Beaver milling machine

I'm going to be look at a Beaver mill on Saturday (not sure of the model). I'd like to hear from people who know this machine. I'm curious what I should look for when inspecting it, anything special or unique to this mill.

Thanks.

I have the cheaper model with dual belts and cone pulleys instead of a backgear like the Bridgeport. It was quite accurate when I bought it new, 40 years ago. It has square slides on the knee, a really bad feature because you have to lock from two directions. The power downfeed system is terrible and often slips. I only had it running for two days when it bored right down into the table because it has a friction lock stop instead of the positive one on a Bridgeport. All in all, it seems typical of British engineering, carefully made and accurate, but a design that was never worked out and full of bugs. As far as I know, they only came into the US during the period when Bridgeport was so far behind on deliveries that they left an opening for foreign competitors, so any one you find is probably around 40 years old. If it is worn, you will have an inaccurate mill full of bugs.

Bill

I have a NC5 CNC and it is way way ahead of my Bridgeport series 1 CNC in quality and rigidity in my opinion, it is a bigger machine so maybe not being totally fair comparing it to the Bridgeport.
It has a 4 inch quill, it has a real gearbox which means the spindle runs the same way whether in main or backgear, has box ways rather than dovetails and in my opinion the engineering on it is far superior to the Bridgeport, one small example of this is it has proper brass bushes in the sheaves instead of the plastic in the Bridgeport.

Hood

Plenty of information here: http://www.lathes.co.uk/beaver/index.html.

Despite 9100s poor experience, general opinion is that they are far sturdier and better built than a Bridgy, and capable of heavier work.
However, Beaver Machine Tools went out of business some years ago, so any spare parts might be hard to come by.
I don't have one myself, as even over here in the UK it was easier to buy a Bridgeport.

Peter

Spares are fairly easy to get in the UK from what I understand although the only thing I had to get was a belt and didnt even need that in the end as I fitted an AC Servo to the spindle. The place I got the belt from is www.machinesupportservices.com and the guy there seems to know all about them, if I remember correctly he used to work for Beaver and may even have bought the spares stock.

Hood

Possible NC5 owner

Hood said:

I have a NC5 CNC and it is way way ahead of my Bridgeport series 1 CNC in quality and rigidity in my opinion, it is a bigger machine so maybe not being totally fair comparing it to the Bridgeport.
It has a 4 inch quill, it has a real gearbox which means the spindle runs the same way whether in main or backgear, has box ways rather than dovetails and in my opinion the engineering on it is far superior to the Bridgeport, one small example of this is it has proper brass bushes in the sheaves instead of the plastic in the Bridgeport.

Hood

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Hello,
Good to hear such warm words about the NC5 as I am hopefully going have one. I read that you might have a manual/info on the NC5 and wondered if it was possible to share this. New to this forum so apologies if this is the incorrect route for this request.
Thanks
Tom

tomkenned said:

Hello,
Good to hear such warm words about the NC5 as I am hopefully going have one. I read that you might have a manual/info on the NC5 and wondered if it was possible to share this. New to this forum so apologies if this is the incorrect route for this request.
Thanks
Tom

Click to expand...

Have sent you a private message.