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Mystery milling attachment for Stark (?) Lathe

JackHB

Aluminum
Joined
May 29, 2021
IMG_20210601_093158.jpgIMG_20210601_093243~2.jpgIMG_20210601_093355~2.jpg

Note the thumbscrews on the handles for dial set.

I thought I had a compound for the Stark #4 I finally got around to setting up. This seems to be a milling table attachment. It is essentially brand new, definitely unused if at all.

I can modify it but would rather not spoil the original condition by milling the base and cutting t-slots in the top.

Any thoughts appreciated.
 
View attachment 322124View attachment 322125View attachment 322126

Note the thumbscrews on the handles for dial set.

I thought I had a compound for the Stark #4 I finally got around to setting up. This seems to be a milling table attachment. It is essentially brand new, definitely unused if at all.

I can modify it but would rather not spoil the original condition by milling the base and cutting t-slots in the top.

Any thoughts appreciated.

Stark, Ames, Wade? et al, DID make (or house-badge?) small milling machines - VERY small in some cases - as well as lathes. Much as Hardinge/Cataract had done.

There are threads on PM covering those ever' now and then. Besides the current one you just responded to, I mean.

You might be ahead to trade or sell that nice unit to another Pilgrim who has what it is a bolt-on fit for, and rig yer own milling attachment?

If you even NEED one for a small lathe?

A proper milling machine, entire, even a small one, could be FAR the better deal!
 
A great example of how similar ALL the various makers were.

The details of the slide dials and handles are nearly perfect Rivett, very similar to the 608.
 
A great example of how similar ALL the various makers were.

The details of the slide dials and handles are nearly perfect Rivett, very similar to the 608.

They DID try to fit the hand and eye, yazz?

Hardinge Brothers lovely Cataracts in latter days seems to have morphed to the assumption they could defy God and convince a human to wear his feet on the opposite legs for faster-operating manual parts production?

End of the day, the wiser makers still had to deal with the physical conformation of the statistically average HUMAN body. If I ever-again had to RUN an all-manual Hard-dingey? Please make it a Wade ... or a Schaublin?

A Rivett might want remedial retraining if I was allowed a lunch break? Cazeneuve's can be like that, too!

:)

"Lights-out" CNC surely put a stop to THAT bit of foolish "HUMAN ergonometric" nonsense, didn't it!
 
A great example of how similar ALL the various makers were.

The details of the slide dials and handles are nearly perfect Rivett, very similar to the 608.

Yes! They are identical..it has to be a Rivett. easy enough to make the shoe. The only question then is the height. Is the Rivett 608 a 10" swing? The Stark is 9".
 
They DID try to fit the hand and eye, yazz?

...........

It's rather more than that, the details do not have to fit hands, the matter of eyes does not come down quite to fits.

The "coarse" similarity of merely "having" handles, shafts, and dials is not exactly the point. It's very strong similarity of appearance in details.... Almost as if some of the parts were made by one maker and used by several.

Perhaps the appearance was made so similar (almost identical) to avoid GIVING anyone "fits".... So that none of them really looked different or "strange" compared to the others, and a user would feel instantly at-home no matter which was at his current place of employment.

In any case, some of the parts look almost like "catalog parts", they are that close in appearance, and design.
 
It's rather more than that, the details do not have to fit hands, the matter of eyes does not come down quite to fits.

The "coarse" similarity of merely "having" handles, shafts, and dials is not exactly the point. It's very strong similarity of appearance in details.... Almost as if some of the parts were made by one maker and used by several.

Perhaps the appearance was made so similar (almost identical) to avoid GIVING anyone "fits".... So that none of them really looked different or "strange" compared to the others, and a user would feel instantly at-home no matter which was at his current place of employment.

In any case, some of the parts look almost like "catalog parts", they are that close in appearance, and design.

Safe bet they ARE "catalog parts".

Yet-today "balanced lever" with a crank , tapered cross shank, and ball counterweight, opposite end, and round handwheels come from speciality makers.
So do machine slides, Gits Brothers oilers, Bijur lubricant metering goods.. roller bearings pulleys, gears, fasteners, "etc."

Much the same as BMW & Mercedes buying nearly identical seats from Recaro, window cranks and brakes from ATE, steering gear from Getrag, transmissions from ZF, air-suspension from Bilstein, "etc."

LeBlond began as a components supplier. So too, the Dodge brothers and their "Motor Parts Company" --> MOPAR. BirdPort mills began as add-on heads, then grew themselves an ass of their own design, later.

