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My Vinco Dividing head/B1 dresser collection
- Thread starter nateman
- Start date
- Replies 24
- Views 9,219
nateman, I can well understand your fascination! I sure would like to have just one of those things.
Please tell me what an optical inspection dividing head is used for? I must confess total ignorance. But I would still want one.
Regards, fusker
Please tell me what an optical inspection dividing head is used for? I must confess total ignorance. But I would still want one.
Regards, fusker
Quick look at Google and it looks like they made high precision inspection and gauging equipment in the 30's and 40's????? Various ads state millionths of an inch. Your pictures above show up as some of the few images, and there is a reference in a "Precision measurement in the metalworking industry" publication by IBM. Other info looks like these heads were mounted on purpose built tables.
Not a lot of general info. If you collect them do you have background history on the company, what became of them etc. It would be interesting to know more about them....
Paul
Not a lot of general info. If you collect them do you have background history on the company, what became of them etc. It would be interesting to know more about them....
Paul
sfriedberg
Diamond
- Joined
- Oct 14, 2010
- Location
- Oregon, USA
Not at all. I didn't comment because I didn't have anything to say other than "neat!". I'd never heard of Vinco.
oldbikerdude37
Titanium
- Joined
- Jun 29, 2010
- Location
- milton freewater oregon
They are neat but do you make anything with them?
I collect big rocks and make my yard look nice.
I collect big rocks and make my yard look nice.
easymike299
Cast Iron
- Joined
- May 1, 2008
- Location
- San Diego
I used Vinco dressers in the early '60's. I liked them except that you couldn't change the angular rotation except from the bottom, which meant that you had to take it off of the chuck, turn it over and adjust the stops from there. Other than that they're every bit as good as a J&S, maybe better.
Gene
Gene
From what I can gather, Vinco, a detroit company made precision tools and master gears/splines/checking equipment from the 30's till some time in the 60's (1964?) when the name changed to Tifco Gage and Gear.
They still exist in the detroit area as Delta Gear/ Delta Gage.
Vinco/Tifco was best known for its model B1 dresser. I have 3 of them and they are all slightly different. One is known to be from 1958, one appears to be earlier, and one is obviously a late model with the angular stop adjustment holes moved to access from the top.
I first learned of Vinco/Tifco when I was taught to use the B1 dressers at a company called ToolCo in Plymouth Michigan. We produced mainly sintered metals compaction/sizing tooling for the auto industry. It was a 20 person shop and I worked in the grinding dept. This was my first (and only in a professional shop) job out of college, and everyone there thought I was crazy for wanting to work in a "machine shop"
I "apprenticed" for lack of a better term under the three other grinder hands that worked there. I was predominantly trained by one of the companies owners sons that ran the grinding dept. It was a very interesting experiment for the company to hire a college kid with no expierence, to learn from scratch how to do very sophistacated work.
I learned OD, ID, Surface, Blanchard (rotary surface flood cooled), universal (jones and shipman) and Jig grinding. By the time I left, I had learned to run the NASA Moore G18 CNC jig grinders they had.
After a year, my boss was bringing me some of the work that mattered most, passing over the others in the department with many more years of expierence. When something needed to be manually surface ground to a micron, I got the job. My boss would mutter things about how because I learned grinding first, I had an advantage over the others in some ways because they started as millhands and lathehands.
I was very proud of my work, however, the work enviroment was hostile to a democrat, and after being denied (what I thought was a small favor) I put my notice in. I was fired on the spot.
Into the family business I went...
My facination with all things grinding has continued and in many ways grown. Today my 650 sf basement shop contains a Parker Majestic OD grinder with swing down ID Circa 1958, a Parker Majestic #2 manual surface grinder circa 1953, a Moore #2 Jig Grinder form 1958, a Hardinge CHNC Lathe from 1980, a SB 16x8ft lathe circa 1928, a BP that I converted to CNC circa 1982 and various other small machines. Of special interest to me is grinding tooling of all kinds. I have a fairly large collection of 123 blocks, V blocks of all sizes, grinding blocks of all kinds used on surface and jig grinders, whirly gig, gage blocks, magnetic transfer blocks, clamps and face plates for OD/ID grinding and all sorts of associated measuring insturments, sine stuff, etc.. I also collect cyllinder squares, travelling squares (squareness checkers) and hand scraped tooling of all kinds.
All that said, I seem to have a special facination with local Detroit brands- ExCellO, Suburban tool, Vinco, Parker Majestic, etc...
