Purchasing a new to me pre 1912 K&T 1 B Universal

[Earl_Leonard]

Next week I am to take delivery of a pre 1912 K&T 1B universal that has had a Dc motor with variable speed vertical head added to it. I have covered vintagemachinery's database and I am looking for more information on my machine. I call it a pre 1912 because it has a single overarm support. from K&T history I learned that in 1912 K&T came out with the double overarm support. The back story on my machine is :A tech college instructor added the dc powered variable speed vertical head in the 1980s it was his personal machine. about 25 years ago a farmer bought the machine from him. It has made the occasional keyway during those 25 years I am now purchasing the machine for restoration to good functional condition with the possible addition of DRO for my hobby machine shop. Any relevant information that anyone will share is appreciated.

 

[texasgeartrain]

By an amazing coincidence, another brand new member has purchase a 1B and posted on it this very day.

John Oder and myself posted the info we know about there:

Kearney & Trecker Milwaukee No 1B Mill

 

[Andy FitzGibbon]

Appears to be an almost entirely homemade vertical head and ram. Impressive... heck of a lot of work there.

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

 

[Earl_Leonard]

From visiting with the seller the vertical head was made by a machining teacher at a tech college around 1980. I have spent a few hours with the machine and have the following observations 1 it is heavy 2 it is solid. 3 It has very little back lash. none detected in Z around, 30 thou X, and 20 thou Y. I am still trying to figure out the feeds I now know how to adjust horizontal head speeds and vertical head feeds. For a 110+ year old machine it runs very quiet. The arcing in the horizontal motor on startup and under heavy load is very troubling. The motor looks to be of 1930s-1940 vintage and is a very slow speed motor I will put a tach on it next week but I would guess 750rpm 3 hp single phase 240 volt. I am hopeful I can put new brushes in it and be good Hopeful I have brushed on hand for it. As availability may problematic ( I do have several hundred brush sets of various sizes on hand) I am wanting to mount a DRO. Any helpful input is encouraged as I am a total NEWBE when it comes to DRO. Also what size of a vise would be best for a machine the size of a K&T 1B All of my on hand tooling is a bit small for this machine as my old mills are Rockwell 21-122 and Burke #4 I am fortunate in that this new mill came with 3 arbors one of witch is the same size as all of my cutters from the burke and the indexing head from the burke will be fine for the work I have been doing. A rotary table is on my wish list as is a complete R8 collet set ( I have bits and pieces of 3 sets but am still missing some sizes) and a large face mill.