Oliver 103 Pattern Mill Questions

Anyone have an Oliver 103 pattern makers mill? Finally got mine up and running and have a few questions specific to the machine.

I scrapped one 25 years ago Maybe I can intelligently answer or comment on specifics

Scrapped eh? Bummer. Seems a cool machine.

Stupid question No. 1: How do you turn the light on? Mine has built in light, not the machine lamp set up.

How do you lubricate the rotary table?? Mine is very hard to move. Is there no crank on the rotary? You just unlock it and swing it by hand?

There's a sort of dovetail around the top edge of the table. Did they have some special clamping system that grabbed on to that?

Thanks
Alan

Clueless on light, my 1940 had none. Table edge possibly for dedicated tooling, don't know, but seems obvious

I expect your rotary table has the same issue as mine - horribly rusted balls and pitted races. The races just lay in there as rings and are not even hardened

I bought 100 new balls but never put them in

The whole idea of the machine is GEE WHIZ but falls very short of being up to machine tool standards

Add scan from old Kindt Collins catalog

adh2000 said:

Scrapped eh? Bummer. Seems a cool machine.

Stupid question No. 1: How do you turn the light on? Mine has built in light, not the machine lamp set up.

How do you lubricate the rotary table?? Mine is very hard to move. Is there no crank on the rotary? You just unlock it and swing it by hand?

There's a sort of dovetail around the top edge of the table. Did they have some special clamping system that grabbed on to that?

Thanks
Alan

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The whole idea of the machine is GEE WHIZ but falls very short of being up to machine tool standards

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I know where one (Oliver 103) is. Per John's note, for woodworking in that shop it has been superceded.



smt

OK the robot router is cool. But that's not in my immediate future so I'll stick with the 103 for a while. John seems a bit critical, but no one ever claimed it was a machine tool. It's for wood wacking. The hand wheel gearing and feed screw pitches are such that you can remove a lot of material in a hurry, what else do you want? I guess you can resize 2x4s on a K&T, tedious though.

I doubt rust is an issue with the rotary, no rust issues with this machine elsewhere, the machine appears to have spent its life indoors thankfully. FWIW its a 1953 machine, I think. So far all I've done is hog out a core box, which was fun, and the machine seemed up to the application.

If SMT would like to share any info on "the other 103" I'd be interested. It's a small club apparently.

Alan

If SMT would like to share any info on "the other 103" I'd be interested. It's a small club apparently.

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It is in Scottsville, NY. Or was still about a year ago. More or less for sale though not actively. I bought another machine there a few years ago, but decided the pattern mill did not make sense, even if it is a lust-worthy item that might get some use. Part of what changed for me was getting the metal planer '09. It gives similar travels in a rigid platform for the stuff I need to do & can be tooled up with all the goodies such as rotab, dividing head, etc. Or for smaller "complex" stuff I just use one of the mills. The pattern mill would still be a lot of fun and more convenient for some ops, but not on a routine basis, so the adapting the planer on a job to job basis is a better fit with my lack of floorium.

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PS - You ought to take John's advice about at least inspecting the bearings in the rotary table. Your description of the conditions it lived under strike me as perfectly conducive to condensation corrosion. People avoid oiling machinery used for woodwork, and one or 2 instances of a temperature inversion or dewpoint coincidence fills close fitting mechanisms with rust. Hopefully if you luck is good, maybe it is just packed up with grease and sawdust. Still needs a look-see.

smt

perfectly conducive to condensation corrosion.

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The '40 was like they designed it for that.

Tapped holes in table top are through

Any pooling of condensation goes right thru these, thru the somewhat skeletal casting underneath and right onto to the balls and races

If there is any wood dust that got there beforehand you now have long term WET cuddling up to bearing elements and being RUN OVER by them