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Would you an FP1 with only a High Speed Head?

newtonsapple

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May 16, 2017
I found a 1950 FP1 for sale. I haven't been able to inspect it, looks nice, but the big "issue" is that there is no standard vertical head, only the highspeed head. Is this workable?

The pullies could likely be redone to get the speed to down along with a VFD on the motor. The motor might also be swappable with a new mount on the dovetail slide. The power could be upped a bit this way, although the weight of the motor would need to be kept in check.

What is the stiffness and durability of the high speed head like? Is the bearing setup going to be okay under slower/higher loads? Will it be okay with 1/2" endmill in steel?

If workable it would be nice to not need to swap between the standard and highspeed head.
 
IMHO you will definately want the standard head for this mill. You might try contacting Franz Singer Singer Werkzeugmaschinen Reparatur, Ersatzteile und Zubehor and see if they have a spare standard head. You could also check the german ebay where there are lots of parts for Deckels available. Trying to adapt the high speed head for normal use will be PITA and will not give you the same solution, the standard head runs off the internal gearing of the machine, is much beefier. The high speed head is intended for much higher speed machining with smaller cutters.
 
Probably cheaper to buy another FP1 and sell this one then buying a angle head from Singer
If you have a original high spead head for your machine it will have the rare smaller collets Not the ones with S20x2 threading That makes it even less desireable
And if you have a more modern one with NT40 I found many of them have pitted bearing races

Peter
 
And if you have a more modern one with NT40 I found many of them have pitted bearing races.

Are these conventional replaceable spindle bearings? Meaning that they don't use the outer surface of the spindle or the inner surface of the quill as a bearing race? Are they pitted from coolant ingress, or lack of proper lubrication?

Related question: How are the bearings set up the fine boring head? I have the impression from the cross-sectional diagram that the bearings are not off-the-shelf replaceable units, but am not sure.
 
The high speed head has needle bearings with part of the hardened shaft and housing as races
Seems the deckel system to me This design makes for slim spindles but are expencive to replace
Also I noticed needle bearings in general are not that good at high speeds
The pitting is from lack of lubrication one way or the other or perhaps the hardened layer breaking

Peter
 
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Here are some photos of the FP1 in question. I haven't purchased it and had mostly decided to pass on it, but thought it would be worth asking if was workable. I am aware standard heads on their own are very rare. The owner has the highspeed head motor assembly not shown with a set of collets for it. He said the collets were "new." I haven't been able to ID if it is older version with the smaller collets, but I suspect it is.

The owner bought this from Gallery of Machines, Marathon NY Machine Tool Rebuilding, Retrofitting, Repair, Service & Manuals

I suspect the scraping seen on the z ways is cosmetic and that the machine was not fully scraped in. The seller does seem capable of good work, so hard to tell without real inspection. Searching Wayback machine, it looks like they had a FP1 for sale around 2001 for $3950, which I suspect is this machine.

109038358_2677170942384418_3997247836858301379_o.jpg
109035693_2677170932384419_1882561250648189842_o.jpg
109542290_2677180322383480_6579115356900848593_o.jpg
 
I would wait it out for a better FP-1. And tooling is almost as important as the machine itself. The older high-speed collets are apparently an old 16mm "Lorch" design, if you do go ahead, make sure they fit. I believe 1/2" is the largest I.D. collet available. If the price goes low enough to tempt an offer, maybe you could attach a Bridgeport vertical head. The high-speed head just bolts to a dovetailed right-angle flange that fits to the top of the machine. Then you would want to get the plain table as the tilt table shown is not so rigid and you also lose some vertical height in a machine that doesn't have a lot.
 
There are a huge number of these machines for sale:

https://www.machineseeker.com/mss/deckel+fp1

https://www.ebay.de

As previously stated, you will be much better off getting a machine with the most important accessories, as the accessories are the key to how these machines work and provide the benefit of having a Deckel versus a traditional Bridgeport style mill. It is the accessories that give the machine its incredible flexibility in handling many different tasks.

If you haven't already, read up in detail at Deckel FP1 Milling Machines
which will give you a very good idea of the various accessories that are available.

I'm presuming you are budget constrained, but if not, you can purchase a new Deckel from
The manual machine tools from FPS with digital display -
I purchased an FPS 300 M recently, very happy with it.
 
Also, beyond just the accessories, keep in mind that Deckels use tooling that is mostly not available in the USA and is readily available in Europe, but be prepared to pay a premium to aquire it.
 
