HBM tailstock, optional when new?

Been looking at HBM's. Smallish machines, maybe 4-6' tables. Found that many of the US built machines do not have a tailstock but do have a MT spindle. Foreign built seem more likely to have a tailstock and occasionally a NMTB spindle.

Question is, are the US machines just older so have had more time to "loose" the outboard? or was it an option when new?

And on a side note, some sellers are insane. ww2 vintage machine at over $20K Boring Mill Horizontal Table Type 2.5" Giddings & Lewis Model RT-25 | eBay

Mebfab said:

Been looking at HBM's. Smallish machines, maybe 4-6' tables. Found that many of the US built machines do not have a tailstock but do have a MT spindle. Foreign built seem more likely to have a tailstock and occasionally a NMTB spindle.

Question is, are the US machines just older so have had more time to "loose" the outboard? or was it an option when new?

And on a side note, some sellers are insane. ww2 vintage machine at over $20K Boring Mill Horizontal Table Type 2.5" Giddings & Lewis Model RT-25 | eBay

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As you said, some sellers are insane. Of course, if you get the price your asking, who's the insane one?

The one on E-bay has 2 tailstocks/ outboard supports.

Some mill some where is missing one because of this.

In a sale if a hbm has an out board that is reasonably complete it will add at least 5 k to the sale.

I have been running a size o g&l most of this month and would pay that for a working support (am tired of make shift ones)

As a side note I only paid 1,3000 for the mill but would gladley pay 4 times more for a support.

Are you refering to ebay in general or that add?

My mill is missing that tailstock. I have a G+L #25

Sorry just that add

I had never thought of haveing 2 supports til i saw that one.

I would be real happy with one.

I'm pretty sure the outboard was optional on most all HBM's.

I bought a WW2 vintage Defiance HBM back in 93 from a shop in Greensboro. 3.5" MT6 spindle, 1000 rpm machine with 75" X travel and 42" Y, outboard, facing head, and about 10 various boring bars up to 4" dia X 8 ft long. Paid $4K for it back then.

I'd doubt the owner of the mill in the ebay link above has more than 10% of his asking price in the machine. Main reason I say that is because its a 400 rpm machine. The owner of the shop I bought my mill from had scrapped a smaller 400 rpm mill in good shape after trying to give it away for a year. He said he could've easily sold it for more than I paid for mine if it had spindle speed upwards of 1000 rpm, but once anyone found out it was 400 max, none of them were willing to spend the money to move it even if it was free. I'm thinking his was a Lucas rather than G&L, but its still a good indicator of how far into the clouds that ebay seller's head is. I can't imagine him getting more than $5-6K on the luckiest day of his life, and to price it at $21K wouldn't seem to do anything other than scare off that rare potential buyer that might actually have a use for it. Hard to figure that logic.

FWIW, if you're looking for a mill with 6 ft of X table travel, it might be worthwhile to look for a machine with 4 Z ways as it makes it a lot simpler to install and level as opposed to a 2 way machine that uses floor mounted rails for the additional two outboard ways.

Lucas 4" in Portland OR for $5100 but its a 382 RPM antique from WW2 or before:

Lucas #42 Boring Mill

I see some angle plates but no outboard

I don't have the tailstock for my Marcel Pegard 3", made in Belgium. It would be nice to have one though.

The good thing about the Marcel is the built-in facing head. I've noticed that European HBMs usually have a built-in facing head, whereas American HBMs don't - or it's an add-on accessory.

When line boring weld the low rpm and plain bearings are a plus to me.

I have made a few bucks with my little G+L boring welded housings, backhoe parts, etc. HSS tools, slow speeds. Certainly not gotten rich off it. But made it worth having the machine. Plus it looks good in the corner.

You can use those brazed carbide tools but you need to grind all the clearance out of them

The tip is above center so the clearance angle is always neg more neg the smaller the hole.

That machine could have been ordered with two supports. You could use one either side of the table for extra rigidity. In the old days especially most machines came with one outer support but that was optional, no point the extra cost of buying a support if you don't intend using it.
As someone said in another thread I've never figured out why most European machines have a built in facing slide as well as the drilling/milling/fine boring spindle whilst U.S. machines mostly seem to be spindle only. I did once work on a G &L hor-bore that has a built in facing slide but they're really rare. Regards Tyrone.

Heavey Metal said:

You can use those brazed carbide tools but you need to grind all the clearance out of them

The tip is above center so the clearance angle is always neg more neg the smaller the hole.

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I never have been able to figure out why they put the cross holes on center on the larger diameter bars. Small ones it makes sense to keep it on center to retain a good amount of meat on both sides of the tool, but even my 4" bar has them on center when they could've easily been offset to place the edge of the tool on center where you wouldn't have to grind away half of a tool blank to get the cutting edge on center.

gorrilla said:

Of course, if you get the price your asking, who's the insane one?

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Since Mebfab knows machine values very well...in this case that's a bit like Tom predicting a meteorite will fall on Dick's head in the next hour, and then Harry saying Tom is insane for predicting that....and then you asking the profound question...if the meteorite falls on Dick's head, who is the insane one ?

metlmunchr said:

I never have been able to figure out why they put the cross holes on center on the larger diameter bars. Small ones it makes sense to keep it on center to retain a good amount of meat on both sides of the tool, but even my 4" bar has them on center when they could've easily been offset to place the edge of the tool on center where you wouldn't have to grind away half of a tool blank to get the cutting edge on center.

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The way that I make bars is to broach the tool holes.

If they are not on center it is hard to keep the bar from turning in the v-blocks.

On a small bar if you broach them off center they bow from the broaching.

Maby its just the way that it always has been done?

I dont put the point on center but grind the relief til it almost rubs the bevel

Mebfab said:

I have made a few bucks with my little G+L boring welded housings, backhoe parts, etc. HSS tools, slow speeds. Certainly not gotten rich off it. But made it worth having the machine. Plus it looks good in the corner.

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About the same with mine. We bought it primarily for doing repair work on our own heavy equipment, but I've done quite a few outside jobs with it over the years. Seems in a lot of areas there's just not many manual HBM's around any more, and if a fellow was to get out and really beat the weeds in his surrounding area there's probably a good bit of repair work in most any area that would be well suited for a table type HBM. The jobs I've done for outside customers have always turned a decent profit, and, to me anyway, the work is a lot more interesting than running production stuff on a cnc. Seems like every time the economy takes a dump, the price of repair parts for any type of machinery immediately goes up by another 50-100%, making repair work more attractive to the customer as well as to the shop doing the work.

I have a stock of microbore bars, MT drills, facemill mounts, angle plates, rotab, and a 40nmtb nose cap. But NO outboard for my machine.

I would love to get a larger machine with a outboard. But am out of building and would also need a bigger forklift.