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Fray 10R All Angle mill questions...

Scuffy

Aluminum
Joined
Jan 13, 2007
Location
Shores of Lake Erie
Hi all! I'm back with another unique machine to add to my collection. These things seem to have a way of finding me when I least need them- just ask my wife!

I recently came across a Fray 10R All Angle milling machine just a short drive away. For the price of $300 I couldn't pass it up. Over all it seems to be in decent order. Everything seems tight and works as it should as far as the manual controls go. Honestly though? She's a bit.... ugly. Table and most wheels, the bright work, is rusty. Doesn't seem to be too deep and should be something that can be cleaned up in time. Annnnd it doesn't have a motor. Sometime in the last few years the 220v motor was removed by a prior owner. I'm not that worried because after I read that the mounting plate tended to be a weak point on these... the idea of using a DC treadmill motor struck me as a decent experiment to proceed with. We shall see.

The tipping point in my decision regarding grabbing this up was the fact that I found out, from the prior owner, that this was from the Ravenna Arsenal or Camp James A. Garfield. Definitely sealed the deal. I've been looking for a piece of war related machinery! The arsenal was first put into operation in August of 1941 and officially opened in 1942. Fray made milling machines from the late 1930's into the early 1950's. So I'm assuming that this machine was purchased new for the installation.

At any rate. Between Mother Natures tirades with rain and cold weather and m work schedule... I have yet to get this machine off the trailer I picked it up on. It's currently sitting under a heavy tarp at home while I'm stuck in a company provided dorm 100 miles away. UGH! Soon pictures will follow. I planned on trying to keep up with a thread of my attempt at restoration.

Before I am lucky enough to get that far I did manage to sneak a few pictures under the tarp because I have my first question! Does anyone happen to know what the heck this plate translates to? I believe it has to deal with it being owned and operated at the arsenal for a period of time. Aside from that I am drawing a blank.



71797784_10219549149456746_1365897190374899712_o.jpg


72111885_10219549150096762_2212861163438342144_o.jpg

The U.S.A is pretty obvious but as far as the rest of the codified stamping doesn't seem to be be something talked about on the interwebs. I've tried searching for different combinations of the code but nothing comes up. My Google-fu shouldn't be that bad!

Secondly- is there any way to learn more about my machines history? Other searches of the web don't yield a whole lot. The lathes.co.uk site seems to have the most info on them. There don't seem to be any manuals, production run numbers/serial numbers etc. available.
 
Hi all! I'm back with another unique machine to add to my collection. These things seem to have a way of finding me when I least need them- just ask my wife!

I recently came across a Fray 10R All Angle milling machine just a short drive away. For the price of $300 I couldn't pass it up. Over all it seems to be in decent order. Everything seems tight and works as it should as far as the manual controls go. Honestly though? She's a bit.... ugly. Table and most wheels, the bright work, is rusty. Doesn't seem to be too deep and should be something that can be cleaned up in time. Annnnd it doesn't have a motor. Sometime in the last few years the 220v motor was removed by a prior owner. I'm not that worried because after I read that the mounting plate tended to be a weak point on these... the idea of using a DC treadmill motor struck me as a decent experiment to proceed with. We shall see.

The tipping point in my decision regarding grabbing this up was the fact that I found out, from the prior owner, that this was from the Ravenna Arsenal or Camp James A. Garfield. Definitely sealed the deal. I've been looking for a piece of war related machinery! The arsenal was first put into operation in August of 1941 and officially opened in 1942. Fray made milling machines from the late 1930's into the early 1950's. So I'm assuming that this machine was purchased new for the installation.

At any rate. Between Mother Natures tirades with rain and cold weather and m work schedule... I have yet to get this machine off the trailer I picked it up on. It's currently sitting under a heavy tarp at home while I'm stuck in a company provided dorm 100 miles away. UGH! Soon pictures will follow. I planned on trying to keep up with a thread of my attempt at restoration.

Before I am lucky enough to get that far I did manage to sneak a few pictures under the tarp because I have my first question! Does anyone happen to know what the heck this plate translates to? I believe it has to deal with it being owned and operated at the arsenal for a period of time. Aside from that I am drawing a blank.



View attachment 266637


View attachment 266638

The U.S.A is pretty obvious but as far as the rest of the codified stamping doesn't seem to be be something talked about on the interwebs. I've tried searching for different combinations of the code but nothing comes up. My Google-fu shouldn't be that bad!

Secondly- is there any way to learn more about my machines history? Other searches of the web don't yield a whole lot. The lathes.co.uk site seems to have the most info on them. There don't seem to be any manuals, production run numbers/serial numbers etc. available.

NW PA is a long way from home for a left-coast mill. PM has a few threads, at least one with the sort-of fraternal relationship with Diamond mills.

