Looking to buy an HBM - pointers to look for

Hey guys, I do repair machine work in my shop. I'm located in a building with a trucks/heavy equipment repair facility (that I also work for as an employee, separate from my shop when I'm not busy). I've been looking at getting an HBM to do repairs on booms, transmission housings, axle housings, etc. I found a G&L 340T not too far from me, with DRO, and it was supposedly rebuilt and rescraped in 2000. Owner is motivated to move it as he has a new VTL coming in April.

This machine looks clean from pictures. I haven't been to see it in person yet. I can tell from pictures it does NOT have the high speed auxiliary spindle on it. It is a #5MT machine. Is this something I'm going to greatly miss having? The asking price is already under $10,000; and I believe I could get them down to 4-5k being it HAS to go. For what it's worth, for lots of drilling, I have a radial drill press if I need to do a bunch of hole drilling.

What else should I be looking at apart from the typical making sure all the functions work? Spindle droop/sag? is that a thing on these? Runout, etc?

Runout can be an issue in Morse taper machines if they've had anything spun in the spindle. That's the inside of the spindle. They can be reground if necessary. I far prefer NMTB50 spindle in an HBM if possible though. You won't likely see any runout on the outside of the spindle unless there is some serious internal damage - very unlikely, these machines are very stout.

Check backlash on all 3 axes. Look at the screws and compare thread thickness at the extremes compared to the middle. A big difference means the machine is pretty well-used. If there's a lot of backlash and the screws look good, the nuts are getting worn out.

Check parallelism and squareness of the spindle to the table. Have a look at the vertical ways and maybe measure them on front and back surfaces for parallelism. They'll be smaller toward the center if there's much wear.

No auxiliary spindle doesn't always mean no higher speeds...some of the machines could run up to a pretty good speed on the main spindle. Older ones were tapped out at 375 RPM and many of those had the aux. spindle. I ran machines with the low speed spindles a lot at one place I worked, and they all had aux. spindles, but nobody ever used them, so I doubt you'll miss it. Milling with very small cutters isn't something that is needed on the bigger machines that often, and when drilling it's usually a short hole when.you're at small diameters so you won't lose that much time. Where you'll miss the speed is if you use small tungsten carbide tooling - for repair work that's not that often.

50 taper would be awesome for me as my mill (K&T 2CH) takes 50T tooling. But, MT5 is easy to find tooling for too.

Good things to look out for. I'm going to see if I can go inspect the machine in person this weekend.

You want one with hard ways, and good acme feed screws. If it have been rescraped it one with soft ways...If you want a good one I have one in Montana, well tooled, and hard ways....Phil

One thing to consider is HBM's are not appreciating in value.

I have found is industries that need the work once in awhile already have nice HBM's in house. The folks that need HBM work once in a blue moon don't want to pay much for it.

If you're going to pay $5k for it plus a couple grand rigging and trucking for a HBM I would suggest finding a modern one that has power drawbar 50 taper, 1000+ rpm, power clamping, built in rotary, newer high end DRO, tailstock, bars, nice way covers, etc, etc. Because this thing isn't going to earn thousands a month like it needs to to justify the space it takes up. It's a ton of work to set up. A $500 job every few months is not worth having it IMO. But, if you really have the work for it go for it.

Mine is a 20 ton shit collector most of the time. I haven't found a good place to store the 3 ton tailstock and one ton of bars.

Last place I worked in got a lot of use out of their HBMs, all 3 ran pretty much every day, and that was a job shop. But Garwood makes valid points IMO. I would definitely not want to go back to MT spindles after having used 50 taper. No way in hell. It's not about tooling availability, it's about convenience, accuracy and speed.

eKretz said:

Last place I worked in got a lot of use out of their HBMs, all 3 ran pretty much every day, and that was a job shop. But Garwood makes valid points IMO. I would definitely not want to go back to MT spindles after having used 50 taper. No way in hell. It's not about tooling availability, it's about convenience, accuracy and speed.

Click to expand...

I fitted a Herbert/DeVlieg 40 taper Flash Change adaptor to mine. Haven't taken it out since.

PDW

Much better for tool changes, but rigidity with 50 is even better. 5MT is 1.75" gage line diameter. NMTB50 is 2.75" gage line diameter. Not a big deal for most work, but if trying to tear off stock with a 6"+ facemill you'd miss that rigidity. And if you can score one with a 50 taper and power drawbar you've just about got the top of the heap. Now's the time to make the wishlist...

As for demand, it definitely would not be an "every day" sort of thing. But, what I'm looking at is there is nobody within 2 hrs drive of me that does this sort of 1-off work. There is a lot of agriculture around me, and they are willing to pay. For instance, I had a front axle support housing off of a JD 4855 that was all egged out in the front pivot bushing. I line bored it in my radial drill by making a bunch of brackets and jigging it up to the side of the table, then line boring. Worked, got paid $600 for that job. New housings are not available, and used ones are $1200 from a junkyard + freight and you never really know the condition on them. This job would have been way faster and easier on an HBM vs trying to do it in the drill press.

As for going with 50T, I see the points there. I was only interested in this machine due to it's recent rebuild, as I figured that'd indicate better condition for me than some old machine that hasn't had any attention.

Garwood said:

One thing to consider is HBM's are not appreciating in value.

I have found is industries that need the work once in awhile already have nice HBM's in house. The folks that need HBM work once in a blue moon don't want to pay much for it.

If you're going to pay $5k for it plus a couple grand rigging and trucking for a HBM I would suggest finding a modern one that has power drawbar 50 taper, 1000+ rpm, power clamping, built in rotary, newer high end DRO, tailstock, bars, nice way covers, etc, etc. Because this thing isn't going to earn thousands a month like it needs to to justify the space it takes up. It's a ton of work to set up. A $500 job every few months is not worth having it IMO. But, if you really have the work for it go for it.

