Follow along with the video below to see how to install our site as a web app on your home screen.
Note: This feature may not be available in some browsers.
Largest Manufacturing Technology Community on the Web
Stay Connected:
Sheldon No. 0 Horizontal Mill
- Thread starter lvracing2
- Start date
- Replies 16
- Views 6,183
4GSR
Diamond
- Joined
- Jan 25, 2005
- Location
- Victoria, Texas, USA
Good luck on finding a vertical head!!! They don't exists. Most of the ones that exists were adapted for use on a Sheldon mill. You have to adapt one to fit or make your own. I believe Sheldon use a vertical head off of a Diamond milling machine back in the day. Could be wrong.
As for a base, you'll have to fabricate one to work for your mill unless someone has scrapped out one that you can get the stand off of.
Ken
As for a base, you'll have to fabricate one to work for your mill unless someone has scrapped out one that you can get the stand off of.
Ken
itsmeBernie
Hot Rolled
- Joined
- Jul 2, 2005
- Location
- Northern New Jersey
There were two different Rusnok heads appropriately sized for your machine. One of them was custom-made for the Sheldon. Model A-9033, with a matching Brown and Sharp #9 taper in the spindle. It mounted through the over on arm mount in the body of the mill, and was driven from the back of the spindle on a belt.
It would be perfectly appropriate for you to use the Rusnok Model 70 Milling head, which used to double taper “Y “collets, and would mount to your overarm, 2 inches in diameter. You would lose about 2 inches of room below the head above the table, but you could also make a different doctor to stand it up a couple of inches higher.
Surprisingly, I DID run into the head only last year. I put it on a Sheldon 0 I owned at the time, that didn’t have one, and sold it.
thermite
Diamond
- Joined
- Sep 21, 2011
"What Bernie said". And it might be "a while" before you find one.
Meanwhile, first vertical head you adapt need not wait nor stop that search if you need to USE one.
We have carbides now.
Folks have adapted Porter-Cable routers and Chinese air OR even liquid-cooled spindles with built-in ER chucks - no mechanical drive integration needed, just another power cord.
Others, "Right here on PM", but not-only, have grabbed a value-for-money deal on a set of bearings and fabbed them from scratch -conventional power from the mill or belt drive from their own motor.
There are also several right-angle heads in the used market - made for BeePees & clones - that could be re-purposed as a vertical head for a mill as small as the Sheldon.
No advancing quill on any of these, let alone a powered one, but there's always the Z-axis.
thermite
Diamond
- Joined
- Sep 21, 2011
Helped me, too.
I hadn't run a search in a few years.
Some of those goods - search on "spindle", not head - are really inexpensive now.
Many at around a hundred bucks complete with integral ER nose, either DC controller or VFD, and a mounting bracket.
Cheap crap? Probably. What isn't these days?
But at a price about that of a pair of decent boots - probably useful for a least "a while".
For a mill that small, a Bridgeport head is probably out of the question - it would probably tip the mill over. They did make a Model H, which was basically a Model C specifically for the small Hardinge mills, but probably hard to find and even harder to find the oddball collets.
Depending on how much power you need, you could adapt something like a Sherline headstock / motor unit. It's only morse taper 1, but there are collets for it and ER collet adaptors.
A guy on ebay is selling a vertical unit for an Atlas milling machine (see pictures). That might give you an idea of what you can do with some fabricating.
Steve
Depending on how much power you need, you could adapt something like a Sherline headstock / motor unit. It's only morse taper 1, but there are collets for it and ER collet adaptors.
A guy on ebay is selling a vertical unit for an Atlas milling machine (see pictures). That might give you an idea of what you can do with some fabricating.
Steve
Attachments
Marty Feldman
Titanium
- Joined
- Feb 21, 2005
- Location
- Falmouth, Maine
Actually, it's a doable proposition. A piece of bent pipe, running in brackets bolted to the machine, lets the BP head, properly balanced, swing into and out of position with easy 1-finger pressure - no lifting, no danger of a toppleover. The mounting socket that mates the vertical head to the mill obviously fits over and clamps to the end of the overarm.
A question to be sure you have answered to your satisfaction before you go down this road is, why do you want the vertical head? The Sheldon/Vernon is a very nice, dainty hor mill, but if you want to adapt it for drilling, cranking the handle round & round for punching a hole can get tiresome if not downright irksome compared to having a DP or a competant milling machine for doing the same job. The objection is less strong if all you want to do is a bit of side milling.
-Marty-
(sorry about the PITA sideways formatting of the thumbnails but I can machine up a pair of bevel gears faster than I can fix the problem, and maybe even faster than I could drill a decent batch of holes using the BP vertical head)
thermite
Diamond
- Joined
- Sep 21, 2011
Sideways what? It's a thread on horizontal mills f'hems sake. Our "wetware" heads have to be able to rotate 90, even if Milling heads insist on remaining "vertical".
Nicely done rig!
ISTR reading that the BP head was only around 70 lbs Avoir?
If I were to upsize that "pipe" to 2" heavy-wall "hydraulic" tubing, I might be able to steal the idea for the monster K&T head that's been adapted to 5200+ lbs Avoir of USMT "Quartet".
It wants the 2 Ton engine hoist to get enough "reach" at present.
See Adam Booth's video series on the "parking attachment" for the K&T mill head. You can see one on Keith Fenner's mill, too, but Adam actually built one from scratch.
Steve
thermite
Diamond
- Joined
- Sep 21, 2011
Adam may have built one from scratch, but not for this mill. Quartet is a weird Duck. Or perhaps Monotreme.
He kindly carried the heads into the truck by hand when I picked up the Quartet from his old shop. Once home, I had to use machinery to get them back out!
Stout lad, Adam is! One hand lift, he had even made it look easy!
Marty Feldman
Titanium
- Joined
- Feb 21, 2005
- Location
- Falmouth, Maine
Does anyone know the approximate weight of the Sheldon Model Zero ?
steamachine
Cast Iron
- Joined
- Jul 18, 2008
- Location
- Waltham, MA
I had a Sheldon mill that came equipped with a vertical head made by Porter cable. Pretty neat little compact head but it had no quill feed and when I found a Rusnok head, I rarely used the porter cable one. Coincidentally, there is a Porter cable head for sale in the toolong for sale section on PM
Rudd
Stainless
- Joined
- Jul 30, 2003
- Location
- savannah, jaw-ja
IIRC the Sheldon 0 comes in around 900 pounds.
I've got one of those Porter Cable heads, I never could figure a good way to get it spinning fast enough for the EM's that go in a BS7 collet. Or really, even a good way to drive it off the Sheldon spindle without messing with gears. I ended up getting a vertical which solved that issue.
I've got one of those Porter Cable heads, I never could figure a good way to get it spinning fast enough for the EM's that go in a BS7 collet. Or really, even a good way to drive it off the Sheldon spindle without messing with gears. I ended up getting a vertical which solved that issue.
