Anyone Heard Of Wallima.CH??

I am in contact with company in Zurich about some tool accessories for my Schaublin lathe and possible Deckel tooling. Before I send any money, I thought that I would ask if anyone has heard of this place. Anyone?


Gebrauchtmaschinen – Wallima AG

Seem to recall Tien Nguyen and Peter from Holland toured their place a few years back. Prob worth a pm to those folks.

L7

They have videos of beautiful used machines for sure. Dave

Wallima is a very reputable Swiss dealer.

To me one among others. Compare prices and what you get for what. Know your need. If I can help with translating, let me know.

usually a ripp off, but im cheap.

i hate the swiss dealers, they never put up any prices, like it wouldnt matter.

dian said:

Usually a rip-off, but I'm cheap. I hate the Swiss dealers, they never put up any prices, like it wouldn't matter.

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It's always dangerous to generalise, but for the most part I have the impression that the Swiss take better care of machinery than just about anyone else. The stuff I have gotten from Switzerland always gives the impression of having been used with care, maintained, and not abused. I'm sure that's not always true, but that's been my experience so far. So higher prices might be justified...

Thanks for all the input everyone. They have a Schaublin 150 star wheel tail stock for sale that needs to be serviced. Apparently there is play to left and right on the tail stock spindle. From the pictures they supplied, it appears to be in great shape. Accessories for the 150 are not easy to come by so I am seriously considering buying it. I wanted to make sure that I was dealing with a legit company before I commit.

Degull said:

Apparently there is play to left and right on the tail stock spindle.

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Are you sure about the direction of the play? If the play is axial, in a lathe tailstock that almost never matters and in any case is "easily" fixed by replacing the nut and/or screw. On the other hand, if the play is radial, that matters a lot more and is also harder to fix. If you want to be sure, the German terms are Axialspiel and Radialspiel.

EDIT: just realized that this is a "star wheel" tailstock. So axial play might require adjusting a gear mesh or replacing a gear. But I still don't think that it should matter much.

ballen said:

It's always dangerous to generalise, but for the most part I have the impression that the Swiss take better care of machinery than just about anyone else.

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Seen and accidentally bought a few worn down, neglected or just used to death machines over here in Switzerland. Only difference is that the bigger stuff mostly is quite cheap, because nobody has much space. And some companies are filthy rich, so they get rid of almost new machinery....

ballen said:

Are you sure about the direction of the play? If the play is axial, in a lathe tailstock that almost never matters and in any case is "easily" fixed by replacing the nut and/or screw. On the other hand, if the play is radial, that matters a lot more and is also harder to fix. If you want to be sure, the German terms are Axialspiel and Radialspiel.

EDIT: just realized that this is a "star wheel" tailstock. So axial play might require adjusting a gear mesh or replacing a gear. But I still don't think that it should matter much.

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The play is radial unfortunately. I am sure it is not going to be an easy or cheap fix.

Degull said:

The play is radial unfortunately. I am sure it is not going to be an easy or cheap fix.

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I've made a new barrel (or should it be called the quill?) for a cylindrical grinder tailstock which was gear driven. It is a project, but possible. Here are the steps:

(1) Get the body honed cylindrical. Good hydraulic shops have suitable cylindrical hones and measuring equipment and don't charge a lot for this. Ask them to try and bias it upwards if possible, so that it ends up high not low. The biggest challenge for them is the pocket for the gear drive. The edges of the pocket need to be tapered and they need a hone that is long enough to fit completely through.

(2) Make a new barrel out of annealed steel that hardens well without much distortion. Turn it oversize, use a Morse taper reamer to make the socket.

(3) Put a new or good dead center in the taper socket, mount between centers (one female, one male), turn 50 microns oversize

(4) Mount in a mill, cut the gear rack. Measure carefully, you won't be able to check the fit until after step 7!

(5) Send out for hardening. (If you talk with the shop before picking the steel, they might be able to include it with a batch of similar parts from the same material, making it inexpensive). You want a place that will do the hardening in a vacuum, so there won't be a layer of oxide.

(6) When it comes back, use a couple of new Morse taper centers to lap the taper ID

(7) Mount the quill between centers as in (3) on a cylindrical grinder and bring it down to size. If you put a bit of taper on the rear 1cm, it will make it a lot easier to insert.

(8) Optionally, ID grind the Morse taper socket

(9) Rescrape tailstock (if too low, then also the headstock, see last sentence in (1)) to correct height and parallel in both axes

If you don't want to harden, use 4140 = 42CrMo4 steel.

Here's a few photos:

Amazing! You do incredible work, it gives me the confidence to try! Thanks for sharing.
Probably will not see star wheel tailstock until the new year. It will be a great project, with great reward. I am hoping the defect can be overcome. Wallima has been upfront about the problem but I'm sure they know that the fix will not be easy. Just hoping that I am not buying scrap, fingers crossed!

ballen said:

I've made a new barrel (or should it be called the quill?) for a cylindrical grinder tailstock which was gear driven. It is a project, but possible. Here are the steps:

(1) Get the body honed cylindrical. Good hydraulic shops have suitable cylindrical hones and measuring equipment and don't charge a lot for this. Ask them to try and bias it upwards if possible, so that it ends up high not low. The biggest challenge for them is the pocket for the gear drive. The edges of the pocket need to be tapered and they need a hone that is long enough to fit completely through.

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Side note here:
Lots of experience with honing here.
Honing by definition uses the original bore to locate and guide the tool.
Its ability to be directed to favor a specific direction is quite limited if at all The tool makes a finished bore that will be the average of what was already existing.

The position can be influenced bu using the weight of the part (if the mandrel is rigid, not likely with this part) or by positioning the part to let the weight of the mandrel (if flex coupled)
favor the bore in a direction.
In reality there will be little if any appreciable change in the bore location from honing unless the original bore was out of round in the direction favoring the needed shift in position.

In short , you need to have a strategy to adjust the position post honing as Bruce did with scraping both the head stock and tail to suit....

Additional choice would be to have the original quill hard chromed to account for any size increase on the bore to make it round and straight....
This circumvents the need for making a complete quill from scratch.
There are quality firms that specialize in such work.(hard chrome and grind to finish)

Bruce here has the advantage of having a quality cylindrical grinder at his disposal, so getting a straight , round and smooth part to finish after heat treatment iwas simplified.


Nice work by the way....

Cheers Ross

AlfaGTA said:

Additional choice would be to have the original quill hard chromed to account for any size increase on the bore to make it round and straight....
This circumvents the need for making a complete quill from scratch.
There are quality firms that specialize in such work.(hard chrome and grind to finish)

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That wasn't an option for me, because after I got it, I discovered that the original tailstock barrel had a hairline crack, starting at the back of the taper, probably the result of past crash.

Another option, which would also permit shifting the barrel upwards, is to first bore the hole, removing as little from the diameter as possible, followed by lapping with a DIY lap. I have done this for some larger holes, and was able to get them round to a micron, but I don't have a reliable way to measure the straightness.

Anyway, to the OP, if you can hone it yourself, or find someone to hone it, I think that would be better: quicker, simpler, and less likely to do damage.