Unusual Wells-Index Mill

[Frank R]

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/270115005443308/

Never saw anything like this. None of the pictures on Tony's site match. Probably for production. Base may be shop built.

Maybe only the motor is W-I. Does anyone recognize the upper part?

 

[sfriedberg]

That's bizarre. I wonder if it was used primarily as a drill press. The table travel is tiny compared to the base.

 

[M.B. Naegle]

I have a hunch that the head is the only thing Wells-Index, while the base, risers (note there's multiple?), and turret were repurposed from something else. The holes and bosses on the base imply that there used to be more to it, or it at least had options for more. Something about it looks like auto-engine machine shop, or the remains of some kind of pre-NC automation, like a pantograph or hydra-trace.

I'd be curious how flat the table is. Just in the sense that if someone went through the trouble of grinding and scraping it, it might have been something inspection related too.

 

[sfriedberg]

No idea what it looked like when first created but the base top now looks like corroded HR plate, so I'm guessing it was not a precision surface.

 

[Jim Christie]

I took a look on Vintage Machinery and found 2 Wells Index models that look similar.
I think that it may be made from parts of the lighter 756 model
http://vintagemachinery.org/pubs/2280/28639.pdf with a couple of risers .
They don't show risers on that link but may be shown in one of the other publications that I didn't check
This is the larger but similar looking model that lists as 500 lbs. heavier .
I didn't compare all the details.

http://vintagemachinery.org/pubs/2280/28637.pdf

Perhaps the base was shop made where ever it was being used.
I would guess that the machine was probably built as a portable drilling machine in place of a larger radial drill or magnetic base drill for use in some place like a ship yard ,railway shop or bridge work where it was easier to bring the machine to the part .
I have seen a horizontal drill brought by overhead crane to drill holes in the end of a large paper mill roll and depending on the job a small radial arm drill carried by the crane for another vertical drilling operation where the part weighed several times what the drill did.
I think the small milling table was probably added afterwards by someone who bought the machine when it was retired from its original purpose.
Jim

 

[sfriedberg]

Portability does seem like a main objective for whoever put it together. Besides the casters on the base, I bet those holes in the side of the base are for lifting bars to be used together with slings and a crane.

 

[ratbldr427]

One of our guys that just retired bought what looks like the heavy duty model Jim Christie posted about. It was the first one like that I have seen. He told me that he had never moved the ram on the 747 mill at work , so wasn't bothered by not having the ram.
In the thirty years I have worked here I probably have only moved the rams on the Index and Webb mill maybe a dozen times or so.
The most memorable I had to swivel and extend the ram to bore and sleeve a large sector arm for one of our cutters. The piece weighed more than the table.The part was $25k and 6months out from Switzerland, so sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do.

 

[Frank R]

Portability does seem like a main objective for whoever put it together. Besides the casters on the base, I bet those holes in the side of the base are for lifting bars to be used together with slings and a crane.

The holes don't go through to the other side so I don't think so.

I contacted the owner and he said "My Dad bought at an auction years ago. We never used it. I just want it out of my shop."

Also, what is the tooling in it? It doesn't look like the spindle.

 

[Andy FitzGibbon]

Might be a boring head in the spindle.

The X-Y table is a piece of crap import, so almost certainly added later. Having no vertical travel besides the quill would be limiting... someone must have built it for a specific task.

 

[sfriedberg]

The holes don't go through to the other side so I don't think so.

Interesting. Thanks. Are there any signs the base was used as a tank (coolant)? Maybe the holes were already in whatever they made the base from.

[Added in edit] It looks like there are matching front holes on both sides (it's right under the switch box on the right side). And maybe the rear hole is right in between the electrical boxes on the right side (cannot see in photo). So there's a bulkhead or something inside the base that prevents getting in one side and out the other?

 

[Frank R]

I asked what was behind the door and he said "storage".