Oh, I almost forgot! the Vinco master optical inspection dividing heads-
They both were at one time attached to hand scraped surface plates that held the head, tailstock and had a groove running down the center for the associated steady rest equipment. The heads are purported to be accurate to 1 second of arc (the internal master disc) and are said to be capable of measuring accuracy to two seconds of arc.
The heads are meant to measure items between centers, or on the face plates (shown attached in the pictures) The first head I bought came from one of the ford plants and came with paperwork inside the cabinet from 1951-1966, instructions for checking cam lobes and oil holes for ford camshafts. Obviously, it was a QC insturment used to check for accuracy.
Sadly, I had to get rid of the cabinet/surface plate base of the machine a few years ago when I had run out of space. I did keep all of the tooling though, and then picked up another head when I found it on CL about 3 years ago in florida.
The heads are very heavy. I think they are about 250 each and I can just barely pick them up. They are astheticly, very much from the time they were built. One is from 1940-1950, but I have yet to nail down an exact year. The second head is from 66' and has zero asthetic changes. their are a few functional changes by styleisticly, it is identical.
Nate.
They still exist in the detroit area as Delta Gear/ Delta Gage.
Vinco/Tifco was best known for its model B1 dresser. I have 3 of them and they are all slightly different. One is known to be from 1958, one appears to be earlier, and one is obviously a late model with the angular stop adjustment holes moved to access from the top.
I first learned of Vinco/Tifco when I was taught to use the B1 dressers at a company called ToolCo in Plymouth Michigan. We produced mainly sintered metals compaction/sizing tooling for the auto industry. It was a 20 person shop and I worked in the grinding dept. This was my first (and only in a professional shop) job out of college, and everyone there thought I was crazy for wanting to work in a "machine shop"
I "apprenticed" for lack of a better term under the three other grinder hands that worked there. I was predominantly trained by one of the companies owners sons that ran the grinding dept. It was a very interesting experiment for the company to hire a college kid with no expierence, to learn from scratch how to do very sophistacated work.
I learned OD, ID, Surface, Blanchard (rotary surface flood cooled), universal (jones and shipman) and Jig grinding. By the time I left, I had learned to run the NASA Moore G18 CNC jig grinders they had.
After a year, my boss was bringing me some of the work that mattered most, passing over the others in the department with many more years of expierence. When something needed to be manually surface ground to a micron, I got the job. My boss would mutter things about how because I learned grinding first, I had an advantage over the others in some ways because they started as millhands and lathehands.
I was very proud of my work, however, the work enviroment was hostile to a democrat, and after being denied (what I thought was a small favor) I put my notice in. I was fired on the spot.
Into the family business I went...
My facination with all things grinding has continued and in many ways grown. Today my 650 sf basement shop contains a Parker Majestic OD grinder with swing down ID Circa 1958, a Parker Majestic #2 manual surface grinder circa 1953, a Moore #2 Jig Grinder form 1958, a Hardinge CHNC Lathe from 1980, a SB 16x8ft lathe circa 1928, a BP that I converted to CNC circa 1982 and various other small machines. Of special interest to me is grinding tooling of all kinds. I have a fairly large collection of 123 blocks, V blocks of all sizes, grinding blocks of all kinds used on surface and jig grinders, whirly gig, gage blocks, magnetic transfer blocks, clamps and face plates for OD/ID grinding and all sorts of associated measuring insturments, sine stuff, etc.. I also collect cyllinder squares, travelling squares (squareness checkers) and hand scraped tooling of all kinds.
All that said, I seem to have a special facination with local Detroit brands- ExCellO, Suburban tool, Vinco, Parker Majestic, etc...
Oh, I almost forgot! the Vinco master optical inspection dividing heads-
They both were at one time attached to hand scraped surface plates that held the head, tailstock and had a groove running down the center for the associated steady rest equipment. The heads are purported to be accurate to 1 second of arc (the internal master disc) and are said to be capable of measuring accuracy to two seconds of arc.
The heads are meant to measure items between centers, or on the face plates (shown attached in the pictures) The first head I bought came from one of the ford plants and came with paperwork inside the cabinet from 1951-1966, instructions for checking cam lobes and oil holes for ford camshafts. Obviously, it was a QC insturment used to check for accuracy.
Sadly, I had to get rid of the cabinet/surface plate base of the machine a few years ago when I had run out of space. I did keep all of the tooling though, and then picked up another head when I found it on CL about 3 years ago in florida.
The heads are very heavy. I think they are about 250 each and I can just barely pick them up. They are astheticly, very much from the time they were built. One is from 1940-1950, but I have yet to nail down an exact year. The second head is from 66' and has zero asthetic changes. their are a few functional changes by styleisticly, it is identical.
Nate.
