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Industro-Lite Mill Information and Photos

BillSct

Hot Rolled
Joined
Feb 14, 2003
Location
Southeastern Connecticut
It is way past time I posted some info and photos about Industro-Lite mills.

Industro-LiteMill259o.jpg


These miniature horizontal knee mills were made in Sheridan, Oregon by the Industrial Manufacturing Company from about 1945 until the mid-1970's. They were well made and had a number of nice features including:

A 3 morse taper spindle drivew by a V belt/back gear drive yielding 12 speeds,
Power feed to the mill table via a chain drive, tumbler gearbox and worm & wheel.
A 6 x 22 table with three T-slots and a pair of dogs to disengage the table drive.

A vertical mill head, vertical slotter and die filer attachments were available. There was also a "Lathe Attachment" that fitted a bed to the front of the machine. The bed could hold a tailstock and would allow the mill's arbor to function as a lathe spindle. I'm not at all clear on the details of how that worked in practice.

Industro-LiteMill259l.jpg


These mills seem to have been aimed at the high-end home machinist market but that must have been a pretty limited market. The total production run was probably less than three hundred. I own two MF-300 models which had an open stand and a rear mounted motor. Mine are Ser. No. 259 and 256 and probably date from the early 1970's near the end of production. In the mid 1980's the Industrial Manufacturing Company was still in business and I spoke to the owner in hopes of finding a vertical head and possibly other parts but the machines were out of production by then.

Industro-LiteMillsModelMF-300Serial.jpg



There was also an MF-500 model which was the same basic mill but with an enclosed stand that housed the motor and a cast over-arm. A bench model (i.e. just the mill) was also available. In 1977 prices started at $1399 less motor, electricals and arbor.

In terms of size and capacity, I've always thought the Industro-Lite would be a wonderful complement to a Myford Seven or 9" South Bend. Add a small shaper (i.e. Atlas, South Bend, Ammco, etc.) and the home machinist/model engineer of the 1960's would have had a nice little shop. Mine have been keeping a South Bend 10L company for a long time..

One of my machines came from a tool room machinist turned accountant who had a small shop in his home where he took in odd contract jobs, including one where he made mounting rings for the precision mirrors left behind on the moon by the Apollo missions. He told me he bought the mill specifically for one job but I don't think it was that one. So these little machines (or at least one of them) found there way into the commercial world. The second machine came out of a school shop and is pretty beat up,; but it came with the vertical head attachment. I bought the two machines over a decade apart and was amused by how close together the numbers were, but then again, there can’t have been very many shipped to New England.

More photos are located here:

Industro-Lite Mill pictures by billsctphoto - Photobucket
 
First of all, thank you for writing this and putting pictures up on the web. It is the only information I have been able to find except for a few unanswered queries in various forums.

I acquired an older F-300 recently (#132) for $350 and am currently in the process of tearing it down and rebuilding it. I have been impressed with the quality of the machine as I have dismantled it and think it will make a very nice little horizontal when I am finished. Much of the machine is in pretty decent condition though there is some mild wear and a few parts which saw heavy abuse. There are also some missing some parts, notably the entire power feed, part of the motor mount, and the arbor and 2/3rds of the overarm. Most importantly though I am missing the front nut or faceplate which goes on the spindle. I have the pre-load nut which directly contacts the front bearing but not the part which goes on top of that.

IMG_7174.jpg


From the pictures you have and the markings I see on the pre-load nut I have it seems that what I am missing is a single piece that threads onto the spindle then uses three screws to jam the preload nut in place:

SpindleDiagram.jpg


I don't see how this would work with the vertical head shown in your pictures though. I can't see how that mounts at all actually, even if the faceplate that I see is actually a stationary part which is press fit into the mill body. Anyway, whatever light you can shed on this matter would be very helpful.

Industro-Lite Rebuild Album
 
In case anyone with an Industro-Lite that is missing the same piece comes along later, my idea for the missing part was incorrect. The part I saw in other photos of the mill that I was trying to replace is not connected to the spindle in anyway. It is actually just there to help keep chips away from the front bearing seal. Older models (such as mine) did not have the three screws seen on the two mills BillSct owns. Instead the faceplate was just pressed into the bore of the spindle housing.

For anyone who is interested I finished the initial rebuild of the mill I was working on and have posted some pictures of the process here:
Industro-Lite Rebuild Pictures -- Photobucket

IMG_7361_scaled.jpg
 
Thankyou for posting this information.
I too have a Industro-lite mill...the one with the enclosed base and underslung motor.
and until now I thought I was alone.
Mine has a a broken shift lever for the backgear and has suffered some damage to the spindle "dogs" prior to my ownership...otherwise its in OK shape.
But with the help of these images of it in pieces, I now feel empowered to tear mine down and restore it too
Thanks
PS.I also have a few old flyers and information leaflets on this machine
 
I worked for Industrial Manufacturing Company mid 1977 to mid 1978. During that time we built one of the last machines to be built. It was sold to a model engineer in Salem Oregon. I worked for the second owner of Industrial Manufacturing Company. He sold out and retired. I was in Sheridan a few years ago and looked up Industrial Manufacturing Company. They were in a different location and I do not know if they were still supporting the machines.
I loved those little machines at the time and wish that I would of had the money to buy one. This thread is the first I have ever seen on the machine.