You mill's "niche" was flexible working, light cuts, but quick to set up for the weirder needs. I'd have wanted one for making clever jigs and fixtures. Not for any sort of volume production in its own skin.

C.O.D "might" be Contract, Ordnance Department, and the contract number a part of the delivered item number on that plate. Purely administrative, property-tracking and audit, nought to do with technical specs, save wotever was in the contract itself, if-even that had anything more than civilian maker model number and reference to THEIR specs.

There was a war on. It wasn't yet up for $600 terlet seats, nor 20 year devel delays. Pragmatism, rather, such as:

- Singer.. coming-off sewing machines to make some of the best "value for money" .45 ACP 1911 ever mass-produced, still dead-nuts accurate two wars later, my one, Long Binh, RVN. Also avionics and servos for bombers, Kearfott division.

- Revlon turning ladie's lipstick tube production lines to making insane amounts of brass cartridge cases, it already taking 18,000 rounds fired for every enemy combatant nailed. Silly-small numbers even so, once we went over to effing twenty-two Mattel toys so lighter ammo could be wasted at ten times that rate.

- Ford gearing-up to crank out a twin-engine bomber "complete", every 59 minutes by the wall-clock,
Had to do, rate they were being shot-down.

- Marmon, heir to flour-mill fortune and wooden-wheel race car fame teaming with Buick and Wright aircraft engines to crank out the M18 Hellcat - a tank destroyer so fast over the ground as to be able to get behind a Wehrmacht Koenigs Tiger II faster than it could traverse its gun - desperate turret krew KNOWING sudden death was soon to put a 76 mm round up their arse and blast the Maybach's glowing remains through the crew and ammo compartment - the only sure kill for its puny gun.

- Higgins, cross breeding lots of plywood with minimal amounts of steel with the aid of the Devil himself, screaming GMC 6-71 in "battle" mode the proof of it for spacious landing craft that had no right to survive even a single one-way trip, but made many, over and over again.

- Me late Mum. Perry HS, class of 1940. Past 90 years of age before she figured it was OK after all to talk about what she did "in secret" - during the war. One of many clever female hands making radar set electronics.

Dad? Spicheren Heights. Told his BN CO to stick that Bronze Star and V device up his ass. Stayed there until the Korean War, too!
:)

There's more. It was the kind of war the whole nation put their heart, hands, brains, money, grit, guts - and lives - into winning.

Go figure that years on-end of LOSING at a reality-TV serial circus over a "peach mint" desert in Congress would become ever so much more important than America should still be able to WIN anything more enduring than the pompous spew of liars and jackasses gloating and whining on "fake news" channels.
 
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There's also a possible connection between the Fray mill and the Axelson mill, both west coast made machines of their time. I would love to get my hands on either one of them some day if one ever came past me, and the price is right. Ken
 
Gosh thermite, you really pack a punch and worth rereading for this is info not normally known. There are two heads that I sorta know about. I have the smaller specimen which is B&S #7. It has a clever planetary drive atop the head but there is a lot of brass in there. Not all greases are compatible with these bearings. I used red synthetic. It is #2 instead of #1 but it is tacky and doesn't fling off much. The head itself is a work but those heavy motors put a strain unless everything is tight as unit. The motors have a long shaft for those step pulleys but everybody knows that too. DC might go well but probably need a sleeve adapter.
 
Gosh thermite, you really pack a punch and worth rereading for this is info not normally known.

Not normally remembered, you mean. Genetic curse more than blessing, more than a few generations.

Mind.. the burn-scarred Tiger tank commander blasted out of his hatch as a human torch - clerk in a bank in Hamburg when the war started - was earning his crust as a paid POW, shared his story war's end. His case wasn't a lone Hellcat. NINE Shermans, rather, and he had proudly brewed up the first five in a row before one got behind him and vaporized his Maybach, 80-odd octane "ersatz" gasoline, ammo ... and all the rest of his crew. Tiger was a tougher tank. Weaker Sherman crews knew what the price was, four or five to pay it didn't hesitate. Might as well die trying as to die retreating, yah?

Be glad it ain't in person. Mate of mine and his nephew came by this AM to borrow a 2-Ton engine hoist. Missed the mass of his Cummins diesel 6 off the top of my head as 1,100 Avoir. Google sez 1,150 just out of curiosity a few minutes ago, so I guess I'm gittin' old.

:)

PS: Mike Pompeo? Top of his class, Hudson HS AKA "West Point". Good enough for Corps of Engineers.
Whaddid HE do? Had to pull strings to do it.. but he chose Armoured Cav instead.

Not a mindset even damned fools should f**k with. "Interesting times" are afoot..
 
It isn't just a few posts. All of which are packed with insight but lets say it is up to the readers.
 
Google is a swamp. Scary, even, the political power to distort now in place.

But "in the meantime", is at least one of the more USEFUL things the Russians have done.

