8" vtl, anybody brave ?

Came across this little place while wandering around the boondocks. They make a series of small vtl's, from 8" to about 20". Roughly 8", I'm pretty sure the small one will swing more than that. They are nicely built, about equivalent to the Hardinge Cobra in fit and finish. I hope better than the Cobra in reliability ... their only sales in the US have been to Eaton. Components are all standard stuff - Fanuc or Siemens controls, off-the-shelf linear ways, etc.

The thing that got me excited was the 8 inch model ... it's gang-tooled. The ways are spread apart about as far as West Texas. No turret to screw up and die. It would be trivial to add a ram and air chuck on the end and a door in the box to make it autoload. If you were crazy, add a cmm and you'd have lights-out for cheap. Okay, if you are going to do lights-out you're not in this class of machine but still ...

Gear shops. Sturdy enough to run a 2" insert drill through the middle. The 8" model is only about 45k. If I'd had one of these instead of a $100,000 electronics mortuary, I'd have kept $70,000 for myself. You could almost buy lunch for that today ...

They have a warranty but obviously you'd need to be able to troubleshoot and fix small problems on your own. Nobody is going to fly to the US to replace a fuse.

Anyway, I really like this thing and wish to heck they'd had them thirty years ago. But I'd still want the Bendix, Fanuc sucks dead donkey balls

Anybody interested, shoot me a pm. They would possibly be interested in a dealer arrangement, too.

There are many small vertical spindle lathes. Almost all are inverted spindles with auto parts loaders. I worked on a sweet little Motch with 2 8" chucks. No way I would pop down $45,000 for an unknown Chinese machine.

ewlsey said:

There are many small vertical spindle lathes. Almost all are inverted spindles with auto parts loaders. I worked on a sweet little Motch with 2 8" chucks. No way I would pop down $45,000 for an unknown Chinese machine.

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Thanks for your comments, criticism can as helpful as praise ... I love them Motch'es too, but never saw one with less than a 15" chuck, 50 hp, Getty's drives, and a GE 1050. Didn't fit my workflow

The Oerlikons you talk about are beeyootiful but I think you best put a zero on the end of the price. And that company went to the Great Machine Builder Meadow in Rockford fifteen years ago, it'sa gonna be a hard rain that falls before you get any spares outta there for mortal numbers. Carl Eckbourg let me look through his glasses once, cost fifty bucks. Nice view tho.

Inverted is spiffy, no doubt about it. Emag, Hardinge, Mazak, yeah. All beautiful. If I had that kind of money I'd buy an island off the coast of Costa Rica to berth my 300 foot yacht.

There's others - Youji, the Heartland Brings You Feeler Under Another Name, Okuma, Hyundai ... but I didn't see any down in the 200 mm size (there probably are but not on top of the search results, anyhow) and $45k, well ... I looked on fleabay (gives a general overview, even if it's not exactly accurate) and ten to fifteen year old Haas SL-20's seem to go for about that price. In general, I mean.

This guy is 1500 pounds heavier than an SL-20, and takes up no space at all - it's 5' x 5' x 8' tall. Rigidity has got to be better, it's supporting the part with the planet. Castings and workmanship looked good in real life. If'n I was thinking 8" chucker, I'd take a serious look. But then, I'm a risk-taker, a free market intramanure, a independent thinker, all that shit. And I can maintain a machine as well as run it.

I realize this isn't the deal for everyone but I saw this thing and fell in love. If I had one of these thirty years ago I coulda beena contenda. For people making gear blanks or parts like that, it'd be tits. And cheap. And pretty nicely made.

Went by this place and these guys are pretty straight, which was refreshing. But truth in advertising - there's not really any money in it for us but the little area where this factory is, there must be something in the water. Cup sizes average a full letter bigger than elsewhere. So any reason to go back is okay by me ....

But thank you for the thorough, in-depth analysis. I'll be sure to email Eaton first thing in the morning, tell them to cancel any orders and shitcan all these machines that they already have, I heard they were no good.

If you take a drive thru Cleveland, and swing by 55th and Carnegie, you'll see the remnants of the
Former Warner & Swasey Headquarters.

