The Home Machinist!

From overhead line shaft drive, the bearings can't take tension from below. There is so much weight in the spindle assembly, it can't ride that way. Delicate engineering to pull from the top, balancing the weight. So we have overhead motors for those. The solid round arm /OA was calculated to be sound for the operations. The round ram of a Hendey Norton #1 1/2 universal is 3 1/2" OD as was the Brown & Sharpe #2 universal. It was all different very quickly around those times. Were it not for milling machines as these and these were small ones,

Spro, I have two older B&S Mills, a 1908 #1-1/2, and a 1924 #1 they were both installed at the older school building where all shops had line shafts powered by one single electric motor near each shop. When they were transferred to the new school building, in the middle 1930's, electrical distribution had so improved that the whole school school had 3 Phase 220 volts available in all 54 shops.

All the many mills that were trucked over to the new school building were equipped with Cullman Wheel Company Overhead Drives, which was the way conversion was being done in those years for most line shaft machines.

These mills were used in the various machine shops until all shops were put out of business ending in the last closing (Auto) in 2012. They now rely solely STEM Machines in STEM Classes, which are toys!

Anyway, I did not have a Phase Converter at the time I acquired #1-1/2 so I thru away the 1930's 3 Ph and substituted a 2HP 1 Ph on the Cullman Drive.

For the #1, I thru away the Cullman Drive (I'm sorry - I buried it in the RR Rite-of-Way) and substituted an old DoAll variable speed drive I had scrapped out of a DC Generator Tester from Sun Inc.

The photos below show those two mills as they are now. The #1 is used exclusively with the H-1 Vertical Head, the #1-1/2 is used both ways.

Not shown is the 1950's B&S #2, for which by then I had acquired a rotary phase converter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-sfBZWdyPA

I used to occasionally tinker with a lathe with a Cullman drive on it. I have some pics here somewhere...

These old Dinosaurs are fun to use.

B & S. No. 10 is the spindle taper of all these but the spindle nose changed. My Hendey Norton has threaded spindle 4 TPI L. H. ( I thought that the universal dividing head shared the chuck but I believe it was a collar to retain the original arbors beyond what the drawbar could do.) A friend's Brown & Sharpe #2 universal has a tapered spindle, looking like a cone, with slots in the face. The milling arbor relied on those arbor keys to prevent the arbor taper spinning inside the spindle. So they were getting really close to compound tapers. The "cone" looked like an L 0 taper which is retained by one key and lock ring - but it was before that. It is all interesting and I really appreciate your pictures. Nice mills for sure.

Hi Glenn. I would like to see those pictures. If for no other reason, it keeps this thread alive. There were different original vertical heads that fit these mills. Some driven by a long slotted arbor and supported by the over arm. They could move forward back in Y direction. The heavier ones clamped to the face dovetails and really committed to vertical milling. They were B &S #9 or #10 at the head ( on stuff I saw). Right large fly heads and face mills on these. Still, they took out the ability to quickly go horizontal. The independent motor heads which clamped to the OA can be swung away for horizontal milling. Some of the head attachments have bores of 5 1/4", 4 1/2" . And that isn't even "J" heads. The tech was moving high speed and the base could support it.

They don't make em like that anymore; built to last. The guy who ran that mill in 1908 is not around anymore.