What's new
What's new

Romanian Built M.I.C.M. SN 400 Lathes

Ron B.

Plastic
Joined
Apr 9, 2009
Location
Brisbane Australia.
Because I am on a really tight budget,I have a Romanian built lathe(cheap to buy...) . it's a M.I.C.M. built SN 400 ,which means it's a 400mm swing with a 3 meter bed . Built in the Soviet days (1968) it's fairly typical being over built .It has a bed gap which allows work up to 600mm diameter to be turned.
Are there any other owners/operators out there with similar machines ? The four jaw chuck is an English Elliot ,400 Mm dia.
Eliiot Chuck 002.jpgLathe Asmore.jpg
 
Looks like an Arad lathe, I saw one in person just last month. Contact ARAD lathe company (arad strung in romanian). MICM probably got bought or renamed in Bucharest, which is a tiny city, so you won't have a hard time finding sources of information despite name changes. You can find disassembly videos on youtube too, but under the name ARAD. This company is one of the few left producing lathes, but operating from western romania. On the contrary, eastern europe is entirely dismantled in terms of production capabilities. If you find a romanian document, post here and I'll help you translate it.


Here's a for-sale add with an identical lathe, but different plate name: http://olx.ro/oferta/strung-ranghet-sn-400-x-1500-ID1bg3p.html

img.jpgimg.jpg

In communism were built several businesses that produce machine tools used in industrial production. Perhaps one of the most popular such enterprises was that of Arad. Arad lathes Enterprise was established on December 24, 1949 as the state industrial enterprises (IIS), Victoria ". From 1953 until 1961 was called Works, Joseph Ranghef "and from 1961 to March of 1973 the name of factory lathes. Arad turning lathes enterprise producing diverse automatic lathe, hydraulic copy lathe, lathe display quota, lathe turret lathe heavy SN 400 and others used in the country and exported.


EDIT: I just looked at your OTHER pictures (2nd, 3rd, 4th ...), it says cleary ARAD on it. MICM is the bullshit exporter name.

These lathes are only cheap because so many were produced. The headstock on the smaller model is longer than the distance between centers and comes with 15, 20kw motors. It's a very solid lathe made to be abused and fixed quickly for operations to continue. This is what you get when german technology produces a russian designed lathe; that's why the factories are western (as you know, romania is contested territory for a long time).

Here's example of how cheap and solid the lathe's are (a shorter SN 400), currently selling for 2000RON = 450USD http://www.tocmai.ro/strung-sn-400-16808159.html . Look at the proportion of the headstock and width of the bed to distance between centers. It's almost 1:1

sn400.jpg

This guy is selling books for various Arad lathes, cartimanuale @ gmail.com , name is 'Razvan' , I don't know him. If it doesn't work out, you can contact various lathe sellers in romania (they speak english), or parts sales places --- like the stores that would sell you a new clutch for this machine, they probably got lathe manuals or can track them down easily for you.
 
This is very interesting, I just an email from a guy who actually worked in the Plant making the lathes .He's an avid anti Communist so he was scathing of some of his fellow workers.. He was saying that a shipment of these lathes were sent to China and the quality was pretty bad. Some of the lathe builders were invited to China and they were feted to a public meeting. Unfortunately the Chinese took it upon themselves to denounce their fellow communists as the 'dogs who built this rubbish lathe' ..ha ha .
M.I.C.M was closed down some years ago apparently but a similar named company now makes armaments such as tanks and ammunition in the same building.
 
Communism is good, everyone wants to leave romania nowadays, but at the same time love capitalism (even though, they don't own any capital, they love their corporate masters but cry about their poverty and corruption). Lathes are solid and the castings aren't porous like Bulagiran Sofia-ZMM (zmm is german, they had a partnership), and the design is very well made. This cannot be said for chinese lathes which copied lot of mistakes from russian designs like equal length prongs on the compound dial among other things. I'm an international man grew up in america btw.

Titan TMG in bucharest makes lathes with 20 meter diameter swings, nuclear reactor machines, giant tire molding machines. Its a large factory with their own road systems. Operations are made on waldrich-coburg machines with top name german equipment. A factory in eastern romania of at least 20k employees closed down here, and I buy top brand german tool for fractions of the cost, they're all well made. I've only been here less than a year, so am not a nationalist or anything like that to give a skewed perspective.

tmg.jpg

Guess what lathe's they use? SN 400 Arad. The picture is small but you can tell from the headstock shape in this pic. The first lathe in the row closest to the photographer is sn 320, the ones behind it are Sn 400. Titan TMG has Canada contracts for nuclear reactors if i'm not mistaken btw; http://www.titan-ten.ro/index.php?lang=eng Nuclear reactor components aren't produced on shit-box lathes!
tmg.jpg
 
Elninio, I have a Bulgarian friend who says that when Communism folded, the state had to divest itself of the factories and no one in Bulgaria could have amassed the wealth to buy them, so outside buyers bought them and shipped the machinery to countries where there was cash available. She says her mother worked in a textile factory that employed about 5000 people, now down to about 500. She is back in Plovdiv, and has had a hard time finding employment. Even though we are very close friends, she will not talk about Communism.

