The Deckel quest is finally at an end !

note, below was posted April 2001- moved here from general forum

Here's a pix of my new friends Heckel and Jeckyl Deckel I bought in PA recently. Due to their location in a small shop way out in the country where conventional truckers dare not tread, I rented a Penske truck and drove the 800 miles each way and picked them up myself. With no proper hold downs in an enclosed van type truck I would have been toast if I'd had a wreck (machines weigh 3,700 lbs each), so it wasn't the smartest thing I've ever done, but I was a man possesed with a mission !

Just got my VFD in today so haven't had a chance to see if they run properly yet (one of them definitely has an electronic problem), so should be interesting.










[This message has been edited by D. Thomas (edited 06-30-2002).]

That's a good looking mill! Looks like a cnc/manual rig? What's the travel amounts comparing to a Bridgeport type?

D.Thomas,
I know the feeling, when I picked up a 14"
lathe on Long Island I used a car trailer that I had hooked up to the stock bumper of my Ford F-150 ( lathe=4000lbs + trailer=1500 = severly overloaded truck).
I had to cut thru the bronx to avoid the city and thank god it was in between the rush hour crowd and the saturday night I want to party crowd. The rest of the trip wasn't to bad until I got about 40 mile from home in Maryland and was getting drowsy and I came to an unexpected fork in the road due to recent construction, Lucky for me at 0300 in the morning no one was there to watch my fancy driving.
The things we do for our hobbies!!!!

lc, typical Bridgeport X travel is 26 to 33, depending on table size and whether power feed is attached or not...Y of 15, and Z of 16 inches. The Deckel FP-3 travels are X=20, Y=12 + 8, and Z=16. The 12 + 8 on the Y are because there are basically 2 rams, one on top of the other, so you can extend the top ram forward or back and lock it in place depending on the situation.

Keep in mind that unlike a Bridgeport, this is a vertical and horizontal machine with 2 seperate no. 40 spindles and has integral variable speed power feeds in all axis. Re the CNC aspect, this is pretty much just a manual machine with digital readout and a few CNC capabilities thrown in. You can program automatic table movements, spindle speed changes, feed speed changes and simple canned cycles like pocket milling, but it uses the standard manual machine power feed motor so can only move one axis at a time. Tool clamping and table clamping is via hydraulic system. There are chip pans to contain coolant splash that mount below the table that I haven't reinstalled yet.

RG, last time I went thu the Bronx (maybe 20 years ago) I was not real comforted navigating thru the maze of burned out, wheeless Chevy Capri's Yeah, I've done some crazy things in the quest of moving iron from one place to another. Once delivered a Bridgeport 2 headed Tru Trace 450 miles away via my Jeep J10 pickup truck... no trailer...had the whole 3,500+ lbs. top heavy load in the back of the 1/2 ton truck ! Made for some real interesting mountain driving...thank goodness it didn't rain !

I like that, "fancy driving"!!

oh it kills me that Jeckyl is no longer for sale. I have the money now Don, could you send it out anyway?

I hate when the wallet doesn't cooperate with the timing of the deal.

Sean :..(