Devlieg Vs Lucas

Looking at buying a boring mill to do large (to me) housings. About a 3' cube. They will have bronze bearings pressed in that will need boring for size and alliagnment. Plus general hole drilling and some milling work.

Question is, what is better for the job, HBM such as a Lucas or a Devlieg?

I have run large milling machines but never something like the above.

Depends.

Do you have any line boring to do where you pass a log bar entirely through the part to an outboard support and bore internal details as in double suction pumps, geared transmissions etc where long bores having close tolerences for alignments and cylindricity then the Lucas or Giddings and Lewis are your machine.

If you're doing stub bores and shallow holes than the devlieg DiMil and its clones are the machine for you.

Don't think it's choosing between deVlieg and Lucas. There dozens of other perfectly acceptable HBM's and there's a LOT of overlap in capability and features.

You won't go wrong with either one.

The Devlieg bores with the spindle bar, the Lucas bores with the saddle feed.

The three foot cube necessitates a 3B 48 or a 3H 48 or a 3K 48 DeVlieg.

The B, H, K designations are older to more modern series. They all have 36 inch vertical travel and 48 inches horizontal travel.

The Lucas 41B series has 36 inch vertical travels and 48 inch horizontal travels, the corresponding number is 41B-48.

The 41B series also is made with a 4 inch spindle bar and is designated 441B-48.

The Lucas is commonly made with a longer bed and has an outboard support for a line boring bar. If your bores must be in line, then this is the way to go.

Be careful, these machines are large and heavy and they represent a sizeable investment even in today's economy of low priced tools.

This is definately not a project to learn on. There are boring mill shops who will probably want to do your work at an attractive price.

Think this one over very carefully.

Trust me, I have run the Brand New versions of both machines, and you aren't going to find brand new ones of either make. Any mistake or mis judgement will be a big and costly one.

Forest, Thanks for the quick reply.

Mostly through bores of a single diameter up to 18" from outer edge to outer edge. The bores HAVE to be on the same centerline. Of course some oil grooves and probably an occasional multi diameter bore.

It would be nice to have some milling capability, maybe a right angle head. I only have room and money for one machine so I am leaning towards a HBM.

I assume the Devlieg style jig mills are much more capable for milling than a HBM

It's incredible how cheap you can buy Devlieg jig mills for right now. I purchased a 3B-48 for $1450.00 and a 2B-36 for $2000.00. The 2B-36 came with a rotary table and right angle plate- works perfectly, the ways are in great shape. It's able to machine a 24 inch cube. It's a very nice size machine.

The 3B-48 is quite a bit bigger and heavier with 48 inches of table travel. The ways aren't the greatest, with some heavy scoring on the outboard way, but the machine does work great.

I have castings in my Master milling machine line that are for extended right angle heads. They have bearing bores that are up to thirty-six inches apart. I use Ex-cell-o double end boring machines for these. The Ex-cell-os are priced right too. I've picked up six of them, two of them were only $200.00 apiece. One of the two hundred dollar machines was just rebuilt. The disadvantage to these machines are they are time consuming to set up, but if you only are running one part on them, they can't be beat. They are really ridgid and are capable of boring to very high tolerances. I use all the same tooling in them as the two Devlieg Jig Mills-Devlieg Microbore Bars. Most of my parts, I make a fixture that bolts to the machine table, to get my part to the right spindle height- which unfortunately isn't very adjustable on them. I do have universal cross-slides, but again they aren't as easy to use as setting the part on a Jig Mill. But with a fixture, my castings are as easy to machine on an Ex-cello as any other machine.

The castings I machine the most are really sized nicely for the Devlieg 2B-36. It's a wonderful machine to operate. I can't compare it to a Lucas though as I've never operated a Lucas. For what it's worth, the same place that I bought the Devlieg 2B from had a really nice Lucas boring mill for sale for $4000.00. Just thought I'd throw that out. Came out of the government, the ways were nice. It probably is gone by now though.