I have found it interesting that super intelligent people are so hell bent against our President. I mean, Wtf do they want?
Searching for "Fray" anything pulls up thousands of unrelated topics. The only good ones were right here. Very old ones and the photos are gone. I recall the inside of mine. I wondered "what is this grease". It was bronze looking stuff and dirty. Didn't take long to know it was bearing surfaces.
Even that is a red flag to somebody here. Somebody knows about the grease which had the bronze in it to fill the cavities of the sleeve bearings.
 
I have found it interesting that super intelligent people are so hell bent against our President. I mean, Wtf do they want?

Contradictions do not long exist in nature.

Ask yerself:

Just whom was it as classed any of them as "super intelligent?" rather than overly habituated as to entitlement to elitist privilege to begin with, and WHY did they get that assessment so badly wrong?

For extra credit;

Do roundworms attack hookworms or tapeworms when cohabiting in the same infested gut and an anti-parasitical dose of medication has been ingested?

The "school solution"?
Kick ass clear TF out, and publish names of the guilty.

The question to that will become apparent in due course.

HINT: Nutsy Pelosi is not REALLY going to become Prez by impeaching Trump, Pence, and Pompeo, being sworn in, appointing Billary Cunton the new VP. Crazy enough plus reserves to divert clear to Mars if IAD is closed. But not quite that dumb.

Fancy Nancy knows damned well omnivorous Billary would simply ass ass in ate her to make room for the tastier, wetter, AOC under her blanket.

:D
 
Yes it will. The "super intelligent" description will stand as it must. Composition is about Machining and knowing more about what our members already know. They can't know everything at once. I like the analogy of the worms too. Another thing to ponder yet I understand a symbiosis relation to how things work and the grand plan, to some degree. We can never fully understand that but ain't it wonderful.
 
This political hatred has gone too far and there is a reason for this. Trump is exposing some of the crap we lived thru for near a decade and the left doesn't want any part of it revealed."By any means" they said.
 
Having a head is one thing and having the entire milling machine is another. I think as long as we are alive, those emblems and stamps mean a lot. You had a long post and are very concerned with it coming together correctly. I really like that. The head itself bespeaks of another time yet not ancient times yet.
I just have to say about Maybach engines and the PzkpfwV Panthers and how they destroyed other tanks with their crews. We couldn't bring vehicles of this weight and capacity across the oceans. Many ships were sunk and all of it went deep. They were facing moving Tiger fortresses and graves to say. It was rockets which hit those beasts from aircraft. Damn it was horrid times.
 
Having a head is one thing and having the entire milling machine is another. I think as long as we are alive, those emblems and stamps mean a lot. You had a long post and are very concerned with it coming together correctly. I really like that. The head itself bespeaks of another time yet not ancient times yet.
I just have to say about Maybach engines and the PzkpfwV Panthers and how they destroyed other tanks with their crews. We couldn't bring vehicles of this weight and capacity across the oceans. Many ships were sunk and all of it went deep. They were facing moving Tiger fortresses and graves to say. It was rockets which hit those beasts from aircraft. Damn it was horrid times.

Surely we could do. We moved a lot of railway locomotives.

What we couldn't "bring them across" was frontline-local as to our heavier armour. Western front Europe's old, weak, narrow roads, bridges, narrow urban streets, icy surfaces, property-dividing hedgerows and soft ground when so much of the time we had to go off even the roads as had ever even BEEN "roads".

If "we had it to do over again" the dice-roll as to M4, M10, M18 being appropriate wudda been done differently and we'd not have lost so many crews.

Simple and cheap stuff, such as a few hundred thousand Allied equivalents to IMPROVED Panzerschreck and Panzerfaust instead of our punier and too-damned scarce, even so - shoulder-fired rocket launchers, for example. Straight-leg infantry, better equipped for the confrontation cudda waxed German armour with dreadful regularity.

Another "dumb blindspot" we had missed was equally simple as to a solution: Struggling boots on the ground had poor to non-existent direct communications with tankbuster aircraft.

No longer the case.

Need the gentle touch of an A10 Warthog, a fast-mover with 2000 pounders, a "patchy-bird" with cannon & Hellfires?

Ask, and ye shall receive, day or night, and laser-designated, even..

Ilyushin Sturmoviks on one side and a guy with twin 50 mm Mauser cannon on a past-its-sell-by date Stuka taught us the value of close air support vs armour.

But not-only.

Putin ever tries-on Ukraine with all that armour he's massed, Donbas and adjacent? Javelins plus some right capable Ukrainian-built stuff that's waaay cheaper and more numerous are going to create yet-another corruption challenge. Fighting over who gets to profit the most off the scrap metal bizness as once had been mostly-obsolete-anyway Rooshin tanks!

