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Need help identifying a no3 universal horizontal mill

Littledanny

Plastic
Joined
May 18, 2018
I purchased a cincinatti no3 universal horizontal mill. I have been unable to locate any documentation, other pics of similar machines, even another universal machine etc
Trying to locate manuals, figure out what year it is, location that I can find a serial number as I havent been able to find one. Pretty much whatever i can find. She seems all there the main belt was broke from what looks like deterioration as it was leather.
I have yet to get it operational but I'm looking forward to play with it. Im a hobby machinist,
I make parts for the machinery at work so this will be my first horizontal mill so I'd like to do my research on it and figure out how it functions before breaking it hence my need of a manual. Thanks in advance.




 

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I knew it was old but didnt realize it was that old. That's awesome. I looked through that link you provided and ended up buying the book on Ebay. It's quite lengthy and should provide to be a good read. Thers a lot of info in their. It looks like the driveshaft will fit on the table drive which is located under the fixture.
 
Mine has a electric motor on top but the pictures you have doesn't show one. Its definitely the same mill. I'm assuming the machine was originally designed to work in a belt driven steam shop then? Did Cincinnati make a conversion kit to electric motors or was that just a really good job someone did?
 
These machines were "line shaft" dependent, were sold with the over head counter shaft that the mill rights struggled to get bolted to the over head

Cincinnati sure did not worry about converting the machines as they got older and older - that was up to others as they naturally were replaced and moved out to other locations as Used Machinery.

When it "was born" individual motor drive was off somewhere in the future

Yes... the "drive shaft" used to go to the right side of the knee

If you get the add ons off - like guards - at least for a bit - you will see the obvious things and how they work. There is almost NO hidden features on such a mill, except the details of the feed works in the knee. Another hidden feature - unless you have experience on old lathes - is the fact that it has BACK GEARS - for the low range of spindle speeds

The '97 catalog says it has B&S #11 spindle taper - so spindle tooling won't be especially plentiful

Get used to the idea that it is designed and built to be a SLOW spindle - maybe 300 tops. '97 catalog says the counter shaft - up there in the over head - was to turn two speeds - 90 and 150. There is a reason for this - in '97 they had carbon steel cutting tools - HSS was off a bit in the future - and carbide was not even dreamed of yet.

You will have to find each and every place to oil it - and do so at least every day. Nothing automatic here. It will all run out on the floor - total loss they called it

ON EDIT - another look at your photos shows it being a plain, not a Universal. Universal is in the thumbnail for Post # 2. You can see it has a visible swivel above knee and below table

Thumbnail shows what was done with such machines using the cutting tools that were available - built in '99 in NJ. 85 tons of money maker.
 

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It was sold with one of these, though this for a lathe. The two sheaves / pulleys with the clutch spool between allowed one to select the two counter shaft speeds - or put it in neutral - all done with a big long wooden lever hanging down from up there

The hardware in foreground had to do with the MAKING of that long lever
 

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You could try searching for the patents, using the patent dates on the side cover. Some of those old patents are very detailed and have lots of diagrams and descriptions of the mechanisms. I was able to find patents for Van Norman mills of that vintage, but it took a fair amount of time to sift through the possible patents.

Cal
 
It's funny to see '97 and not thing 1997. I didnt really think about it going that slow due to only using carbon steel. I'm in no hurry for what I'm going to be doing. Judging by the age and odd taper it looks like I'll be making alot of my parts. My newest machine is a 62 bridgeport everything else is older and manually oiled. I'm absolutely anal with oiling everything every day because quite frankly i cant afford a major failure. For as little as I'll use this machine itll do what I need. I appreciate the extra info. When o get her hooked up and cleaned up I'll post some pics.
 
1897 then. :D

I'll see if I can do some scanning this AM of that catalog - thin little thing sure showing its 122 years

Here is their plain bearing spindle design of not quite twenty years later - taper front journal similar to old Hendey lathes


It's funny to see '97 and not thing 1997. I didnt really think about it going that slow due to only using carbon steel. I'm in no hurry for what I'm going to be doing. Judging by the age and odd taper it looks like I'll be making alot of my parts. My newest machine is a 62 bridgeport everything else is older and manually oiled. I'm absolutely anal with oiling everything every day because quite frankly i cant afford a major failure. For as little as I'll use this machine itll do what I need. I appreciate the extra info. When o get her hooked up and cleaned up I'll post some pics.
 

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Here are five pages related to Plain

Note last image on General Dimensions list FEEDS the old way - inches per revolution. Not much later all the mill makers had gone to INCHES PER MINUTE
 

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