What do you know about Mashtroy lathes?

Bill
 
Don't know, but here when they got rid of the huge factory it went to a mafia metal recycler, 1000's of tons. They used to take huge lathes and raise them with a crane then drop them, cut the smaller ones with torches. Don't know where the metal went from the recycler, probably even more east. At that point it was toward the end of communism and private individuals were responsible for these moves (outside of communist ideology, since the workers had no decision on it). I knew a guy who sold millions of dollars of stolen bearings and used that to immigrate.

Mashtroy looks like a russian derivative, like the ones i've seen in moldova. I don't speak the language so can't speculate further, but my opinion is based on the gearbox knobs and positions.
16622167_1.jpg

versus a romania lathe with lever knobs, 1983. I think, 100% of the romanian lathes i've seen have levers instead of knobs.
x.jpg

ZMM-sliven is with levers instead of knobs though, and is bulgarian, but ZMM is german and probably what influenced that decision. I think ZMM outsourced production to bulgarian companies, merged, and then was absorbed.
 
C

Guess what lathe's they use? SN 400 Arad. The picture is small but you can tell from the headstock shape in this pic. The first lathe in the row closest to the photographer is sn 320, the ones behind it are Sn 400. Titan TMG has Canada contracts for nuclear reactors if i'm not mistaken btw; Titan Echipamente Nucleare Nuclear reactor components aren't produced on shit-box lathes!
View attachment 105747
I am very happy with the quality of my Old SN 400 ,everything is heavy and possibly a bit over engineered,but you are right,the Chinese equivalent size machine Available here in Australia , is not a particularly well thought out design and appears to be a copy of something.
 
A translation from Romanian

Lathe factory "Joseph Ranghef" Arad has emerged by focusing several private companies and small workshops that were nationalized. Finally, communist business called "Aris" and produced a wide range of lathes. Among these were SP 400, SN 400, DRT, DLZ, MGA (deep drill pipes, guns), MFT (bar-headed screw machine drill, copied from the U.S. and well sold in the USSR), a cartridge tube production line (copied at the request of the USSR after the Soviet documentation, produced by Arad and bought the USSR), other heavy or very light but turning multifunctional mobile workshops, a variety of lathe for mass production, controlled lathes number, CN, CNC, copy the template and even technological lines in cooperation with other companies in the country. After December 1989, when he gave up the market for Eastern and shock the economy was disorganized capitalism go now increasingly worse. The best era have thousands of employees, with headquarters in Aad and three production departments in the county to Lipova Ineu and Sebis. I did practice in high school to "lathe" and after graduation I worked as a laborer, then as a technician. I worked on the track products in group technology table (at one point the only technology designed around now that parts of the board). Plate technology that annoyed me, I asked to be transferred to application to group technology gears, axles, where I worked until early 1991. Because we were married in September 1991 and went to study in England, I I volunteered to be passed now when unemployment started to reduce their activity.


I worked fifteen years with several days in one place. During this time I saw and heard many interesting happenings. Here are some of the hearsay from the communists who worked with dedication and commitment to carry out the plan.
In Arad occurred several lathes, including SN 1250, which was a copy of the Swiss Oerlikon lathe and was highly sought after in the Republic of China. All would be good if the period of transport by rail, ship and rail toolbox again, hard enough, it would have been put in place at all advisable, so the lathe was disturbed. After a while, the Chinese asked him to be sent a team to work on the lathe. Were not satisfied with the central characters in Bucharest straw, so he sent a team of workers and a foreman. Once in China were staying at a hotel, then every morning from seven to three in the afternoon they were taken to our company that bought lathes. There attending political lectures. Up Mao Mao down red booklet, etc, etc.. After five days of political lessons have been invited to a big meeting, a meeting of all employees in the factory, the largest hall gathered. Banners, red flags, the famous blue overalls presidium table and another smaller table they were seated beside brave builders turning in Arad. The translator translated them what it was. The theme of the meeting was "Here culprits for failure to plan factory". They spoke more Chinese were shouted slogans, etc, etc, after all typical communist. Finally Romanians were presented: "Here dear comrades guilty for failing to plan. Because of their bad lathes did what we could accomplish the plan "minutes when the meeting ended Romanians were taken to the bus from there to the airport and from there to Bucharest. The bags they were all on the plane. They were not stolen anything, not lacking anything. Even cigarette butts in the ashtrays in the hotel room was packed with care. And yet occurred Arad still turning.