MOST companies buy-in all the simpler parts, have others made to their spec, only make the "core differentiator" components under their own roof and direct supervision.

Cannot survive, economically, if your scarce resources are trying to beat an industry-dominant volume maker of ignorant setscrews, taper pins, Woodruff keys .. knobs, hand levers, and handwheels... just to claim "we make all our own parts".

"All our own parts" got a still-young Herr Pelz three days in Kaiser Bill's Aerodrome guardhouse on bread and water, only, closing months of War One.

His wife had relatives in Austria getting cigar-lighter wheels and flint mechanisms to him. In between servicing Richtofen's old squadron's Mercedes six aero engines- the ones he had been the factory fitter "gang leader" for as-built - he had a side business mounting the lighter-works atop salvaged (eg: "stolen" rather than sent-off for reloading) War One Hebel Model 1894 signalling-flare "pistol" brass cartridge cases. And the 26.5 mm Hebel wasn't exactly no concealable "pocket pistol", neither!

Ran short of brass cases to fill an order for lighters.

That close to the heavy guns of the front lines as short-range aircraft of the era were based, he didn't think anyone would notice the noise atall if he fired-off three more to finish out the "standard parts" needed ... instead of waiting for "normal consumption".

"Noise" wasn't to be the problem. He got THAT part right!

What TF would a Master Machinist drafted to fill a shortage of front-line aero-engine mechanics know about the VISUAL effects of Aircraft-control signalling flares?

Bet your sweet ASS it was "noticed"!

Hadn't have been the best mechanic the squadron had, prolly have gotten his ass SHOT!

Pays-off to be good at yer craft. Can even save yer ass from the consequences of some of the damndest foolishness?

Or so we hope and pray, even yet today?

Guess you'd just have to know Machinashitists and "risk-taking"?

:D
 
You might be ahead to trade or sell that nice unit to another Pilgrim who has what it is a bolt-on fit for, and rig yer own milling attachment?

If you even NEED one for a small lathe?
Yes, very true, the question is how many people are out there to swap a Rivett 608 fixture (even brand new) for a Stark, Hardinge, etc compound slide and a bunch of Stark collets etc. ?
 
Yes, very true, the question is how many people are out there to swap a Rivett 608 fixture (even brand new) for a Stark, Hardinge, etc compound slide and a bunch of Stark collets etc. ?

Look on the bright side of "statistics"

There are over 7 billion humans afoot.

You need exactly ONE!

Should get easier to find after you have checked-out the first hundred thousand?

:D

Actually? The way PM is indexed to a fare-the-well by Google?

You are in "the right place".

And in their globally searched database. Already.

Try a search:

"Stark milling machine".

Fourth hit ....and you are on the stage of the whole world.

"PM at work. Doing what PM does best!"

:D
 
Hmmmm..... With Rivett, and some of the others notorious for odd solutions to problems, and making things their way in-house, the idea of actual catalog parts is a bit less likely.

But, the idea of Rivett (or substitute your favorite brand name) having a side gig in supplying some of the parts, that has some merit.

Rivett and one or two other companies (not, I think, Stark, but....) seem to have been associated to some degree. There is the chance that one or more of them did supply some common parts, likely Rivett. They could get up to better "production run" quantity, even though they made only 10 or a dozen 608s in some years. Or they could have had the parts made, allowing the maker to make their own as well.

With the Rivett records, files, and all portions of the factory; parts, drawings, tooling and machines having been in a Vermont landfill for 50 years, and the relevant time period having been 30 to 80 years before that, we may never know.
 
But, the idea of Rivett (or substitute your favorite brand name) having a side gig in supplying some of the parts, that has some merit.


Noo.. a forest is more than just a certain family of tree - Hickory, Pecan, the several Walnuts all first-cousins.

I meant the folk whose BUSINESS is making slides and NOT the machine tools.

Machine tool builders, as a class, are both smaller, economically than their major customers and weaker than their major suppliers as well. Those who supply their bearings, fasteners, motors, transport, factory HVAC, electrical goods, lubricants, and even PAINT are larger firms.

There were easily a dozen of those slide & positioner makers over time doing dovetailed slides. For a very long time, already, linear rails with bearings as well.

CNC makers buy those. They don't make their own any more than Ferarri made Nardi steering wheels, Maserati made Boranni wire Wheels, Lancia made Pirelli Tires, Jaguar made Connolly hides leather, Bud wheel made flower vases, or Holley made V8 engine blocks.

