VDF Lathe History + Early models

Hey Guys,

I just got my hands on a massive amounts of VDF information and there is more to come! The first two documents come from the Smithsonian. If you have the chance to go there in person and get more documents here is the link to the record [Trade catalogs from Vereinigte Drehbank-Fabriken] | Collections Search Center, Smithsonian Institution.

Link to a little information on the VDF D, S and L models:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwA2RFs-wocbcU52eFVyMFNjaTA/view

Link to lathes made in 1935. Standard Center lathe models E2 through to E9:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwA2RFs-wocbZTl5akVhUmtsbU0/view

This website has information on the E2 lathe and manuals , all in German i think:
VDF Einheitsdrehbank Modell E2 | Familie Vogel


I also have a couple of old VDF advertisements coming and a book called "10 years" that features how the VDF lathes where made in the 1930's.

Mitchell_N said:

Hey Guys,

I just got my hands on a massive amounts of VDF information and there is more to come! The first two documents come from the Smithsonian. If you have the chance to go there in person and get more documents here is the link to the record [Trade catalogs from Vereinigte Drehbank-Fabriken] | Collections Search Center, Smithsonian Institution.

Link to a little information on the VDF D, S and L models:
Vereinigte Drehbank-Fabriken lathe catalog 1950s.pdf - Google Drive

Link to lathes made in 1935. Standard Center lathe models E2 through to E9:
Vereinigte Drehbank-Fabriken lathe catalog 1935.pdf - Google Drive

This website has information on the E2 lathe and manuals , all in German i think:
VDF Einheitsdrehbank Modell E2 | Familie Vogel


I also have a couple of old VDF advertisements coming and a book called "10 years" that features how the VDF lathes where made in the 1930's.

Click to expand...

Hi All from Melbourne Australia.
I have a VDF Heidenreich and Harbeck RO Lathe It is a pleasure to use, I love it! and would be very interested in any documentation for it.
Regards
John

It's a pity this thread is in the "Antique machinery and history" forum folder. I just spent the past two day's using the machine on a project. I was able to hold bearing diameters to better than .0005" with little difficulty without using emery.

Old iron in good condition can be just as good as as recently built machines. It is often far more robustly built. than the typical Asian built machines.

Heidenreich & Harbeck run every headstock and saddle shaft in roller or ball bearings. All gears are hardened and ground. as is the bed. They are not alone, the US company Monarch do the same thing. There are many others that did this. at the top end of machine building. I find it disappointing that the build quality of mainstream machines from certain parts of Asia is so low. They look good! Yeah..... But how will they perform over the longer term? Caveat Emptor.

Yes I did a lot of work on the machine when I bought it. Well worth the effort. Its the bones that count and it had very good bones.

Regards
John

Any lathe from the " VDF " group will be a quality machine. " Bohringer " made a very good lathe, up there with the best.

Regards Tyrone.

John, that is a beautiful machine. Certainly not an “antique” by anyone’s definition.

I’m quite interested in the VDF collaboration with Canadian manufacturer McDougall. McDougall lathes from the 1950’s/60’s used VDF headstocks, and potentially other assemblies. We have one at our shop, they were excellent lathes as well. Many McDougall’s here in Canada.

Greetings.
I'm restoring a VDF Boehringer 44L and I've been looking for more informations about that lathe, despite the lack of information online.
Do you have more documents / manuals of this model that you could send me?

Thank you for your help.

WannaB_Machinist said:

Greetings.
I'm restoring a VDF Boehringer 44L and I've been looking for more informations about that lathe, despite the lack of information online.
Do you have more documents / manuals of this model that you could send me?

Thank you for your help.

Click to expand...

Go on the " Tony's Lathes " site. He has a vast archive of old machine tool manuals and he sells copies. He appears to have a copy of the manual you require.

Regards Tyrone.

It looks like I have seen that website (store.lathes.co.uk) and I always thought it wasn't a trustful website.
I'm going to check it again.

Thank you a lot.

I purchased a manual for my lathe from Tony and was overwhelm on the quality of the manual I bought from him. Very professionally made. Pricing wasn't bad at all, less than $100USD for me. Highly recommended. Ken

4GSR said:

I purchased a manual for my lathe from Tony and was overwhelm on the quality of the manual I bought from him. Very professionally made. Pricing wasn't bad at all, less than $100USD for me. Highly recommended. Ken

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Within reason I don't really think you can put a value on having a good manual. Being able to study the assembly drawings before you begin to take a machine apart is a big advantage. Given it's essential that you don't break anything on these old machines having a " map "can save you a lot of grief.

Regards Tyrone.

WannaB_Machinist said:

It looks like I have seen that website (store.lathes.co.uk) and I always thought it wasn't a trustful website.
I'm going to check it again.

Thank you a lot.