There are a huge number of these machines for sale:

▷ Used Deckel Fp1 for sale - Machineseeker

https://www.ebay.de

As previously stated, you will be much better off getting a machine with the most important accessories, as the accessories are the key to how these machines work and provide the benefit of having a Deckel versus a traditional Bridgeport style mill. It is the accessories that give the machine its incredible flexibility in handling many different tasks.

If you haven't already, read up in detail at Deckel FP1 Milling Machines
which will give you a very good idea of the various accessories that are available.

I'm presuming you are budget constrained, but if not, you can purchase a new Deckel from
The manual machine tools from FPS with digital display -
I purchased an FPS 300 M recently, very happy with it.

I've seen your FPS deckel (as well as the rest of your shop) and it is pretty much what I would love to have. I likely never will though because I am cheap! Machining equipment in my shop is really only for when I screw up a design and the parts need to be fixed ASAP. If I am cranking handles for more than 30 minutes, I really screwed up and am loosing money. I work in a really specialized niche within medical manufacturing, and my design/development time is worth way more than machining work. At the same time I don't have enough hours in front of a mill any year to justify a really nice machine to speed things up.

Deckels are largely a curiosity at this point, but difficult to make a business case for. My shop is in my basement at this time, so a FP1 is nice from a space and capability standpoint. At the same time I can get a Bridgeport that was scraped and fully rebuilt and then never used for less than most FP1 setups. It would just make things a little tight for space.
 
It's not clear to me that you gain space with a Deckel FP1 versus a Bridgeport for this reason: you have to store the Deckel accessories somewhere which takes up space. Also, if you were to go with multiple tables you need a way of moving those things around (250lb worth) so now you need a crane of some sort. What the Deckel does for you is provide a more rigid and much more versatile machine, so you can do more things with it. It is also fine german engineering and is a joy to operate.
 
It's not clear to me that you gain space with a Deckel FP1 versus a Bridgeport for this reason: you have to store the Deckel accessories somewhere which takes up space. Also, if you were to go with multiple tables you need a way of moving those things around (250lb worth) so now you need a crane of some sort. What the Deckel does for you is provide a more rigid and much more versatile machine, so you can do more things with it. It is also fine german engineering and is a joy to operate.

That is an interesting point about the accessories.

I like the idea of the stiffness and work envelope of a Deckel. The horizontal spindle seems like a nice complement to the small envelope. Although is an MK4 FP1 stiffer than a Bridgeport?

I am not so sure I like the accessory game. Setup times can be killer along with avoiding doing things because you need to switch the damn head. Frankly, if it is complicated and going to take me a day, I'm getting on the phone with someone with a CNC. My mill work so far is largely simple fixtures and adjustments to existing parts. Occasionally there is a precision part I need to custom fit to soak up the tolerances of all the other parts in an assembly. It is probably more important that I can face something and then put a small pocket in a part with a 1/16th endmill. The 2k max of a Deckel might be limiting on that front.


This is probably the closest incarnation of what I was imagining for a spindle set up:
4129609.1574871964__.jpg
▷ Used Cover Fp1 Cnc Deckel Fp1 for sale - Machineseeker.com
 
Yikes, thats a project, they say good for retro-fit, and that is old electronics technology, could be a lot of work bringing something like that online. Ultimately, you have to decide where you want to invest your time/money: to retro-fit an older machine with problems or buy a machine that is ready to go. If I were purchasing a used Deckel, I would go to Europe and find the newest model with the important accessories included, for a manual machine look for Aktiv Digital, which gives you a single axis (e.g. one axis at a time) DRO driven positioning system which is very convenient, or other Deckel experts on this forum (AlfaGTA) might push you towards an FP4NC.....but beware that all used Deckels with CNC will have very old electronics and you'll need to factor that into your ownership cost.

FYI, newer Deckels will use SK40 tooling for both vertical and horizontal spindle, definately more robust than the Bridgeport. And the overall design of a Deckel where the Y-axis is not pancaked on top of the z and x axis leads to a more rigid setup. And of course, having a machine that can do both vertical and horizontal milling is very cool.

The newer Deckels allow the standard head to be slid back and a number of the accessories to slide onto the top ways without removing the standard head, making for a reasonably convenient switchover.

BUT, if I had room for only a single machine, I would go with a small modern CNC machine.....
 
The machine shown is about from 1953 and already has a feed gearbox. That is very good. A 1950 model, as you first suspected, only has change gears (very awkward).
So a 1953 machine is totally OK given good condition. The missing head is a problem, which could only be compensated by a very good price.
To name names I'd figure 1000€ for a good head (much less with much luck). So if the machine is also 1000€/$, that would be OK, at 2000€/$ it would be borderline.
Those are only my opinion numbers.
There are a lot of FP1's with only a high speed heads around. They of course are easily swapped, so 40 taper is a 5 min changeover, if you got one.

