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Two unusual milling machines

Asquith

Diamond
Joined
Mar 3, 2005
Location
Somerset, UK
Kendall01.jpg


Two milling machines by Kendall & Gent, Manchester, probably from the early 1930s.

The first one is unusual because of the method of adjusting the depth of cut by a small amount for the final finishing cut. Rather than try and lower the headstock and the outboard support by a small amount, the table on its ways is raised by TILTING it very slightly using the angled handwheel. The table appears to be pivoted at the front end, and can be tilted minutely using a screw jacking arrangement below the line of the spindle.

Kendall02.jpg


These two photos show a special-purpose machine used for milling the slots in locomotive axle boxes and the like. The width of the slot is altered by rotating the cutter head. The minimum slot width would correspond to the diameter of one cutter, although this would be pointless, as the second cutter would have nothing to do in that position.

Kendall03.jpg


Information about Kendall & Gent’s works and its products can be found in post ~181 of the ‘Galloways’ thread, here:-
http://www.practicalmachinist.com/vb/showthread.php?t=146469&highlight=kendall+gent+gorton&page=10
 
Asquith,

Thanks for those! The second machine interests me in particular, are there any more details on the operation?

It seems like a very clever idea, I like it!

Unless I have it wrong, when the cut is narrowed, it will only work on open-ended slots, as one cutter will lead the other? Nothing wrong with that I suppose if made for specific jobs. I don't like the idea of one cutter feeding swarf to the other, maybe plenty of coolant helped flush the cut.

I am guessing the lower cutter is on the centre line of the housing, and the main housing is rotated about this centre to change the cut width. On the other hand, it looks like the cutters themselves can rotate within their own smaller housing, this may be a better way of changing cut width, without having to alter the height of the head?


The reason for wondering is - if the cut width is changed by rotating the entire head, the lower cutter remains always remains at the same height, so the whole head would need to have its height altered to keep the cut centralised on a workpiece, whereas by rotating just the two cutters within their smaller housing, at least the cut centre line would remain the same. I would think the latter is more useful - maybe I am imagining problems that don't exist... :)
 
Nice machines Asquith , made by a top machine tool manufacturer. The tilting base had me scratching my head for a while, I had to check it wasn't April the 1st, I've figured it out now. Very ingenious way of putting on fine cuts, much less of a hassle than moving the spindle carrier/tailstock assembly. Regards Tyrone.
 
Tyrone,

It certainly took some lateral thinking to come up with the tilting arrangement. I wonder what if there were any problems in service? I don’t know whether the principle was ever applied elsewhere. Clearly it couldn’t be applied on vertical milling machines, as you’d lose the ‘tramming’!

Peter,

Unfortunately the catalogue doesn’t give any more detail on the arrangement of the twin cutter arrangement.

It isn’t very versatile, but it was designed for quite a narrow field of work, namely railway axle boxes, but presumably they hoped that applications would be found in other fields.
 
Asquith,
I dont know if i am "missing something " in the method of applying fine adjustment to the cut on the big horizontal production milling machine, But if the table is pivoted at the front end, and raised by the jacking system under the line of the spindle,does that not mean that from one end of the table to the other, in relation to the cutter spindle, One would be cutting a taper?
 
On the first machine, how simple the geometry, and how pure the thinking. I doubt that the idea would have occurred to many of us. It certainly would not have to me.

Asquith -- Please keep this stuff coming.
 
This might appear to be a belated response to Marty's request, 11 years late! In fact I'd like to think that I followed it up at the time, with new threads.

The reason for resurrecting it now is that recently I posted the first photo again, forgetting that it had a good airing back in 2009. The recent post didn't really get off the ground, so I'm going back to this one, with more photos of Kendall & Gent machines.

JD 2020 K&G 8.jpg4. JD 2020 K&G 9.jpg5.

I'll start with this vertical plano-milling machine with profiling facility, probably from the 1920s.

I can't offer much information. All the description says about the profiling is that the 'Profiling motion to the spindle is obtained by means of a conical pointer working against a former plate of the same pattern as the object to be machined.' Evidently there was no automatic following, instead the operator turns the capstan wheels to manually follow the template, which is mounted .... somewhere. Note the gear train for traversing the cross-slide, with zero-backlash gears and rack. It will be apparent that two of the gears don't do much speed reducing. Intead, I assume that their prevalence accommodates the raising and lowering of the cross slide (by mounting the idler gears on a tumbler quadrant, like the change gears on an old-type screwcutting lathe).
 
That's a very unusual table design with the tee slots running across the table instead of down it. They must have had some very ingenious designers back in the day in Gorton.

Regards Tyrone.
 
JD 2020 K&G 10.jpg JD 2020 K&G 11.jpg JD 2020 K&G 12.jpg

This a horizontal plano-milling machine which could do profiling, slab milling style. For example, for machining a batch of locomotive connecting or coupling rods. Note the template bolted to the side of the table.

Not much I can add, other than point out the way that the big handwheels in the last photo are provided with indicating dials - note the stirrup bracket over the top of the handwheel to carry the dial.
 
JD 2020 K&G 3.jpg JD 2020 K&G 4.jpg JD 2020 K&G 4a.jpg

Kendall & Gent was one of a cluster of firms in that part of the world who were big in threading machines, the other main players being Joshua Heap & Co and Maiden & Co. ‘Screwing machines’ they were called, and I’ll say ‘Maiden screwing machines’ now to get it out of the way.

Kendall & Gent made screwing machines for pipes up to 18” inside diameter. The pipe wrenches were something to behold.

I'm familiar enough with this type of machine for threading pipes, but I was surprised to find them being used for threading mass-produced car components. The first example is a shaft for a car's gearbox. Why not do the threading as one of the lathe operations?
 
The shop I served my time in had one of those " Kendall & Gent " threading machines. It'd go up to about 2" Whitworth. They were excellent machines, easy to set up and use and the thread quality was first class.

I think you could thread pipes on them but we just used them for threading large studs, around the 1" Whitworth size.

A company who's name I can't recall used to refurbish the old " Kendall & Gent " machines along with the " Joshua Heap " range of machines. I think they were based in the old " Adamson " factory over in Hyde. I recall visiting them a few years back looking for spare parts.

Regards Tyrone.
 








 
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