Round bar ways machines.

[asdf]

Being machine enthusiast like all of You guys and gals, I saw some but not many round bar machines like these for example:




I was wondering, are there (on this forum) anyone with experience with these kind of machines and if so, what is Your experience with them? Also what machine exactly did You do any work with?

What would be the material of the round bars and where the machines flimsy, chattery? There are for sure examples of much smaller lathes with round beds like this but they are more of a watchmakers lathes and perhaps hobby machines. However, the examples above are just some I saw that look nothing like being anything but sturdy industrial machines (I encountered some CNC machines as well).

Regards,
ns

 

[Bill D]

Lots of Horizontal mills use two round bars to hold the outboard arbor bearing housing. For some reason I always thought those bars were solid.
Early Bridgeports used a round ram to hold the head to the turret.
Many cheap wood lathes use one round bar for the bed.
Bill D

 

[Richard King]

I have rebuilt worn round ways on Ball bearing grinders but I can't remember the brand name now. The balls ran against hardened shafts and the ball bearings worn narrow scores into the shafts. We had the the shafts and inner hardened bushings ground and installed bigger balls.

Also these have been used for years. https://www.thomsonlinear.com/en/products/linear-bearings

 

[EmGo]

Lots of Horizontal mills use two round bars to hold the outboard arbor

He's talking about round ways. The cintimatics, both vertical and horizontal, used those. Worked good.

 

[L Vanice]

Big round bars to support moving parts never caught on in USA machine tools. I have seen only one example and that was around 1985 and the machine was much older then. The machine was a chucker lathe with NC control (no computer, just electronic controls and servos). The machine was for sale cheap and looked like it had been expensive when new, but had been partly disassembled and I decided I did not want to try to get it running. The headstock had a Hardinge-style 5C spindle and the carriage had a Hardinge HC-style flat turret. The design departed from Hardinge in other respects. The machine was built on a heavy black granite plate on top of a steel cabinet. The bed was two large steel bars and the carriage looked like it had Thomson ball bushings to run on the bars. I am not sure, but the make might have been Moog. We had a Moog Hydra-Point NC mill at work that might have been from the same maker, but I cannot find any info on that lathe online. It certainly was not a successfully marketed machine.

Larry

 

[EmGo]

Big round bars to support moving parts never caught on in USA machine tools.

These. Pretty common, sort of the first affordable job shop machines. Donovan ran all their blocks on these

Cincinnati Cintimatic CNC Horizontal Boring Mill- Anilam CNC, 4th Axis, 1997 Upgraded - Revelation Machinery

X-Axis Travel: 40” Y-Axis Travel: 45” W/Z-Axis Travel: 24” (9” Programmable Spindle/Quill + 15” Head Travel- Motor-Driven Manual Positioning with DRO)

revelationmachinery.com

they also came in vertical

 

[FredC]

No experience with the machines in your photos, but Traub made many screw machines with round bar guides in the 50s and 60s. My A42 will take fairly heavy cuts with wide form tools and no excessive chatter. In the past I ran a few jobs with seven tools cutting all at the same time with no issues, you gotta take my word on that as I have no photos or videos.

This video is a sample of one with double drilling. The part they are making is rather small so the machine may be an A25 or smaller. I cannot tell as the video camera is too close.

Thiis video is my 25mm machine, I have had heavier parts on it in the past but it has been set up for these parts for many years now.The machine was made in Taiwan in very low production and rater poorly at that. The guide bars are hardened and ground like the Traubs and show almost no wear. This machine does have a tailstock that was not used in this video we do have a shop built double drilling attachment for this machine on a shelf.

 

[eKretz]

Depends on the setup I expect. The larger the bar the better for rigidity. If they're just bushings guiding the carriage, no take-up for wear that I can figure means bad news for long term use. With linear ball guides it could be possible for take-up adjustment I would think. I would also think that it would make for a very jittery manual machine that didn't want to stay put.

 

[EmGo]

If they're just bushings guiding the carriage, no take-up for wear that I can figure means bad news for long term use.

All these years I thought they were just bushings but apparently no, they have balls in tracks, are like modern linear ways except big and round and the cages are the bronze part you see.

I would also think that it would make for a very jittery manual machine that didn't want to stay put.

Does anyone make an engine lathe or manual mill with linear ways ? Just wondering. Grinders I know yes but other machines ?

 

[asdf]

All these years I thought they were just bushings but apparently no, they have balls in tracks, are like modern linear ways except big and round and the cages are the bronze part you see.

Really? I could have sworn on that the two examples I noted above are bushings on ground round ways. I mean I don't know, I just assumed.

ns

 

[EmGo]

Really? I could have sworn on that the two examples I noted above are bushings on ground round ways. I mean I don't know, I just assumed.

The Autometric may be, I've been corrected that the Cintimatics were not. I never took them apart tho, so ... but it sounds right. They didn't need any special lubrication, like they would have if they were just bushings. And they moved extremely freely.

 

[gustafson]

I have seen only one example and that was around 1985 and the machine was much older then. The machine was a chucker lathe with NC control (no computer, just electronic controls and servos)

Larry

I remember seeing those, or maybe it was the same one rattling around

 

[John Garner]

I think Larry is correct about Moog Hydra-Point, which I now dimly recall becoming MHP in the mid-to-late '80s.

 

[Dan from Oakland]

The Autometrics are one example, but all the Barber Colman 2 1/4-4 gear hobbing machines used round ways for the hob slide to traverse on. Those hobbers were built for cutting precision instrument gears- to the point that every bearing in the hob and index drives are precision angular contact bearings.

 

[Mud]

I had 2 of these - Cincinnati 10VC-1250s. 3" dia. round ways on Z, 2.5" on Y, 2" on X, with Thompson ball bushings. It made rebuilding them easy.
I have some NOS ball bushings for them if you are building something.

 

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

“ Wadkin “ made a NC drilling machine that had round bar ways.

Regards Tyrone

 

[newtonsapple]

The Monarch EC, small chucker lathe had round bar ways as described in the brochure here:

http://mimsriggers.com/assets/Monarch%20Lathes%20Sales%20Lit20140206.pdf

The ways were completely enclosed, so the arrangement is not obvious.

 

[eKretz]

A hydrostatic system would probably be fine with round ways, or even just a constantly pumped oil supply.

I don't think there are too many manual machines that use linear guides unless they also have ballscrews with some sort of motorized control to keep motion in check. I haven't seen any, anyway.

 

[EmGo]

I had 2 of these - Cincinnati 10VC-1250s. 3" dia. round ways on Z, 2.5" on Y, 2" on X, with Thompson ball bushings. It made rebuilding them easy.

The later ones did go to conventional rectangular ways. I used to wonder why sometimes ... these days I wonder about other stuff

A hydrostatic system would probably be fine with round ways

Hydrostatic is trick. A friend has a landis cam grinder, hydrostatic ways, very responsive and stiff and in theory no wear. Containing the oil has to be a problem tho, or everyone would do it.

the Barber Colman 2 1/4-4 gear hobbing machines used round ways

Speaking of which ....

 

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

The later ones did go to conventional rectangular ways. I used to wonder why sometimes ... these days I wonder about other stuff


Hydrostatic is trick. A friend has a landis cam grinder, hydrostatic ways, very responsive and stiff and in theory no wear. Containing the oil has to be a problem tho, or everyone would do it.


Speaking of which ....

I worked on “Richards “ Hor bores that had hydrostatic ways. They worked fine. 650psi Oil injected in the ways. When you switched axis to the moving one it lifted a thou. No more, no less. No stick-slip and this was before anti-friction ways.

Regards Tyrone