Info on Sheldon Vernon horizontal mills

[TomKro]

I was concerned the edge of the collet might hang up since it sits back a little bit.
I'd hate to damage the spindle. Repair or replacement could be time consuming / expensive.

Do you happen to have an idea of the proper torque required for the drawbar to prevent spinning? I'm guessing what's being cut, cutter size, and the feed/speed have a lot to do with what is "right". Just wondering what's a reasonable general purpose torque.

Thanks for the feedback.

 

[geckocycles]

It doesn't take much to tighten them but I have to wack the drawbar pretty good a few times to loosen them. Guess that would be expected with such a slight taper.

Something isn't right with your 3/4 collet. It shouldn't stick out that much at all. LMS has #9 collets too.

 

[Apostle10]

It doesn't take much to tighten them but I have to wack the drawbar pretty good a few times to loosen them. Guess that would be expected with such a slight taper.

Something isn't right with your 3/4 collet. It shouldn't stick out that much at all. LMS has #9 collets too.

My Sheldon Mill was delivered yesterday. I've been busy getting the cutting oil and grease off in prep for a repaint job. Right off I found that the arbor is stuck in the taper. I've applied the best of penetrating oils, taped on the draw bar (when backed out slightly) and even taped side-to-side using a wooden block to hopefully break the "taper weld." No luck thus far. Any suggestions?

Secondly, on the left side of the mill, there are two "plugs" - one says OIL and the other says GREASE. Are these plugs meant to screw out? There is a long and quite narrow slit in each plug.

Thirdly, I can't seem to get the "Backgear/Direct" feed lever to move. Does the machine have to be running to move this per chance? Label instructions suggest so, but why?

Fourthly, I had to remove the belts from the lower "Reeves type drive" in order to crank the spindle. Is the Reeves drive very difficult to crank? I suspect I have some work to do down there )

Any and all comments and suggestions are welcomed.

I'll be un-crating and sorting through the cutters and tooling that came with the mill tonight.






Sorry but I don't see how to rotate these images :angry:


Mike
Charlottesville, VA

 

[TomKro]

geckocycles:
I picked up the Hardinge collet off e-bay when I couldn't find anything else. I thought I'd use a straight shank collet holder to at least have something to work with.

Thanks for the info about LMS. I think LMS prices are a just a little less than what I paid from an e-bay vendor.

 

[geckocycles]

Nice score.
I have very little experience with these machines hence being on here learning too. I can tell you that my variable speed dial works VERY easily. If it wasn't for change in speed sound I wouldn't have thought it was doing anything at all.

Don't assume because it has a "grease zerk" that is for putting grease in. I had a machine that I greased to death and it still was tight as hell especially if it was below 60. Later found out that it needed to be flushed and way oil put in. What goes in these I don't know. My guy is different too but has the same roots.

 

[TomKro]

Mike:

Looks like a nice find. I see you have the newer model with the wider table. I have the older one, and don't see the plugs you mentioned. There's a manual for that newer model somewhere on line. If you can't find it, let me know, I should have the pdf file somewhere.

As to that arbor... You may want to try knocking it out with a soft metal bar. Most of the collets I've seen are hardened pretty decently, so maybe just some cheep/soft all thread would be OK to bang on a little.

As to the back gear, the warning plate on the older model also indicates to engage in low speed.

Not sure what's going on with your speed crank. My unit moves easily with the belt off. I though the crank was used to change the distance between the driver/driven shafts. Best to look inside, check the location of the travel stop nuts, and lube the heck out of it before forcing anything.

Best of luck getting it up and running.
TomKro

 

[David M]

My Sheldon Mill was delivered yesterday. I've been busy getting the cutting oil and grease off in prep for a repaint job. Right off I found that the arbor is stuck in the taper. I've applied the best of penetrating oils, taped on the draw bar (when backed out slightly) and even taped side-to-side using a wooden block to hopefully break the "taper weld." No luck thus far. Any suggestions?

Secondly, on the left side of the mill, there are two "plugs" - one says OIL and the other says GREASE. Are these plugs meant to screw out? There is a long and quite narrow slit in each plug.

Thirdly, I can't seem to get the "Backgear/Direct" feed lever to move. Does the machine have to be running to move this per chance? Label instructions suggest so, but why?

