Aciera F3 Helical Milling Attachment

I had the fortune of recently acquiring an Aciera F3 Helical / Spiral Milling Attachment. I believe Helical Milling Attachment is the preferred term for this attachment, but believe it is more commonly called a Spiral Milling Attachment. Maybe spiral is the proper term used in either French or German, and it has migrated to English.

As I understand it, this item was from an estate sale. The former owner did not exactly keep all the surfaces meticulously clean, or even the machined surfaces mostly clean. It was so dirty that initially nothing fit together properly, and I wondered if the device was actually for my machine. In addition, there were a number of modifications to the original equipment which are incompatible with my F3, but those can be 'easily' reversed. After days of cleaning, this spiral milling attachment is clearly for an Aciera F3 such as I have, so yeah! Now I have to figure out how to use it as there were no instructions which came with it. Depending on how you count, there are three or four types of gears (19 total gears), with two gear tooth pitches, three banjos, two different mounting rails for the banjos, seven total possible gear / centers mounting points, one optional key, (three non optional keys), and two bushings which would permit placing a given gear in several different spots. Simple and compound gearing is permitted. It is similar in some ways to a lathe with a quick change gear box and three levers to choose from permitting many threading combinations. The big difference is that I have to place everything manually. In addition, the only obvious way to mount the Helical Milling Attachment requires drilling of the table. I am okay with drilling on the table (if I must), but don't want to make a mistake based on lack of knowledge.

From what I have seen, there are two very different types of Helical Milling Attachments for the Aciera F3. One attaches to the left side of the table, and one attaches to the right side of the table. The Aciera Catalogs I have seen from the seventies and eighties show only a left hand attachment. Aciera made the F3 from the 50's to the late 80's, after which it ceased operations if I understand things correctly. I have a right hand attachment which I think is older based on the amount of dirt, the styling, and the absence of this item in the catalogs I have seen. You can see the right side attachment in operation here: Le Fraisage - Partie 2 - Les accessoires et diverses fraises - YouTube The applicable time is from 1:50 to 2:17.

My question is: 1) does anyone have a set of instructions listing set up directions, or 2) gear settings for the many different helical combinations possible? Even if you don't have the exact instructions applicable to my model, it is possible that instructions from the later model would give a clue to the method of use for my model. It is conceivable that Deckel or someone else who made this style of attachment might have applicable instructions also for the same reason.

I will shortly be posting pictures of my treasure.

Pic 1 Attached shows days of cleaning with cotton swabs (not ear swabs), with pipe cleaners, scotch brite pad residue, dirty paper towels, & etc. While doing this clean up, I had a few of the swabs come out of various orifices with what looked like ear wax. Ycch!


Pic 2 shows a big pile of parts. I took it completely apart except for the spindle of the dividing head (tiger country, fools go where angels fear to tread, etc.) and the one gear in the gear box which I could not remove due to ? dried oil. I did manage to get it pretty clean with persistence.


Pic 3 shows two red arrows intersecting at a point on the edge of the table where I presume I drill and tap a hole for an allen bolt or shoulder bolt.


Pic 4 shows an arrow head where the table attachment device goes, two red dots next to one of the banjos, and a red square on one of the gears capable of stacking to form compound gearing. There are twelve of these gears with from 24 to 100 teeth. There are three gears of a large tooth size which are shown in their only possible positions on the lower three shafts. There are three gears of the smaller sized teeth on the upper three shafts. The small gear on the upper shaft and the upper most gear are 24 and 72 teeth respectively. They have larger shaft sizes than the rest of the small toothed gears. Not shown is a fourth type of gear (seen in pic 2 on the floor) which only fits on the banjos. They have 24 teeth IIRC.

One additional question: is it possible to do differential indexing with this dividing head? By 'differential indexing' I mean having a gear train coming out of the back of the spindle of the dividing head which feeds into the advancement mechanism? I don't have the banjo this would require, but it should be able to be made with relative ease I would think. I certainly have plenty of change gears available to choose from now.

Paint?

Once I got this cleaned up, it is looking pretty nice except for the paint which is not much to look at. I was thinking about using Citristrip. My main concern is that the gel like substance of Citristrip could get inside the spindle which I would rather not disassemble. Does anyone have any advice on this matter?