Mine is a 20 ton shit collector most of the time. I haven't found a good place to store the 3 ton tailstock and one ton of bars.

Click to expand...

If you'd like that 20 ton shit collector gone, let me know.

deerefanatic said:

As for demand, it definitely would not be an "every day" sort of thing. But, what I'm looking at is there is nobody within 2 hrs drive of me that does this sort of 1-off work. There is a lot of agriculture around me, and they are willing to pay. For instance, I had a front axle support housing off of a JD 4855 that was all egged out in the front pivot bushing. I line bored it in my radial drill by making a bunch of brackets and jigging it up to the side of the table, then line boring. Worked, got paid $600 for that job. New housings are not available, and used ones are $1200 from a junkyard + freight and you never really know the condition on them. This job would have been way faster and easier on an HBM vs trying to do it in the drill press.

As for going with 50T, I see the points there. I was only interested in this machine due to it's recent rebuild, as I figured that'd indicate better condition for me than some old machine that hasn't had any attention.

Click to expand...

Not always, some rebuilders just run a " Biax " over the ways and then get busy with a paint brush. It all depends who's done the job. If I was looking to buy a machine for your sort of work ( jobbing shop ) I'd look for a machine with a facing slide.
If you can get a built-in facing slide, that's great, but even a bolt on facing slide is better than nothing. I'd say an accurate revolving top table would be a big advantage also.

Something like a " Kearns-Richards SH 75 or even a SJ 100.


Regards Tyrone.

Pardon my ignorance, but what's a facing slide? Is that one of those units that's like a boring head, but you can index it out while it's revolving?

340 T HBM G&L ex gov. Load with tooling

Looks like time to go put "westbound & down" in the truck's 8-track....

But it appears the seller is trying to run an auction.

"
"But it appears the seller is trying to run an auction.".... No..... but to many verables to publish a price, loading is a big deal, do I have to do it all or is the buyer going to help, I dont have a crane now that can load it, do you want all the tooling? Might be better to sell the tooling, table and let the scrap man win. I have a year to sell it, if I get a fair offer it will be gone....Phil

Phil in Montana said:

"
"But it appears the seller is trying to run an auction.".... No..... but to many verables to publish a price, loading is a big deal, do I have to do it all or is the buyer going to help, I dont have a crane now that can load it, do you want all the tooling? Might be better to sell the tooling, table and let the scrap man win. I have a year to sell it, if I get a fair offer it will be gone....Phil

Click to expand...

only 100 post's....the for sale section rules say post a price, no auctions, no "make an offer"

So to help you sell this thing...$5k to $35k try picking a number.

deerefanatic said:

Pardon my ignorance, but what's a facing slide? Is that one of those units that's like a boring head, but you can index it out while it's revolving?

Click to expand...

Yeah, that's it really. Machines can come with a built in facing slide. They are normally more user friendly than the bolt on type. The " Giddings & Lewis " machine back in this thread appears to have a bolt on facing slide.

You can use a snout bar off the facing slide that will take lathe tools for facing and boring. You can do a lot of work with really basic tooling.


Regards Tyrone.

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08-21-2008, 04:48 AM #1
Mebfab
Mebfab is offline Diamond

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Default Rules READ BEFORE POSTING

This section is for machinery. If it does not plug into a power source it is probably not a machine. If it is a part of a machine then it belongs in the parts forum below this one.

I am getting tired of moving posts to the parts forum for items like 4" lathe chucks and steady rests. So pay attention. If you do not see your post here check the other forum.

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Last edited by Mebfab; 11-21-2018 at 07:54 PM.
I dont think I am in contempt, 1 for sell add and 111 other posts not 1% , and this does not count hundreds onder Phil in Mt....Phil

Lets keep on topic vs arguing please.

This is all good info to know. I'm reaching out to Phil, see what is up.

Tyrone Shoelaces said:

Not always, some rebuilders just run a " Biax " over the ways and then get busy with a paint brush. It all depends who's done the job. If I was looking to buy a machine for your sort of work ( jobbing shop ) I'd look for a machine with a facing slide.
If you can get a built-in facing slide, that's great, but even a bolt on facing slide is better than nothing. I'd say an accurate revolving top table would be a big advantage also.

Something like a " Kearns-Richards SH 75 or even a SJ 100.


Regards Tyrone.

Click to expand...

Absolutely. I was setting and leveling a 5" table HBM once and the guy (new owner just bought the machine somewhere) was telling me about how good the condition of the machine was. He says "Look at the ways, the scraping is all still there, it's not worn at all!"

So I set my Starrett 199 down on the saddle way and nudged it. It literally SPUN half a revolution.

Just because scraping is visible and clean doesn't mean (A) that the scraping wasn't just done decoratively to cover up wear - OR (B) that the scraper hand did a good job even if a real effort was made. CYA and check for yourself.

deerefanatic said:

Pardon my ignorance, but what's a facing slide? Is that one of those units that's like a boring head, but you can index it out while it's revolving?

Click to expand...

Even if you don't use it for facing you can bolt whatever kind of bar or tool to it you want and cut ID's, OD's, grooves, etc.

Big boring heads are nifty, but they can't do nearly what a facing slide can. The facing head can usually just live on there too. You can still use the quill.

I bought my HBM because I wanted one, not for a real specific need. Then shortly after that I bought a piece of machinery that is kind of a core part of my current business plan and the HBM is a necessary partner to repair it. I wouldn't have bought the other money maker machine (broken) if I didn't have the machine necessary to make new line bored 2 ton parts for it.

I will trade my 4" Kuraki and tooling for a 150-250 ton 5" stroke air clutch stamping press. You pay shipping.