Benchmaster issue

B

bluearc

Aluminum

Joined

Sep 21, 2012

Location

pennsylvania

• Feb 13, 2016

• #1

Raising and lowering the table.Can't figure out why it is so difficult to move up or down. It seems to stick and get stuck sometimes. I loosened the gibs cleaned and oiled and still the problem exists.
Sometime in the past it looks like my machine may have been converted from a turning wheel to a simple lever to lower and raise the table.

 

JST

Diamond

Joined

Jun 16, 2001

Location

St Louis

• Feb 13, 2016

• #2

That does not look right.

Every one I have seen has the table raising crank at an angle out left side of the knee. The casting has a feature to hold the shaft and bearings.

Then also the top of the raising screw has a ball bearing.

Are you certain its a Benchmaster and not something else like a Minton or a Lewis?

 

A

Andy FitzGibbon

Diamond

Joined

Sep 5, 2005

Location

Elkins WV

• Feb 13, 2016

• #3

Looks like it was converted from lever (rack) feed to screw feed by someone. A fair number of Benchmasters were rack feed, for production use.

Andy

 

JST

Diamond

Joined

Jun 16, 2001

Location

St Louis

• Feb 13, 2016

• #4

I've only ever seen rack for the table feeds, this is the knee raising screw, and it just does not look like any others I have seen.

I went looking for ANY pictures of lever feed Benchmaster. I did find one advert on the UK site. Is actually shows a vertical lever feed with the shaft where that shaft is, and that unit also has table lever feed, but in and out is dial.. So they existed. NO photos of one, other than the green one with the big wheel on the raising screw..

The regular table feed unit is shown with the normal raising screw.

I did find pictures of THAT PARTICULAR unit in google images. Can be only one that is green with that big wheel under the table

 

B

bluearc

Aluminum

Joined

Sep 21, 2012

Location

pennsylvania

• Feb 14, 2016

• #5

I tried to search and locate the image of what you had found however I was not able to bring it up. I sure would like to locate that image to maybe help me devise something to make the machine work as intended.

 

A

Andy FitzGibbon

Diamond

Joined

Sep 5, 2005

Location

Elkins WV

• Feb 14, 2016

• #6

You can see the vertical feed rack in both photos- someone removed the rack feed lever/gear, and built their own screw feed.

Vintage Machinery has a few catalogs scanned that I think have photos of the lever feed machines (been a while since I looked at them):

Benchmaster Mfg. Co. - Publication Reprints | VintageMachinery.org

Andy

 

B

bluearc

Aluminum

Joined

Sep 21, 2012

Location

pennsylvania

• Feb 14, 2016

• #7

Side plate says Benchmaster.

 

B

bluearc

Aluminum

Joined

Sep 21, 2012

Location

pennsylvania

• Feb 14, 2016

• #8

I don't know if you can see the name but here is a pic.

 

IrbyJones

Stainless

Joined

Jun 9, 2005

Location

Poquoson, Va

• Feb 14, 2016

• #9

bluearc said:

I tried to search and locate the image of what you had found however I was not able to bring it up. I sure would like to locate that image View attachment 163146to maybe help me devise something to make the machine work as intended.

Click to expand...

That image is from your post here to the South Bend Lathes forum back in 2013. As Andy mentioned, it looks like your lever rack for the vertical feed is still on the mill. So is the shaft to turn the mating gear for that rack. The gear is located on the back side of the knee. If the gear is still there, and you can raise and lower (or at least try to raise and lower) the knee by turning the shaft sticking out the front, then the lever mechanism (which uses the rack) and the added screw mechanism (which uses the plate on the bottom) may be fighting each other. That sure would make it act like you describe.

Irby

 

JST

Diamond

Joined

Jun 16, 2001

Location

St Louis

• Feb 14, 2016

• #10

That's what it does indeed seem like.

The image I found is the one from the bottom of page 2 of the 2 page blurb on the vintage machinery link above. "Production Miller". It's not very detailed, but it shows both levers, and one is where the shaft on yours is. The other type is the one above it, with a standard knee crank, and just the one table feed lever.

Either they made only a few, or they were all scrapped / converted, because your machine is the ONLY ONE of the vertical lever feed I could find an image of in Google.

To want that, the process needed to be a pocket milling process, where the item had to be moved over and the cutter dropped into a pocket, like a keyway in the middle of a shaft. Otherwise, the standard table feed only type machine would be all that is needed, and the cranks would be used to set the precise depth and locations for the keyway, or other feature. Clamp, feed, reverse, unclamp, repeat.

 

B

bluearc

Aluminum

Joined

Sep 21, 2012

Location

pennsylvania

• Feb 17, 2016

• #11

Vintagemachinery.org has diagrams of the two Benchmast mills, bulletin 37-20 and 37-10. My mill would be a 37-20 model and listed as a "production mill" while 37-10 is listed as a "screw mill".


Also on the diagram #41 lists a jam nut however on my mill there is a plate that is used in place of a jam-nut. If this plate is turned from 0 to 100 is reads 100 thousands and each of the marks are at 5 tho increments.

 

B

bluearc

Aluminum

Joined

Sep 21, 2012

Location

pennsylvania

• Feb 17, 2016

• #12

This mill is the one that I have.