Click to expand...

Tony is a member of this forum and he posts here occasionally. His website is a true treasure.

Frank R said:

Tony is a member of this forum and he posts here occasionally. His website is a true treasure.

Click to expand...

Yes I agree. I don't understand the mentality of guys who are prepared to pay good money to buy a machine yet aren't prepared to spend lets say $75 on a manual. It really is a false economy.

Regards Tyrone.

i know this thread has cobwebs and dust, ... but i have a new-to-me h-h-h vdf 430/21ro
. it is a square head with the cone-gear selector, fiddly left-right apron control, but
is still stamped -21 ro- on the bed . the idiot who "knew how to move the lathe"
crashed the apron and controls. the shafts are bent and inoperable . i'll have to remove the whole shebang , but am not sure where to start. the available 21 ro manual doesn't have the
same model with the same apron. there's a youtube video of a guy restoring a bohringer vdf,
which is very similar, but not the same. if anyone has a copy or a link to a file of
a diagram the apron of an 1970s heidenreich and harbeck hamburg 21ro/430 or similar
carriage design, i would be most
appreciative .

Greetings,

More than a year later, I'm back to comment my experience.

First of all, thank you all for your help about where to find the manual.
I ended up by following your tip and I contacted Tony from Tony's Lathes website regarding the manual for a VDF Boehringer 44L (which has an Hydrostatic Compact Drives (Boehringer-Sturm-Ölgetriebe)).

When I started to restore the lathe, the Hydrostatic system was missing a lot of pieces, which I was lucky enough to find them scattered throughout the warehouse (where the lathe was in the beggining).
After a really good cleaning I assembled everything. But my problem didn't finished here. I needed to know what was the right oil for the system. There was no information on the machine about that and I didn't have the original manual.

So I contacted Tony and bought off him a pdf version of the manual( VDF 36S, 36D 36L, 44D, 44S and 44L), which was supposed to have all the information about all the machines listed in the ad (they're the same model, but with different types of drive-train). After receiving the pdf, I was astonished that there was no information about the drive-train as well as the electrical part of the 44L model. Those informations were critical for me to understand how the system works, once I couldn't find anyone that knew or heard about it. Conclusion: I spent almost 100E in a manual that is incomplete and not helfull at all... I contacted again Tony explaining the situation and 18 months after the contact, I'm still waiting for an answer......

Shortening the rest of the story, I found a german website where there was one guy who restored the same lathe as mine and he had all the answers I needed. Thanks to him, I was able to put my machine working properly.
After this big headache, I was able to find the original manual (in german).


So, If there is someone with the same machine looking for answers, I will joyfully help.


Cheers,
WannaB_Machinist

Run it through Google Translate into English and share it.

Tyrone Shoelaces said:

Yes I agree. I don't understand the mentality of guys who are prepared to pay good money to buy a machine yet aren't prepared to spend lets say $75 on a manual. It really is a false economy.

Regards Tyrone.

Click to expand...

I will speak for me, but in a digital world where we are, full of scammers, sometimes it's difficult to understand if the website is trustfull or not. And it's even more difficult when a person doesn't know anything about it at all.

In my point of view, spending 10euros or 100euros in something that in the reality doesn't exist, it isn't a good investment.

And my point of view is the same for a machine that costed me (for example) 20k euros or just 10 euros


Cheers,
WannaB_Machinist

Frank R said:

Run it through Google Translate into English and share it.

Click to expand...

The original manual I have is in paper and it's more than 100 pages... It's not that easy.
But I will photograph the pages, translate them and share as soon as I can.

WannaB, i am very interested in your VDF documents. . i have an H&H Hamburg VDF . it is a 430/21RO for
which i can only find a photocopied operator manual in german . it does not translate with software that i can
find, because it is a .JPEG photo and not actual text . there are some translators which i have tried that
claim to recognize the text in the photos, but they spit out unintelligible gibberish. regardless- i need an operator
and maintenance/repair manuals for this odd-to me machine . i don't even know what oils to use-and where to put
them. this machine is very strange indeed.

and, no... Tony UK does not have an operator or repair manual for my machine. it is a square-head 21RO/430
from about 1972. the older round head 21RO and newer Boehringer 430/580 are both much different.

i do have the electrical schematics to the Heidenreich-Harbeck Hamburg control panel and headstock if
anyone's interested . please post anything when you get a chance, i would appreciate it very much.

best regards.

Here is the cover of a VDF-36D-36S-36L-44L-44S-44L brochure for WannaB. Can post the rest if required.

Also a 21RO 430 for sale here in Auckland. The bunch of levers sprouting from the apron are a bit unusual!

now.. if only the buyer or seller would care to scan me a copy of that freakin' manual sitting atop the
headstock.... if only they knew how valuable that information could be...