the measurements I should but so far the only thing I found was the Y gib was bottomed out and if I ran the able only the way to one side I could deflect it a few thousands. I put a .006 shim behind it and after over adjusting it a few times to "set" it in, I adjusted then reran the test and got rid of that.

 

[Gnpenning]

Hopefully you are up and running now.

Did yours come with a selection of collets or anything else?

The power feeds and DRO are on my wish list.

 

[allamateur]

Hopefully you are up and running now.

Did yours come with a selection of collets or anything else?

The power feeds and DRO are on my wish list.

Yup I have it ghetto-rigged for the moment, only powering the spindle motor so I can take test cuts. The VFD is wired at the back to the leads from the motor switch, which is indeed odd as it has 4 leads coming out. 2 of them go to one terminal in the long column of motor inputs on the right hand side at the back panel, so I put those same 2 into one terminal of the VFD output. I didn't use the switch at all, just switched it to FWD before plugging in the VFD and let the current go through it, as I didn't want to take that mess apart.

I took maybe 20-30 thou face cut with a 1/2" carbide rougher and then tried 20-30 thou side milling on one side of a test piece of 1018 cold rolled steel.
It hummed along without a complaint, every now and then some mild belt noise but it's probably about as quiet as the mini-mill was. Great cuts, easy going, no discernible heat in the motor nor VFD. I'm stoked on it. Some discernible lines between passes moving in the Y direction, so it's likely that I just took it out of tram by shimming it, or just didn't hit proper level when I did shim it.

Yes by the way, it came with one collet, size 1-1/8". Also an Alliant mill manual from the 80s or 90s...I think the guys who sold it had tightened the nut on that collet without anything in it, because it won't fit my 1-1/8" shank shell mill no matter how hard I push on it. DRO is somewhere down the line, for now I'm just over the moon that it works.
Question: what do you guys find is the limit of your machines? In terms of the size of endmills you can use, the kinds of passes you can take, etc. The spindle is so big, I just want to throw a huge endmill in there and take .200" passes but I'm still in the honeymoon phase clearly.

 

[Gnpenning]

Glad you got it going. Since I'm green with machining I error on the side of caution and make small cuts. I have no idea what it's capable of, I just know compared to the BP I've seen it appears to have more mass. I will have to check on the largest collet I have, I believe it is over an inch. I think I played with a 3/4" mill, I can double check that. I hate breaking things, parts aren't overly easy to find or cheap. Since I'm not production I figure the time it takes to make extra passes is much less than repair time and for me not worth the risk.

Edit, the picture says 1 1/4". I will double check.

I saw your post looking for collets after my last reply. I found some in eBay half way reasonable awhile back. I found a MT2 adapter since I have some MT2 drill bits that also fit the tail stock of my lathe. Luckily mine came with a small selection.

Hopefully someone else can give more information. I look forward to learning more.