And if you look at the retaining wall holding up the elevated train tracks, you can still make out
some artist renditions of the very last products of W&S, just before they went out.

If you peruse the patent office, you'll see they took a major turn from lathes, and were working
on some small VTL's upside down, with (2) spindles, and robotic loading.
IIRC the patent date is 1992.

Seamoss, how about a linky to this machine you spotted ?

digger doug said:

Former Warner & Swasey Headquarters.

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Ran an 0AC, loved it. Three tools in the cut and the motor screaming Liked the WSC-8 (or was it 6 ?), same general idea, but too $$ for my pitiful pocketbook. Manchester, great tooling.

Another victim of our banksters

If you peruse the patent office, you'll see they took a major turn from lathes, and were working
on some small VTL's upside down, with (2) spindles, and robotic loading.
IIRC the patent date is 1992.

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Cool ! thanks for the info. Would love to see that ....

how about a linky to this machine you spotted ?

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Don't think they have a website but I took photos. Go over to pm-land and give me an address, I can send you some.

No boobs tho, just machines. If I'd been caught taking good photos I'd be a tenor in the Norman Luboff Choir now

Recognize anything stuffed in this 12' x 24' bay ?

Will PM

digger doug said:

Recognize anything stuffed in this 12' x 24' bay ?

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Oh maaaan If I'da stuck with that instead of going nc, I'da been so much farther ahead

I love those things Do you have all the trick tooling for them, too ? The pushaway boring bar holders and such ?

If you tell me you have a pegboard lathe around the corner I will flip out .... do you remember that 12" vertical Gisholt 'production lathe' ? THAT thing was a brute

SeaMoss said:

Oh maaaan If I'da stuck with that instead of going nc, I'da been so much farther ahead

I love those things Do you have all the trick tooling for them, too ? The pushaway boring bar holders and such ?

If you tell me you have a pegboard lathe around the corner I will flip out .... do you remember that 12" vertical Gisholt 'production lathe' ? THAT thing was a brute

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I have some tooling, but nowadays you don't take the time to set them up for very complex jobs.

With lot sizes coming ways down, lead times evaporating, the 1ab is set for simple bushing work,
the tapped hole is done as a second op.

Setting the proper gearing, and tap pull off length (blind hole) for a 100 piece order is just not justifiable.
Second op the tapped hole (now a thru hole after it's parted off) using a simple-to-setup snow tapper
makes more sense.

PMR in Avon does/did make a PLC conversion to get rid of all the feed/speed dogs, and does allow peck drilling.

I never saw much Gisholt stuff , me thinks it was a Chicago/Milwaukee thing.

digger doug said:

I have some tooling, but nowadays you don't take the time to set them up for very complex jobs.

With lot sizes coming ways down, lead times evaporating ...

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Yeah, you're right .... no fun at all "type the little numbers in, push the button" gag ... wish we could go back to when men were men and sheep were scared. And on top of it all, everybody is in love with these weirdo Jap controls that think programming in negative numbers is cool. Strange. Very strange.

btw, can you still get real pushbuttons like on the old machines ? This new plastic stuff is just crap. First thing I'd do to upgrade a product is ditch the awful tacky cheesy crap buttons they all use.

SeaMoss said:

btw, can you still get real pushbuttons like on the old machines ? This new plastic stuff is just crap. First thing I'd do to upgrade a product is ditch the awful tacky cheesy crap buttons they all use.

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One of the electrical/electronic members will chime in here shortly....IIRC it's the old time 1 1/8" hole
oiltite NEC standard pushbuttons verses the new IEC or some spec cheapo ones.

I think this is it:
Patent Images



Or this earlier one:
Patent Images)

Someone asked to see a photo so here one is ... for some reason didn't have a photo of the smallest one but this is the next size up, 16" with a turret instead of gang tooled, looks the same from outside tho. I think they have a tailstock option on the larger ones ... not sure how useful that would be though. Don't scream about the air hose, we can take it off



The Warner-Swaseys look cool, d-dug. Too bad about the US machine tool builders all going down the toilet