American Pacemaker lathe

dmort said:
You mentioned Kearney & Trecker and it rang a bell...first I thought turret lathes or maybe milling machines. Well, milling machines it was but not what I was looking for.

The table mills I ran had the horizontal and vertical controls on the spindle side of the mill.The table was deep enough to mount a steam turbine case end to end.

I have had no luck on line finding a picture let alone a brand name.

Things come back at odd times and the light might come on tonight when I get up for the second time to take a whiz. I will be sure and let you know.
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That sounds like a big Lucas horizontal I ran for a few years
 
Image064.jpg found pic with the spindle hanging out facing some pads on a table
 
dmort said:
That is hanging out there. Do you remember what the spindle size was?
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I think it was a #6 mt and about 6inch diameter.
No it had to have been a little bigger Morse tapper then that ?
Maybe an 8mt it had a double slot in it one for the drift and one for the key/retaining pin.
Sorry it been about 7-8 years
 
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That weldment I had on the table was a table about 20 feet long that needed pads milled on the same plane.
I had it standing up for part of the ops and supported it with a crane.
Feed controls in one hand and the Crane in the other.
 
This shop had three leblonde lathes the middle sized one had a 9"spindle bore and we put a four jaw on the outboard acasionaly
Tha is where I got to run the leblonde lathes and they are nice.
I remember facing some parts that u could wring together they were so flat.
 
Large milling machines

I know it's easy to forget things after you have been away from the job awhile. Don't mean to alarm you but it only gets worse!

Two of the three floor mills where I worked were built by Morton and had a war finish. They also had a large square ram when extended would help support the spindle. All three machines had a platform you stood on when raising the head stock.

I preferred the smaller horizontal/boring mill because you could set or lift the work on or off the table with heavy nylon straps. Everyone had one or two of these in their roll around, and you didn't have to go looking for a rigger at night in the shipyard.

Looking for riggers at night could be a story in itself.
 
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dmort said:
I know it's easy to forget things after you have been away from the job awhile. Don't mean to alarm you but it only gets worse!

Two of the three floor mills where I worked were built by Morton and had a war finish. They also had a large square ram when extended would help support the spindle. All three machines had a platform you stood on when raising the head stock.

I preferred the smaller horizontal/boring mill because you could set or lift the work on or off the table with heavy nylon straps. Everyone had one or two of these in their roll around, and you didn't have to go looking for a rigger at night in the shipyard.

Looking for riggers at night could be a story in itself.
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Then I'm in trouble because I'm still on the job just not in that shop.
I'm doing cnc mill work on a mazak now.
 
Mazak milling machines

I did a search and Mazak has several plants with one in the U.S. Just watching the manufacturing process was amazing.

What is the model of your machine? I'm pretty sure I can find it on line.
 
dmort said:
I did a search and Mazak has several plants with one in the U.S. Just watching the manufacturing process was amazing.

What is the model of your machine? I'm pretty sure I can find it on line.
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The machine I'm running now is a VTC 300 C with the 48 tool capacity.
I believe
 
Mazak

cloudrepair said:
The machine I'm running now is a VTC 300 C with the 48 tool capacity.
I believe
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Found one real easy. Watched a couple in operation and the feeds and speeds are way up there....amazing stuff.

Some of the milling tools looked like everyday stuff, and if so do you sharpen them in house?
 
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dmort said:
Found one real easy. Watched a couple in operation and the feeds and speeds are way up there....amazing stuff.

Some of the milling tools looked like everyday stuff, and if so do you sharpen them in house?
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No the only grinder we have is a diamond wheel on a pedestal we use for relieving tools
 
Machine tools

Most of our mill tooling was high speed stuff, and you could turn it in to be resharpened.

I have a small collection of carbide inserts in my Kennedy box but I don't remember what I used them for.

Most of the lathe tools were high speed/cobalt and you ground them yourself. I have everything from 3/4 down to 1/4 inch. The 1/4 inch was for boring bars for sure.

Sometimes a job would come into the shop with the instructions "manufacture as per sample". It could be a scored shaft, damaged key way, stripped threads or whatever. The in house joke was too make the part, beat the crap out of it, and then send it out to the ship "as per sample". Of course, we never did it.
 
dmort said:
Most of our mill tooling was high speed stuff, and you could turn it in to be resharpened.

I have a small collection of carbide inserts in my Kennedy box but I don't remember what I used them for.

Most of the lathe tools were high speed/cobalt and you ground them yourself. I have everything from 3/4 down to 1/4 inch. The 1/4 inch was for boring bars for sure.

Sometimes a job would come into the shop with the instructions "manufacture as per sample". It could be a scored shaft, damaged key way, stripped threads or whatever. The in house joke was too make the part, beat the crap out of it, and then send it out to the ship "as per sample". Of course, we never did it.
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Ya it's always fun making a part from an existing one especially when it's broken and I've seen many of those. 90 percent of the stuff I get now has a parasolid/cad file to make it from. Or I have a print i can draw up a solid from.
99 percent of the tools are carbide that I use at work.
 
cloudrepair said:
Ya it's always fun making a part from an existing one especially when it's broken and I've seen many of those. 90 percent of the stuff I get now has a parasolid/cad file to make it from. Or I have a print i can draw up a solid from.
99 percent of the tools are carbide that I use at work.
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I had to look up parasolid and I'm aware of CAD but it pretty much ends right there.

The new technology is pretty impressive.

One of the things I could still do with a little practice is scrape. When I was done it was not only flat but nice to look at. Different machinists had their own pattern and my were shaped like a bird feather. Wide at the bottom and tapered to the top. Some guys put a little hook to it and it would look like a sail. I still have my scraper but it's dull from years of cleaning gasket material.
 
dmort said:
I had to look up parasolid and I'm aware of CAD but it pretty much ends right there.

The new technology is pretty impressive.

One of the things I could still do with a little practice is scrape. When I was done it was not only flat but nice to look at. Different machinists had their own pattern and my were shaped like a bird feather. Wide at the bottom and tapered to the top. Some guys put a little hook to it and it would look like a sail. I still have my scraper but it's dull from years of cleaning gasket material.
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Scraping is somthing I haven't done.
Not sure how it is done either but interested.
 
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