Cadillac Gauge, OTOH, was more the rage for armoured cars than Pla-Check master height gages or Food Machinery Corporation was for M-113 APC's than for commercial/institutional canning and sterilizing goods.. or hand-pumped insecticide sprayers (Bean).

Go figure Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing DID at least try (2 or 3 times) to "mine something" rather than make reflectives, tapes, sticky-notes, and other "3M" sticky goopy stuff.

Go at an old lathe with a strip of "Scotchbrite"? 32 billion dollar a year 3-M could have bought that machine-tool builder outright and booked the cost as a mere rounding error.

In Reliance heyday, an Exxon property, it coined more money than most of those who bought the motors.

Using a cheap but reliable Bic Biro? Biro was a clever Hungarian inventor, struggling along in Argentina. Marcel Bich, son of an Engineeer, adapted Swiss watchmaking machinery to mass-produce the patent he bought from Biro reliably and cheaply.

It didn't exactly make him or his family paupers as....Engineery-Machinist-types go.

Wuddn' yah know it? Son Bich cheated. He was a damned good MANAGER, too!

:)

You want to see Old Iron survive?

We chikn's will have to make it so!

The Big Battalions have the same attitude Elliot Roosevelt had about war.

Per FDR? "Now.. my son Elliot? He just doesn't give a damn!"

Fortunately, Voltaire might have twigged to something de Bussy-Rabutin missed:

‘God is on the side not of the heavy battalions but of the best shots.’
 
It certainly looks like the top half of a Rivett milling attachment which is pretty rare. I don’t have my catalogs handy so I can’t check but I think it is one that was produced for only a short time. Now it is known Rivett would make special slides for things like a 608. I have a friend who has one that is in the style of a Myford slide, ordered by a guy from Rivett in the 1950s. It came from the original owner with the paperwork and correspondence so there is no doubt of who made it.

The idea of a trade for a Stark thing is a nice idea but more likely just a theory. The odds of finding the same person that needs the Rivett slide and has the Stark slide are extremely rare. Might be more plausible to sell one and buy the other?
 
It certainly looks like the top half of a Rivett milling attachment which is pretty rare. I don’t have my catalogs handy so I can’t check but I think it is one that was produced for only a short time. Now it is known Rivett would make special slides for things like a 608. I have a friend who has one that is in the style of a Myford slide, ordered by a guy from Rivett in the 1950s. It came from the original owner with the paperwork and correspondence so there is no doubt of who made it.

The idea of a trade for a Stark thing is a nice idea but more likely just a theory. The odds of finding the same person that needs the Rivett slide and has the Stark slide are extremely rare. Might be more plausible to sell one and buy the other?

This one came as part of a yard sale lot (just driving by at the end of the day), 2 stark headsets, tailstocks, beds and this cross slide. There was also a pair of Stark cast iron legs but I couldn't fit them in the car at the time.

It looks like the 608 used a "shoe" as part of the carriage and the 60 did not. I am thinking that removing 3" of the bevel would make it compatible with both (no bevel on the 60, just end blocks)

One could make a simple "shoe" but that would raise the toolholder height (9.5" vs 9" swing).
 
Rivett 60 1.jpgRivett 60 2.jpg

The Rivett 60 compound would seem to have no "shoe".

I think the slide could be modified to fit both the 60 type (actually the Stark) and the 608. Adding the "shoe" to the Stark would raise the tool post (have to think about that)
 
it certainly does look rivett manufacture, if you have a photo of the underside of the compound section itself I could tell you more, as they had several incompatible lines of lathe bed shapes.

I do not have a stark slide, or i'd trade in a minute =D I have extra rivett slides but i don't think that helps you either. If you are interested in selling it, I may be very interested in buying, and I see you're just up the road from me in NH.
 
Do you have any Rivett 60 compounds ? Presumably they would fit on a Stark.
 
Hrm, interesting. I cant tell 100% for certain, but it appears to have been designed to be used either on a 608 carriage base or with a saddle adapter.

I have a rivett saddle adapter I believe is compatible with the 60 series , as well as a compound that came with it, which I don't believe was originally from a 608 because, although otherwise identical to my 608 compounds, it does not have a gear for traverse feed, so I think it's from either a 60 series or 90 series. if the saddle adapter is the right dimension then it's what you'd need to use a rivett cross slide with your stark.

rivett_saddle_plates.jpgrivett_slide_underside.jpg

EDIT: You'll note that the 'correct' shoe doesnt actually raise the height of the slide at all above the bed. So it's likely I have exactly the parts you need to get up and running.
 








 
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