Vertical Turret Lathe

Hey guys,

As you know I was on the search for a band saw about a month or so ago. As of yet, I have not found one. Nor, have I been looking very much. I found another way to get the job done that I thought I needed the band saw for.

Now, a tool that I think would be nice to find is a Vertical Turret Lathe. There was actually a Bullard in Bolton, MA priced about at scrap value. It was on Craiglist yesterday, but was either deleted or expired and is not listed today.

Looking around, I noticed Bullard has something called spiral drive. Way back when, I made a thread titled Big Machines Going to Scrap. There was a Bullard on that list of machines that got junked. Someone had mentioned he didn't like it because it was a spiral drive, I never found what was undesirable about that set-up. I almost bought that Bullard. However, it was only to save and store it. I had no use for it at the time. Even now, the use I have now is very limited. It's really just to fix some large diameter sprokets with shafts for my excavator. Yeah, it would be cheaper to pay someone to do this one job. Yet, being I like these old machines, the economics are pretty much out the window. Plus, with all my projects, I am certain I would find more use for a VTL in the future.

Was Bullard about the main manufacturor of VTL's? Niles made them too? Who else in industrial America made VTL's?

thanks,
Mark

There were a few makers of VTLs King and G&L, I know of another, I had one but can't remember the name. I had a Sprial Drive and ran it for years without any problems. If I found another I would buy it though I'm not into heavy machine work as I was! I had no problems with the machine. Rapid traverse was not very good as it was powered by flat belts.
Frank

Cincinnati Planer also made vertical boring mills (G&L bought CP) as did GA Gray (after buying King Machine Tool.)

Mike

Gisholt made them. Lots of makes listed in my three early to mid thirties EMERMAN hard bound used machine catalogs

Spiral Drive was a great improvement over the New Era. (I supposed for years that the New Era had straight cut bevel gear driving the table and Spiral Drive had the spiral bevel gear - maybe this is just supposition and nothing else)

Spiral drive made very obsolete by the much later Cut Master and later yet, Dynatrol

The all time Kick Butt was the Mult-A-Matic - which had up to 16 spindles - all but one (for loading/unloading) cutting at the same time. Sold hundreds of them just to Henry for Model T flywheels and like work.

Bullard also built VBMs - no turret, such as the Maxi-Mill

If any one wants a Mult-A-Matic Manual I have a few. Not sure what shipping will cost but Flat Rate Priority "shirt box" is $12.35.

Frank

VBM or VTL is ideal for large, heavy and short work. Good example was the turbine pump bowls I used to have to rework at the pump shop. These were cast iron parts shaped like a cut off tree stump. Largest ones we could handle with our equipment were about 2ft long, 2ft-30" in diam and weighed several hundred pounds.

Rebuilding a turbine pump, as far as the bowls were concerned, consisted of boring out the old bronze bearings and wear rings, installing new ones, and then boring those pieces in place to final dimension to ensure concentricity. Also might have to face off the mating surfaces and even weld pads to the spigots, if they were too far gone to locate the bowls in the stack, due to corrosion/erosion.

The only machine we had big enough to handle this was the old Binns and Berry 808 removable gap bed engine lathe with the weird hydraulic drive setup and the feed lever that had no stop between long and cross feed. Go too far and you hit the feed in the other direction.

So, you have a part roughly the same shape and size and probably twice the weight of a tandem wheel set off a tractor trailer that only has a flange 3/4" wide or so for you to grab onto and you have to put this in a typical engine lathe and bore out the bearing in the center, so no tailstock. Just getting the thing hung up in the chuck and zeroed in both axes was a PITA and damned near deadly, even with a crane as a safety in case it dropped out of the chuck. Once you had it close, you could get the tailstock up there and use it to help pin the thing in place, but once you were ready to run, it had to go, leaving you with that big spinning chunk of iron at eye level and only retained by a 3/4" flange.

Even putting the bearings and wear rings in was a PITA. You had to press or shrink fit these in place, but you were working with the parts horizontal and having to reach up over the bed or stand on the bad itself and try to get them in the bowl. Gravity was not your friend if you were trying a shrink. The bushing would lay on the bottom of the bore and start to transfer heat before you even got it started good.

Conversely, had we been able to find the VTL or VBM I so desperately wanted, you would have plunked the bowl down, bumped it into alignment, wedged it up as required to zero the face and let her rip. If it came loose, worse that would happen is that it would roll around the boring bar in the center, but doubtful it could have gotten off the table. Even then it would not be spinning at speed and hit the floor rolling like a wagon wheel. Bearings and wear rings could have been dropped straight in.

Same deal for the volute wear rings on the big centrifugal pumps we used to do, but I finally got the big Cincy vertical mill that could do them.

