Thiel 160

I'm in discussion to purchase a Thiel 160 milling machine.

Here's a link to a video the seller made for me:

Thiel TH16 - YouTube

I can't find any information on this particular model. Lathes.uk has an article on the Thiel 158, but no mention of the 160, nd no references or pictures of it otherwise seem to exist online. It looks very similar to a Deckel of course. The machine is in very nice condition, I would say, however are there any specific questions I should be asking the seller about the machine, or things to be wary of with Thiel 160 machines? I know the company is no longer in business, so parts are likely to be non-existent, but if anyone knows of a supplier with NOS parts, that would be good to know about. They want 9000€ for it.

I would want to hear it run in all speeds and listen for gear noise. I would also look for way scoring. Badly worn gears and scored ways are a challenge to fix on any machine, but especially on an orphan like that. After you eliminate those issues, then check for normal way and screw wear, by looking for tightness at the ends of travel and differences in backlash along the travels. I would want to know whether the machine uses "normal" spindle bearings or something unusual, and hard to get if worn. For example, if it uses needles running directly on the spindle and quill housing with no separate races (a la Deckel), you will want to make sure those are in good shape due to difficulty of fixing.

Can only hope that the owner is a lot better at taking care of his machinery than he is at making a video......
Got sea sick from all the rapid in and outs,up's and down's, along with the jerky camera use...Pretty poor showing of what might be a pretty nice machine.

If you are serious follow Rich's guidelines..make a house call and inspect in person.
Cheers Ross

Well, a house call...machine is in Germany, I'm in MA. You saying I should fly out to look at it? Would you do that?

Chris Hall said:

Well, a house call...machine is in Germany, I'm in MA. You saying I should fly out to look at it? Would you do that?

Click to expand...

If I could not see it, I’d pay someone to appraise it. It would have to be someone knowledgeable. No way would I buy without seeing it first hand or through a trusted advisor. I’ve learned this the hard way to some extent.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Peter is the guy to contact.
As a dealer, I think he has owned more Thiel machines than any other private user on this forum so he's the most likely to know what to look for.
I seem to recall he always told me very good things about those machines.
But if he doesn't have a trip in Germany planned in the near future, you'll still be on your own when the time comes to make the final decision.

Now the question I'd like to ask is : is there a particular reason you are set on that Thiel ?
9000 euros is a fair amount of money for an orphan machine to be bought sight unseen, with no practical recourse against the seller.
You are probably aware that you will have hard time finding accessories or equipment for that machine. Let alone spare parts.
For that sole reason, I probably wouldn't consider spending as much for such a machine as I'd do for a Deckel.

In that regard, Milacron just listed what appears to be a very nice Deckel FP3 in the FS section.
Machine said in very good condition, from a (supposedly ) trusted seller, on the good side of the pond, same work enveloppe, accessories and spare parts available at will... and the machine is even not more expensive !

The machine was offered to me too
To expencive for me And I can see now he gave me no dealerdiscount

But its a TH160 And this is the only 160 I can find on the internet You can find TH140 and a TH150
So probably impossible to get parts That is not that big of a issue as many times it is cheaper to have parts made as OEM parts
I would have payed a little more just to get my hands on a TH160
I think looking at it its a upsized TH150 with some designchanges like the angle on the Z-axes handwheel
Thiel is a very good brand Some consider it better as Deckel The duplex 159 for example is considered the best designed German toolroom milling machine by many

Peter

I had a chance to play with a Thiel 150 at one time and wrote about it on this forum. The pictures are probably not coming up though (photobucket issue).
I liked it a lot, but for your situation I have the same opinion as above posters: You can buy a very nice FP2 or even FP3 in the US for the same or less money and you will have spares available and they are the better machine (IMHO). And you would not have to deal with a suspect seller and shipping.
It would be a simple decision for me.

I am glad I posted up here, as the opinions shared have been valuable to me. The Thiel does come with a heap of accessories, which was certainly an added attraction. I asked the seller about spare parts availability, but he has made no reply so far. And, I have become quite aware with German and Swiss machinery that the cost of the spares is often very high and that the parts could be made as one-offs over here for less in many cases: I recently enquired, for example, about a replacement ISO 30 taper spindle for my Zimmermann pattern machine, and was quoted 5000€, which seemed kinda high for what it is.

Milacron's FP3 must be a quite recent listing as I had not come across it in the past week. It's definitely attractive, and within range of taking a trip to inspect.

Chris Hall said:

The Thiel does come with a heap of accessories, which was certainly an added attraction.

Click to expand...

I can't say for the angular milling attachment, but beside this one, none of the accessories seems particularly specific to the machine to me.
We're not talking about a slotting head or something like that.
Spindle tooling seems to be perfecty standard NMTB40 and a generic dividing head and rotary table are not worth the hassle of buying *that* machine.

TNB said:

I can't say for the angular milling attachment, but beside this one, none of the accessories seems particularly specific to the machine to me.
We're not talking about a slotting head or something like that.
Spindle tooling seems to be perfectly standard NMTB40 and a generic dividing head and rotary table are not worth the hassle of buying *that* machine.

Click to expand...

Well, when you lack almost all of those accessories, having them is better than not having them. I didn't realize that few were specific to the Thiel.