Dave
 
It looks like a generous and useful table size for a machine of its capacity! So many of the small horizontals have such tiny tables that it can make set-up difficult. These look quite nice in that respect.
 
I worked for Industrial Manufacturing Company mid 1977 to mid 1978. During that time we built one of the last machines to be built. It was sold to a model engineer in Salem Oregon. I worked for the second owner of Industrial Manufacturing Company. He sold out and retired. I was in Sheridan a few years ago and looked up Industrial Manufacturing Company. They were in a different location and I do not know if they were still supporting the machines.
I loved those little machines at the time and wish that I would of had the money to buy one. This thread is the first I have ever seen on the machine.

Dave

I have one of these machines and live in the Stayton area outside Salem. I looked but could not find any information about the Industrial Manufacturing Company in Sheridan. I assume they are out of business or operating under a different name.

Michael
 
Flyers

Thankyou for posting this information.
I too have a Industro-lite mill...the one with the enclosed base and underslung motor.
and until now I thought I was alone.
Mine has a a broken shift lever for the backgear and has suffered some damage to the spindle "dogs" prior to my ownership...otherwise its in OK shape.
But with the help of these images of it in pieces, I now feel empowered to tear mine down and restore it too
Thanks
PS.I also have a few old flyers and information leaflets on this machine

I would love to have copies of the original flyers. After some horse trading, I basically got my machine for free. I had no idea at the time about the history of this machine, which I still use and abuse, by the way. I may have to clean it up one of these days.

Michael :cheers:
 
I hadn't checked this post in quite a while so I had missed the responses.

To answer the question about how the vertical head mounts:

The overarm is removed and then the head mounts so that it is driven by an arbor in the main spindle. It is held in place by a pair of clamps that are bolted to the face of the vertical way using the four tapped holes located around the arbor. I have the head but only one of the clamps. The manual (yes I have some literature on these machines*) says the clamps were made from a maleable iron that could take some distortion from the strains of clamping.

*The literature I have was provided to me by the late Art Volz shortly before he passed. It's large format (11x17) and I only have it on paper at the moment. If you have one of these machines, send me a message via this board and I will be happy to provide copies.
 
Industro-Lite Mill

Hi all,
I’m new to the PM forum and delighted to find a discussion on this beautiful little mill. I have an M500 (serial #341) that I purchased about 10 years ago from a used machinery dealer in Seattle, WA. It was in near new condition with all of the hand scraping still visible. I bought this machine with the vertical head, cast over arm, vertical slotting attachment and cast over arm braces. Along with the above I also received the original sales brochure, assembly drawing/parts list and routine maintenance instructions. I can post pictures of any or all of this stuff if anyone is interested.

Since purchasing it I have added a shop-built “Dore-Westbury Mark I” vertical head with a variable frequency drive. This has extended the usefulness quite a bit. I have also added a DRO. The 0.125” feed screws were rather cumbersome unless part features happened to be on a 1/16” grid.

:cheers:
Mark Blue
 
Mark,

I would be interested in any documentation you have regarding this machine, especially maintenance/repair/parts. I would also like to know what you used and needed to do to convert to DRO.
 
Industro-lite Documents

I've scanned in all the documents but they are too large to post and I dont have a utility to make them smaller. I'll try to figure out something or I could mail you copies or email you the huge files.

MB
 
DRO's on Industro-lite

I settled on inexpensive inductive DROs for this machine. The scales have remote displays with reasonably large numerals so reading them is easy. I checked the precision of the DROs against the feed screw dials and against a 2", "tenth" reading digital indicator. The DROs and indicator matched within 0.001", good enough for anything I do on this machine. I'll add a DRO to the quill in the next few days (er, um............weeks).

I installed the X-axis & Y-axis with shop-made brackets and NO drilling or cutting to the machine. I just made a couple of extra long gib screws for the X-axis and Z-axis to secure the brackets. I've attached a few pictures to show the general layout.

Here is a link for the DROs
6" Magnetic Remote Table Mill / Saw Fence Digital Readout DRO (for the Y-axis)

24" Magnetic Remote Table Mill / Saw Fence Digital Readout DRO (for the X-axis

6" VER DIGITAL DRO QUILL READOUT SCALE fits BRIDGEPORT
(for the quill)

:cheers:
MB
 

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File size for scanned documents

I'm still trying to figure out how to post these huge scanned files. In thinking more about it, I would rather post them here than send them to individuals. Any suggestions about how to shrink these scanned documents would be greatly appreciated.

Mark
 








 
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