:)
 
Being stood "corrected" isn't bad. When a composition of this knowledge is received, it is a pleasure to read and understand. When I was young, I was a tank fanatic and knew many statistics about the types used in warfare. I built as many tank models as I could find. Since we had battery powered cars and little toys, I would adapt gear drives into some of them. One in particular, a Sherman, bulldozer model. I built the dozer blade to scale and set it on my dresser. The dresser was full of assembled tank models.Arrived home from school to see my Sherman dozer sitting atop of a pile of smashed tanks. It had started,pushed them off and fell on the heap. Little stuff I hadn't thought about for 50+ years.
 
Being stood "corrected" isn't bad. When a composition of this knowledge is received, it is a pleasure to read and understand. When I was young, I was a tank fanatic and knew many statistics about the types used in warfare. I built as many tank models as I could find. Since we had battery powered cars and little toys, I would adapt gear drives into some of them. One in particular, a Sherman, bulldozer model. I built the dozer blade to scale and set it on my dresser. The dresser was full of assembled tank models.Arrived home from school to see my Sherman dozer sitting atop of a pile of smashed tanks. It had started,pushed them off and fell on the heap. Little stuff I hadn't thought about for 50+ years.

Combat Engineers ordinarily may build prison CAMPS. But in their combat role, do not ordinarily take prisoners to put into them. No time for it.

One US unit, however had an entire Volks-something-or-other Battalion holding a section of the "west wall" surrender without firing a shot, cannon or machine-gun, either one.

A single Engineer tank dozer was the cause.

Seems it had roared up the approach track with a massive bundle of logs chained to its upraised blade, reached the edge of an anti-tank ditch, electrically detonated charges that severed the chains, dropping enough logs into the gap it could then push in dirt and rock atop, approach side, waddle across, push in more dirt and rock from the far side, tamp it down, then pull back to give way to...

... a column of armour without dozer blades roaring through, locked, loaded, alert, and spring-loaded to the flat out merciless mode of battle (only kind armour ever HAS, BTW..) - striking on into Germany - beyond that now useless section of the "Siegfried line".

The greying War One veteran German Major of "Pionier" who surrendered his fortress battalion of old men and young boys to the sparse crew of that lone tank and its platoon as was left after the armour had passed?

Had personally supervised the construction of that section of the line.

Three years, planning, preparation, difficult juggling of wartime priorities, near impossible gathering of scarce materials and labour.. Ten thousand "Organization Todt" slave-labour workers. Commanding design of concealed strong points, bunkers, interlocking fields of fire.. all very much by the book.

Why, then did he not offer battle?

Wrong book, one supposes?


Words to the effect:

Ein amerikanischer Pionierpanzer und fünfzehn Minuten und alles war verloren!

West By God Virginia hillbillies as had their own idea of a "book", still being writ large with ignorant logs, chains, demo charges, and a really neat toy on a Sherman tank chassis.

Go figure what was the rush or why they'd want to shorten a war and git back home sooner?

Simple enough.

Shoot a buck, eat venison. Shoot some fool German, can't eat 'im, nor the next several, after.

Why would you want to be bothered with THAT, and not even have home cooking, fresh-made light bread, decent whiskey, or a warm bed equipped with hot and hongry p***y?

You'd have to know Appalachia and its priorities...

:D
 
I'm in the process of moving all of my equipment over to a much larger pole building, and also in the process of insulating, plumbing for heat and AC, etc... which means I have yet to be able to get to working on the Fray 10R. The motor and accompanying shroud and stepped pulleys are missing from my mill. In all of my casual searching of the interwebs I have not yet come across any direct replacements. I realize the shrouds are more cosmetic than anything and I can fab up something much simpler to accomplish the same thing. So looking at a worst case scenario- I'm not adverse to some creative time with my steel supply. But the pulleys.. what of the stepped pulleys? Does anyone here still own their Fray 10R and would you be able to tell me what diameters I should be looking for if I am going for a replacement? For the speed ranges would you recommend any changes?


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And secondly! I have read of a back gear assembly for this unit but I can't quite identify whether or not this has it. I am leaning towards a big whopping "NO".
 
Scuffy,

Try [email protected] | Topics. If the link does not work search groups.io for Fray, there is a group there. Pictures, manuals etc, some pretty good information and files.

I will try to get some pulley information for you tomorrow, you will most likely have to make them if you wish something like the original set up. From the looks of your pictures yours has been modified a good bit. I think. A good DC motor and drive set up might be a simpler, git it dun, solution.

Bob
71193
 
The smaller Fray heads had a neat planetary built inside the spindle pulley, like some lathes but only in concept. The Fray's were serious steel with sleeve bearings. They had hardened shafts and spiral grooved bearings for maximum lube but..the larger head must be different with replaceable ball or needle bearings. Imagine what those cost then.
 








 
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