If you do a lot of big, short length parts, the VTL is the ticket. Even a small one would be real handy and those are usually cheap. The ones over 36" or so get VERY pricey, as they are still quite serviceable machines in shops that do large work.

Cincinnati (aka) Milacron made a VBM, which I believed was called a "HYDRO-MILL",J.W. Harris (now Weldco-Harris) had one in the toolroom when I worked there in the late eighties

36" Bullard with spiral drive for $3500.

I have no affiliation with the seller.

36" Bullard VTL

Since I don't watch the Super Bowl, I spent my time looking around at machine tools. Here is an interesting place I found that has atleast several VTL's. Not sure where the location of these machines are.

This looks like a good home shop sized Niles VTL. Two Spade Machinery LLC - 1951 Niles FPW 40

Any thoughts on this Niles? Or, would I be better off looking for a Bullard?


Some of the equipment on this site I have seen before and it seems it was quite a while ago. One was this New Haven planer mill:
Two Spade Machinery LLC - New Haven 6X17

Kinda makes ya wonder if the ads are outdated, overpriced so the item never moves, or if the machines have been scrapped?

If that's a good home sized shop VTL, you have a far bigger home shop than I do and I have an 18" lathe and a 4ft arm radial drill, lol! That's a fantastic machine, but I'll bet it goes near 10 tons and it's going to be as big as a minivan as far as floor space goes. The power required for this machine alone will be near 150 amps. I imagine they'll be asking $20-30K for that one, in that condition. All that said, if ya like it and can afford/handle/house it, that does look like a very nice one.

Many of the Bullards on ebay have been advertised for over a year.

Hey guys,

In my original post i mentioned a Bullard that the ad had disappeared. Well, the ad is back up. This one looks really old. They call it a Cut Master, but is it really a New Era? Here is the ad: Turret Lathe

Also, there are two 36" Bullard Spiral Drives listed on Hartford CL: (2) 36" Bullard Vertical Turret Lathes, VTL

I'd definitely prefer the bigger swing. But, not if these two are much better and priced similarly.

Too bad you can't read the serial. Doubt that ANY CUTMASTER had flat belts driving anything.

Go see the 42 - get the junk out the way on the right and see if has long gear and clutch levers about knee high. If so, its no CUTMASTER

A Horizontal Boring Mill would be a nice thing to have. I definitely don't have space for one. It'd be a stretch to fit a smaller VTL. I'd probably not find too much work for one. Right now I have a few things to do that I need about a 30" swing. Economically, it would make more sense to just send out the few things. But, old iron addiction needs to be satified every now and then.

I found a pic of a New Era Bullard----it's even a 42". Here: Two Spade Machinery LLC - 1924 Bullard NEW ERA 42
It looks the same as the one listed on CL. Should a New Era be avoided? Or, are they o-k? I'm not into production machining. But, I don't want to buy a machine with any serious downfalls.

thanks,
Mark

FirstEliminator said:

Hey guys,

In my original post i mentioned a Bullard that the ad had disappeared. Well, the ad is back up. This one looks really old. They call it a Cut Master, but is it really a New Era? Here is the ad: Turret Lathe

.

Click to expand...

The machine in the picture is a spiral drive, not a cutmaster

John

Spiral drive is old, New Era is its earlier iteration. Like antique clunks? Then you need a New Era. Get serials, post here and we will say how old.

Manual VTL just go hungry more than they find a meal

Click to expand...

Maybe. We just bought another 60" King (VBM, not VTL) just for a forty-eight piece 60" sheave job. Each "doughnut" 1045 forging from Frisa weighs 3500 Lbs. They are stacked up outside like big platters.

For single strand 1 3/8" wire line. The King will be paid for about 1/2 thru the job.

I run a bunch of VTLs and VBMs and the biggest problem I have is finding good machinists to operate them.
I hate turning down work. I have a 72, a 60 and a 36 inch Webster Bennett, a 42" WMW Niles and a 54" Bullard Spiral drive as well a a 56" King. I also have a nice cute little Rogers sitting in the back warehouse that I saved from being scrapped for less than the price of the iron. I think that it has a 30" chuck. I'm just finishing up redoing the 36" Webster Bennett ways. I recut the ways and now they need to be scraped in and the saddle turcited to compensate to bring the tool back to center line. Not enough time in the day to keep up with this stuff. I should hold a free scraping class like Tom Sawyer.

John

I'd go to a scraping class in the northeast.

Wow, 7 VTL's. With the comments about VTLs being kinda obsolete, it makes me wonder how many shapers you might have. Sounds like the kind of shop I'd love to see.

AMD, Wonder how much the Rogers weighs? Might be looking for a small vtl for repair work. Light cuts on small tig welds.