AlfaGTA said:

Can only hope that the owner is a lot better at taking care of his machinery than he is at making a video......
Got sea sick from all the rapid in and outs,up's and down's, along with the jerky camera use...Pretty poor showing of what might be a pretty nice machine.

Click to expand...

The machine is fascinating as it is possibly the newest Thiel I have ever seen......but I was amazed at how loud the gearing is with spindle running at higher speeds.....of course vid cameras and phones tend to exaggerate gear noises louder than real life, but still....sheesh...

I looked at the pictures of the very late Thiel 150 I took. It had a lot of accessories and they were very peculiar to the design of these late Thiels. The accessories shown for the 160 do not look like Thiel equipment to me at all.
IIRC Thiel was bought by MAHO, which merged with Deckel which force-merged with Gildemeister which merged with Mori.......good luck with parts.

Chris Hall said:

Well, when you lack almost all of those accessories, having them is better than not having them. I didn't realize that few were specific to the Thiel.

Click to expand...

FWIW, I would also consider selling this one....but suspect most will think the price outrageous...$39,500. But find another final generation FP2 or FP3 with the universal table in the world for sale as nice for less and I might reconsider.



Vise not included

When shopping for rare Euro-mills, asking about parts availability is the wrong question, in my opinion. One has a prayer of finding parts for Deckels, half a prayer of finding parts for Mahos and Acieras (from the Swiss outfits who picked up the remaining inventory), and pretty much zilch for the rest. But if you are playing in this arena, you should be able to repair the parts you have or make replacements. What parts do you have in mind?

rklopp said:

When shopping for rare Euro-mills, asking about parts availability is the wrong question, in my opinion. One has a prayer of finding parts for Deckels, half a prayer of finding parts for Mahos and Acieras (from the Swiss outfits who picked up the remaining inventory), and pretty much zilch for the rest. But if you are playing in this arena, you should be able to repair the parts you have or make replacements. What parts do you have in mind?

Click to expand...

I've learned that to repair a mill one generally needs another mill at the very least, and this is part of the reason i'm looking for a second mill. I don't know of any parts that the Thiel needs, I was curious in a general way and thought the seller might be able to tell me something - and he has not answered in any case. I have been able to find next-to-no information on these machines.

rklopp said:

When shopping for rare Euro-mills, asking about parts availability is the wrong question, in my opinion. One has a prayer of finding parts for Deckels, half a prayer of finding parts for Mahos and Acieras (from the Swiss outfits who picked up the remaining inventory), and pretty much zilch for the rest. But if you are playing in this arena, you should be able to repair the parts you have or make replacements. What parts do you have in mind?

Click to expand...

I respectfully disagree.
I think it is very convenient if I can just order knickknack for a Deckel from Franz. Whether it is just bellows, a special bearing, a handle, a way wiper or anything like that.
How I pitty some people I have seen in some forums posting about how they made a complicated bellows because they had to. I have never spent big bucks with Franz, but having him is important to me. May he hang in there past me.

rklopp said:

What parts do you have in mind?

Click to expand...

Belows and ways wipers are indeed very good examples of parts that are nice to have readily available.
Obviously not impossible to make in-house with a bit of perseverance, but pure collectors set aside, who wants to become the bellow specialist just for the bragging rights of having the most über-rare milling machine ?
Or think about finding an overarm for horizontal milling on that Thiel...

Gears come to mind too... and making them is yet another story !
May be I should be able to make replacements, but alas I'm not... and I don't think I'm totally alone in that boat.
Even having them made will generally require some serious thinking.

Of course everything is doable...but it's not like there was no choice.
And everything else beeing equal, I'll lean toward the machine for wich parts are the most easy to source.

TNB said:

Of course everything is doable...but everything else beeing equal, I'll lean toward the machine for wich parts are the most easy to source.
And it's not like there was no choice.

Click to expand...

Totally agree with this. I can't afford to have machines down for extended periods, and often when you open up a machine to fix one thing, you discover other things that should be attended to and the project goes from something which looked manageable, to a time and money sink. It's much more convenient if you can buy parts off the shelf, though this is becoming more and more problematic with older machines in general, just like cars.

Making things like gears for a machine tool is just not in the range for most...Unless you happen to be fortunate to own a gear shaper or hob....Mill cut gears never have the exact profile. For some applications this is not an issue...a machine tool is in another class IMO.

Even getting a specialty company to reproduce gears and the like can be fraught with problems...I deal with this daily in my day job.....
Getting someone to reverse engineer an existing part often leads to a less than great finished part...The reality is that there is just not enough profit in making a one-off especially if the maker has to generate his own
drawing and all to start....


Deckel has emerged here (US) as the predominant euro style machine and its for good reason.....
There is a good supply chain (as already pointed out) and because of the "relatively" dense population of Deckel's in the field there is also a wealth of information circulating about these machines.
Finally, there is the not so small matter of available accessories....Well built and designed to compliment all their machines across model lines....driven accessories such as the
slotting head for example, fit all machines from the FP2 manual through the FP4NC (CNC machines)....
In short Deckel has the most complete "System" out there and pretty much everything is available (if you look) still today.

That Thiel is a nice looking machine....But i would need a very good reason to bother with importing it to the US...Crating.shipping, Customs, and the not so small possibility of damage all move to make
that machine less than desirable.
Cheers Ross