Bluing? Storage?

Many of the fasteners were a bit rusted. I got most of the rust off with a bronze bristle brush, but that took off some of the black oxide coating. What is the best way to restore the black oxide? I hear that cold black is selenium oxide, and does not add rust protection as magnetite does. Randy Richard in the Shop has a video about using Classic American Rust Bluing Solution by Pilkington Gun Company which does not involve boiling potentially dangerous chemicals which allegedly leaves magnetite as a coating. Bluing Steel Scribes Part 1 - YouTube and Bluing Steel Scribes Part 2 - YouTube Does anyone have any opinions about this? Should I ask in the machine restoration section about this?

Finally, I was also thinking of making a nifty storage box, but the attachment altogether weighs close to 75 pounds and the box would add more weight and be rather large. In the absence of a storage box, I would put it in my huge tool chest but it would inevitably end up getting bumped when taking other stuff out. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to store this restored, rare, and somewhat valuable accessory?

I suggest you post your find and questions about it to the Aciera Yahoo Group. Yahoo! Groups
They will be quite interested and helpful if prior experience is any indication.

Hello, I have the same helical milling milling attachment. I can confirm you need a threaded hole in the table at the position of your arrows. Also the aluminium protection plate between the mill base and table is a slightly different version to give space to the gearbox. I guess you can simply remove it on the rare occasion that you use this attachment
Regards,
Melle

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Knowing that drilling on the table is required makes me feel better, at least a little bit.

When I tried out the Gear Box for fit, the splines on the right side of the 'X' Axis feed screw were a close fit with the gear box, and then the bronze bushing for the 'X' Axis feed screw was a slightly tighter fit. The Gear Box then was up snug against the table as shown in the picture. I didn't do anything with the aluminum protection plate between the mill base and the table. Perhaps I have a model which incorporates changes needed for proper fit of the gear box without removal?


mellejonker, do you have a table/chart with possible gearing ratios for this gear box which came with your attachment, or one which you have worked out by trial and error? When I was working with mine, it seemed to be one of those fiddly things, and that some ratios were not possible because the gears chosen were too large and had physical interference gear box innards or were not big enough to interdigitate with one another. And as Goldilocks experienced, some combinations were just right.

Hi Thorn,
I have used the attachement just once to cut oil grooves in a replacement part i made for my 102vm lathe. At that moment i just used some trial and error method to figure approx the gear train i needed. So no, I have no documentation sorry.
Melle

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Hi, I am not sure if you found the manual after all these years but I have the same attachment as you and have the manual for it, I can scan it if you still need it? Lee

LeeBee75 said:

I have the same attachment as you and have the manual for it, I can scan it if you still need it?

Click to expand...

Dear Lee,

I don't have any Aciera machines, so no direct interest for myself. But I would like to suggest that you upload a copy of your manual to the Usinages web site, which already hosts a large collection of Aciera and other manuals. That way, in the future, anyone who needs the information will be able to get it from there. Here is a link:

Resultats de la recherche pour la requete: aciera | Usinage

Cheers,
Bruce

I would also suggest that for all Swiss machine tools, the Anglo-Swiss Tools download area as well as the whole web site is an invaluable source of information.

Jacques

Helical work defines the helix in terms of "Lead".
The lead is a linear value that defines the movement parallel to the part axis relative to a single rotation of the work....

You can compute leads if 1. you know the lead screw pitch and 2. the ratio between the input drive shaft (from the gearbox) and the spindle of your work head.

Once those two factors are known you will know the effective lead of the work head (assume 1:1 ratio in the gearbox)
Its a simple thread thing.....
The gearing in the box is then used to multiply or divide from that standard lead to give the desired lead on the work head.....

To make a differential indexing setup, you need to have an output gear on the spindle that drives (via the needed ratios) the index plate independent from the worm and wheel (index plate) of the heads indexing function..

Cheers Ross

On edit:
Just noticed that the OP was posting sometime back, Guess the above response is a waste of time....Ho,hummm

AlfaGTA said:

Helical work defines the helix in terms of "Lead"....

On edit:
Just noticed that the OP was posting sometime back, Guess the above response is a waste of time....Ho,hummm

Click to expand...

Actually, not a waste- thanks for the continuing education, Professor GTA.