Last edited:
S_W_Bausch
Diamond
- Joined
- Jan 15, 2010
- Location
- Indianapolis, Indiana, USA
I have seen various optical dividing heads, some on inspection benches, offered for very little money on ebay, and while I understood the accuracy, I suspected that they weren't suited for life on a horizontal mill, making spur gears and splines.
Perhaps I am wrong?
Perhaps I am wrong?
I have wondered the same thing myself.
The accuracy is certain, the spindles are garanteed to 25 millionths runout. The housings and mounting surfaces are certainly most robust.
The real question is how well the bearings themselves would withstand milling forces?
The clamping method is totally insufficient for milling work, but a large disc and a hydraulic brake would probably function very well and if designed/implimented well could be virtually non influencing, at least at the tolerances of milling work.
I suspect that one of these optical heads could be used to generate location, with a sub assembley coupled to it that would take the lions share of the cutting forces. Picture a setup that has centers and one of the centers is coupled with one of those slotted couplings that they use to hook motors to ballscrews. both of the centers could be made to clamp (to clamp the centers from rotating not to push the centers together to clamp the part), and this would effectively make the optical head totally removed from cutting forces. Put a plastic bag over it and cut away! unbag, index, rebag, cut, repeat...
The accuracy is certain, the spindles are garanteed to 25 millionths runout. The housings and mounting surfaces are certainly most robust.
The real question is how well the bearings themselves would withstand milling forces?
The clamping method is totally insufficient for milling work, but a large disc and a hydraulic brake would probably function very well and if designed/implimented well could be virtually non influencing, at least at the tolerances of milling work.
I suspect that one of these optical heads could be used to generate location, with a sub assembley coupled to it that would take the lions share of the cutting forces. Picture a setup that has centers and one of the centers is coupled with one of those slotted couplings that they use to hook motors to ballscrews. both of the centers could be made to clamp (to clamp the centers from rotating not to push the centers together to clamp the part), and this would effectively make the optical head totally removed from cutting forces. Put a plastic bag over it and cut away! unbag, index, rebag, cut, repeat...
Last edited:
SouthBendModel34
Diamond
- Joined
- Feb 4, 2004
- Location
- Metuchen, NJ, USA
I can understand the facination with extreme accuracy and with "gizmocity factor".
Funny to see an ultra-precision instrument in the same photo as a rusty chain fall !!! <WINK!>
Funny to see an ultra-precision instrument in the same photo as a rusty chain fall !!! <WINK!>
Nice collection! I recently bought a couple of the VINCO Model B Dressers. I sure would be interested in seeing what information / manuals you have on these. It would seem there are accessories / attachments for them. I am curious of as to what all those might be.
SN 126 has no stops. It is infinitely rotatable. (pic 1) SN 169 has 1 stop that is not adjustable. It rotates 356 degrees only. (pic 2)
SN 126 has no stops. It is infinitely rotatable. (pic 1) SN 169 has 1 stop that is not adjustable. It rotates 356 degrees only. (pic 2)
Instien'sPB
Plastic
- Joined
- Mar 24, 2015
Hey nateman,
Would you be willing to share the Literature on Vinco optical inspection master dividing head Model No. 55-38's you have?
I have one trying to figure out how to use it! The right way.
Thanks,
Mike
Rolandofgilead
Plastic
- Joined
- Aug 1, 2017
Hi Mike,
I have a basic user's guide. It's marked up and I was looking at this site to get a complete copy, but I could share what I have with you. It has the use info at least, just misssing some filler at the front. I have no idea how to send it to you though.
Bob
Instien'sPB
Plastic
- Joined
- Mar 24, 2015
Thanks!
On your reply just add the attachment. If you have it in digital form.
Sent from my SM-N920P using Tapatalk
Rolandofgilead
Plastic
- Joined
- Aug 1, 2017
File size is just shy of 1Meg. only attachments of up to 19.5K allowed, unless doing something wrong
Rolandofgilead
Plastic
- Joined
- Aug 1, 2017
I could try to print and rescan to a very low res, but 19.5K does not give me much leeway.
wawoodman
Hot Rolled
- Joined
- Jun 23, 2006
- Location
- Seattle, WA
Post it to DropBox, and send Instien'sPB a link. He can download it from there.
Rolandofgilead
Plastic
- Joined
- Aug 1, 2017
Maybe I should quit while I am behind. I have no familiarity with Dropbox. but I just received a better (color) version of the instructions myself and have created a combined document with all the PDFs in a Word document. Now it's closer to 9 Megs.
Instien'sPB
Plastic
- Joined
- Mar 24, 2015