Fourthly, I had to remove the belts from the lower "Reeves type drive" in order to crank the spindle. Is the Reeves drive very difficult to crank? I suspect I have some work to do down there )

Any and all comments and suggestions are welcomed.

I'll be un-crating and sorting through the cutters and tooling that came with the mill tonight.

View attachment 93783

View attachment 93784

View attachment 93786
Sorry but I don't see how to rotate these images :angry:


Mike
Charlottesville, VA

Nice machine, I've got one just like it. Not sure about those plugs, mine also has grease zerks above the spindle bearings. The plate on the side of the machine says the spindle bearings are permanently lubed....don't know, I shot a little grease in there anyway. The machine does have to be turning to engage the backgear, same with spindle speeds, is the machine running while you turn the crank? To rotate a picture, right click on the picture, click on "rotate clockwise". Usually can go counter clockwise as well. Good luck with your machine, I really like mine.

Also, I had a heck of a time getting the arbor out of mine when I got it, a combination of a drift/wedge in the front and a good whack from behind on the drawbar did it. A B&S taper is a thin wedge, a lot of mechanical advantage, and does not require much torque on the drawbar to make them tight.

 

[Apostle10]

Nice machine, I've got one just like it. Not sure about those plugs, mine also has grease zerks above the spindle bearings. The plate on the side of the machine says the spindle bearings are permanently lubed....don't know, I shot a little grease in there anyway. The machine does have to be turning to engage the backgear, same with spindle speeds, is the machine running while you turn the crank? To rotate a picture, right click on the picture, click on "rotate clockwise". Usually can go counter clockwise as well. Good luck with your machine, I really like mine.

Also, I had a heck of a time getting the arbor out of mine when I got it, a combination of a drift/wedge in the front and a good whack from behind on the drawbar did it. A B&S taper is a thin wedge, a lot of mechanical advantage, and does not require much torque on the drawbar to make them tight.

Hi David,

Tried again to rotate images using your suggestion. Didn't work. That is the way I rotate images while working on my 'puter and I'd rotated them prior to uploading. However, for some strange reason, the images came out as thought they'd not been rotated!

I finally got the arbor out and those two plugs out as well. The plugs were semi-rusted in place, hence the difficulty. Also got the direct/back gear to slip back and forth while turning the pulley manually.

You can see the plugs I've referred to. I've been cleaning the machine and you can compare these two photos and see the results. Once again, the photos aer rotated, yet they're in proper orientation on my computer!!

Another surprise I found was that I have a TWO PHASE motor to deal with:



Mike

 

[TomKro]

Mike:

I didn't catch what you meant by the plugs. For some reason I thought you were talking about plugs in the base, hence my confusion.

The manual for your newer machine indicates monthly oil to the shifter shoes (rear plug) and weekly grease to the back gear (front plug). Interesting that the early machine lubrication schedule indicates six month grease lube to both these points. That's sort of odd to me, since one of my plugs says "oil" and the other "grease". I'm going to stick with oil in the rear hole, simply because there's no grease fitting in that location on my machine, and everything else that asks for grease has a fitting installed.

Here's the full schedule:
Daily oil to arbor support bearing, gear box, worm wheel, worm and shaft (table drive)
Weekly oil to feed screw pilot. Weekly grease to back gear and cross feed nut.
Monthly oil to shifter shoes and elevating hand wheel shaft. Monthly grease to front and rear bearings .

Sorry to hear about your 2 phase motor. I'm guessing you'll be in the market for a 120/240 single phase motor.

As to pictures, if you're running a Microsoft computer, you can try dropping the pics into paint, then you can rotate, crop and resize as needed.

Glad you managed to get the arbor out, hopefully without any damage.

TomKro

 

[David M]

Mike,
Who's got two phase power these days? I never would have expected to see that. The plugs on the side of my machine are in the same places as yours but look a little different than yours, kind of a button head hex, the back one says "oil" and the front one says "grease". I see yours has the grease fittings by the spindle bearings too. Glad you got the arbor out, did you get the Reeves drive thing figured out?

Tom,
Thanks for the lube info. I didn't get a manual with mine either. I found one for the older model, should print of a copy, would be better than nothing.