I can give you a very broken vertical head for your machine for free, if you pick it up yourself. But only Ross could fix that one.

I must say that I would really appreciate an early FP1 (with feed box) in pristine condition, but I have never seen one. In the 50ies those machine still had to work.
 
The machine shown is about from 1953 and already has a feed gearbox. That is very good. A 1950 model, as you first suspected, only has change gears (very awkward).
So a 1953 machine is totally OK given good condition. The missing head is a problem, which could only be compensated by a very good price.
To name names I'd figure 1000€ for a good head (much less with much luck). So if the machine is also 1000€/$, that would be OK, at 2000€/$ it would be borderline.
Those are only my opinion numbers.
There are a lot of FP1's with only a high speed heads around. They of course are easily swapped, so 40 taper is a 5 min changeover, if you got one.

I can give you a very broken vertical head for your machine for free, if you pick it up yourself. But only Ross could fix that one.

I must say that I would really appreciate an early FP1 (with feed box) in pristine condition, but I have never seen one. In the 50ies those machine still had to work.

So the machine in the photos is 5 hours away from me, so I haven't seen it in person. With machines like these, there is a huge advantage to showing up and looking around as sometimes what you need is under a bench or something and the older gentleman forgot about it.

Can anyone tell from the photo if the highspeed head shown is a 40 taper or the older 16mm version? The fact that he has a set of new collets from the dealer for it is interesting as the 16mm ones seem less likely to be available that way.

Asking price is $3600, so high, and not sure what negotiation would get it too.

The machine is outside Syracuse, NY if anyone is local and wants to take a look PM me for details. I was originally thinking about trying to find someone local to take a look for me.
 
I can give you a very broken vertical head for your machine for free, if you pick it up yourself.

Hello Martin
Would you post a few pics of that wrecked head... Just for the pleasure of thinking about the repair ? ;)
 
I am highly opinionated in all this. With plenty of hands on experience here if i was looking for a "Deckel" style mill and needing to keep the overall footprint down, (eliminates the FP-NC's)
i would be looking for an FP2...Late version (square head) if budget permitted. Don't favor the "Active setup, but if it was so fitted not a deal breaker.
Not appreciably bigger than an FP1 and overall year to year a better machine.....
Some advantages:
Sensitive manual quill on the horizontal as well as on the vertical.
All machines have 40 taper spindles
All FP2's have anti friction spindle bearings (some FP1's have bushings)
Higher spindle speeds
Power feed to all three axis on all FP2's with rapids
More advances oiling system
Box ways on the vertical
More accessories available owing to the use of the later design 29 1/2* gears...Including the precision boring head (only available with the later gear profile requiring use of the costly FP1 riser if needing to run on an FP1)
Longer travels on all axis.

Not sure i share the need to have all accessories. Have collected most over the years, but in reality rarely use them.
Having an adjustable angle and swivel table would be my choice. Better if the later "Tool makers" table including the DRO readout for the table rotary position.

I have overarms and arbors, but rarely run them, you can do fine work using stub arbors without overarm running horizontal.....
The high speed head is nice, but a spindle speeder on the vertical will do better if you can stand the head room it consumes, (FP2 advantage more head room)

Its all a matter of priorities! I would much rather have a nice basic machine with good selection of tool holders, collets a good vice, and a three axis DRO over a fully accessorized older dog....
Cheers Ross
 
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Ross,

Your sentiments are inline with mine. An FP2 with DRO and a nice spindle speeder would be a nice setup. Pretty rare to come at a justifiable price, but I am on the lookout. Once I get above $10K on a manual machine, it makes a meaningful dent in the (theoretical) CNC budget. The right machine and combination of good profits justifying a spending to the extent of moving out of a higher tax bracket would work.
 
Even if I'm 100% with Ross about the FP2 beeing vastly superior to an FP1, it doesn't seem very fair to me to compare the merits of an older FP1 and a late FP2, be it active or not.

I agree that both machines share the same footprint, more or less, but to me, it would make more sense to point out the older FP3 as the most valuable alternative to the FP1 if room allows.

It offers exactly the same features as a late-square-castings FP2 (non active), for a much more affordable price.
I admit it may not be true in the US though.

And if you can cramp up an FP2 in your shop, chances are that an FP3 will fit in too !
 








 
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