Have to agree with Forrest, There's lots of different machines that can do what you want to do. I just bought a SIP #6 which is a vertical Jig Bore-mill. Besides it's morphidite tooling, what a machine for the money!! Kind of a bear to rig in the shop, but between the Devliegs, Ex-cell-os and the Sip, I've got a choice of "weapons" to attack any boring job. With tooling, I don't think I've spent much more than ten grand for all of them. So there's some money figures to ponder. Good luck on your projects. This is a great time to buy BIG industrial machines.

The next problem I have to deal with in the HBM search is height. Have to buy a short vertical height model or take the column and headstock off. The entrance door is just over 7' high.

Anyone have any luck taking one of these apart? Just a REALLY bad idea?

A 2B-36 Devlieg would fit through a seven foot door.

"2B-36 for $2000.00"

I dont believe that I have ever seen a 2B in person at a sale. Although if I could get a nice one I might.

I am actually lenaing towards a HBM because of the need for a tailstock.

Taking the Column off is a really really bad idea.

Sometimes in the manual for this class of machine there is a caution against "de erecting" the machine.

It isn't that it can't be done, it is just that the factory erectors will have to come with all their precision tools and fixtures to erect it again on your shop floor.

Much easier to temporairily de erect your door.

I had a feeling that would be the answer. That is why another post was asking about taking down a cinder block wall and installing a 9x9' door.

Boring mills do come apart fairly easy. Most of the parts are keyed to go back as they belong. I would consider having the rigger "tip" the machine through the door way, not a big deal on a smallish mill. Even if you need to remove the table and saddle, its a pain to remove the drive shafts and screw.
Devliegs come apart fairly easy also, the columngoe to the floor and is bolted and keyed to the base section on its face. I believe the drive shaft is splined to separate also. There is just some wiring to deal with.

Heres another thought on deciding what machine to pick. DeVliegs can only move one axis at a time, besides the quill. Theirs only one motor and it drives through gear boxes and clutches. Devliegs claim to fame was .0002 repeatability, nothing came even close to that at the time, most machines were.002 repeatability. The other big thing was auto position, you would put your end measure rods and micrometer in the v and the machine would move to that position, and even take out the backlash in the screw, ahh yes the pre CNC fun stuff. If you ever go look at a DeVlieg open the door on the back of the column, take a look at the number of relays in there, it can be a nightmare.

As for a tailstock, on a DeVlieg, you use the rotary table. Bore one then rotate and bore again. I knew of a job that this worked well for, a two inch shaft on ball bearings in a bored casting about two feet wide. They made thousands of them like that.

Old boring mills seem to be coming out of the wood work here, like Lucas 21, 22. Old stuff but useful for the right person, just watch the spindle speeds some are only 100 RPM.

I had an old Lucas 21 years ago, had a taller column, over sized table and the tailstock. Also had a factory installed motor and high speed option went to 400 RPM. I sold it off and bought a Cincinnati Cintimatic CNC that worked better for me. It was sort of a DeVlieg wannabe with a Dynapath 10 control on it.

If you are looking at Devliegs, Ive got TONS of info on them, specs, ect

Tom1 Thanks for the info. I am still a little scared of taking a machine as large and complex as a Devlieg or HBM apart.

I have seen a few Lucas for sale on Ebay in the New England area. Most if not all are as you said low RPM.

I guess I will keep my eyes open and see what comes up. Even an old low RPM model if in good shape.

Large machine tools. loading in and shipping parts out.

Mebfab said:

I had a feeling that would be the answer. That is why another post was asking about taking door down in cinder block wall and installing a 9x9' door.

Click to expand...

Sure you have de-erected machine or doorway by now, some 13 years later. But enlarging a doorway is far and away a better choice than the complications of machine alignment being restored. A door mod will allow machine exchange, admit longer stock & parts, a forklift for heavier parts and basically increase your potential work envelope overall.
If you don't own the building or owner won't allow the door job, it's time to move.