The second accident is connected with the production first lathe control software of Romania, in collaboration with Butler in the UK. Tyre and driver English shooters were already in the works for two weeks, the lathe is not yet finished. We made the lathe, the British came to electronics. It was something that suited both parties: we work, We export them buying something cheap made by their standards. It would have been so bad if it was only late, but something intervened: while to put on the trailer, packed lathe has been dropped from the crane. Can you imagine a machine meant that several tons of all adjustments made, which was very demanding and many fine processing electronics fall from crane. I know how much fell, but he was certain that fell pretty bad. It was obvious that the lathe was twisted, but yet no one had the courage to say "stop", you must unpack the lathe and see what happened and fix defects. The truck did not come back to collect another crate.

And yet production continued turning to Arad.
All in Arad being produced a revolver lathe German (DDR or DDR) called DRT DRT 32-40 or 53-80 (figures show the maximum diameter machining). Have a device that barrel from the "revolver" that is more monte tools so that several operations were made. Although it was a project of the 1930s, the lathe was still compatitive and the price of a big production pieces.

The deal was that we manufacture everything after German documetaţia translated into Romanian and adapted to our standards, as closer to the German, but had to pay in kind of the same type lathes send you all in eastern Germany.

As it was a long way up the production of parts and assembly, installation was always running out of time. To solve the problem, some most worthy Communists were thought to appeal to a very original and yet very effective way to get rid of long times to align the various assemblies of the lathe, which ensures alignment precision actually processing machine .

Samples were made with a dial gauge indicating dial between two divisions of a tenth of a millimeter. Our people bow out of the Probe (you have to stop a ball) and replaced it with grease. Thus, even if the alignment deviation was higher even by 1 mm, that is 100 times higher than that required, the indicator probe is not moving a lot, because the arc would be maintained on the track ball of the control probe does not exist, movement is attenuated grease. Because of this indicator shaking between two divisions, a virtually non-existent offense, because only the ball from the top probe rod move, not probe what Antran the pointer.

Obviously all lathes have passed quality control were charged premiums, everyone was happy factory, including bosses. Lathes were sent, the plan was reported to be attained after several months began to flow GDR complaints! Fell outside the class lathes precision designed, there were some clunkers that could not be used again.

However Arad still occurred lathes, no one was kicked out!
 
heres an SN 320 for sale.
Strung micm arad Oferta Orle?ti Orlesti 5000Lei
I have also found a handbook but it's in Romanian, I'd love to find an english version of this.it contains info for the various lathes they built right up to the SN500 .
Manualul strungarului

That's not the book you think it is. It's more like, the machinist's handbook. In these countries, they have a separate book for each machine. You see references to SN lathes because that's the standard lathe, each country has their own nationalized industries, so the lathe is nationalized too.
 
:) I realize that, but further into the book there is a lot of information regarding each separate machine. but I need to find information on the oil pump etc for the headstock,eg what is the correct grade of oil ,even the location of the pump . The coolant pump on mine obviously has a fault as someone has disconnected the contactor for that.I'll probably just make up a new one and remove the old one to save hassling with 40 year old electrics.:reading:
 
Romanian Stamp.jpgA bit of history ....

Annual production of machine tools in the two decades after 1965 expanded more than six-fold in terms of tonnage. At the same time, ever more sophisticated units were manufactured, and the monetary value of output rose by a factor of thirty-one. During the 1980s in particular, Romania pushed to replace imported machinetool technology with its own products and began designing and building high-precision units featuring numerical control, automatic lines, and flexible processing cells. The Scientific Research and Technological Engineering Institute for Machine Tools, established in 1966, coordinated a successful research and design program that placed Romania among the world's top ten machine-tool manufacturers in the 1980s. Romania manufactured 35.5 percent of the universal and specialized machine tools on the Comecon product list--second only to the Soviet Union.

In the meantime I have had to replace the main motor because the rotor has moved on the amarture shaft,hitting the field coils ... Arrrggh!!!!! The fuses are diazed bottle type which I thought were unobtainable but thanks to the wonders of the internet I found a supplier at reasonable price.
 
I had a Romanian made MSC(Manhattan Supply Co.) lathe at work. I never want another Romanian made lathe EVER!!!!

The tailstock was on crooked,the compound never could be made to work smoothly,and the lathe's head got VERY hot. It was measured with a laser thermometer at 180º F. on the area around the front spindle bearing. This was such a problem that they had started putting oil coolers in the MSC lathes. I got the last one before the coolers were installed. The headstock grew in height .002" when it got hot,which did not take very long to happen!!!!! I have never had this problem with any other lathe.

The 4 jaw chuck was a POS. It was roughly finished,and when the jaws were taken out,the jaw screws would FALL OUT. I made them give me a better chuck,made in Taiwan. I wished to Hell that I had instead bought the 16" Taiwan lathe that MSC sold at that time. The Romanian "Pro Master" was called a 17" x 80" lathe,but it swung 19" over the bed.I never saw any other lathe UNDER advertised as for size!!

Its good features were the 11 RPM slow speed,and the huge selection of threads of all kinds it would cut. The largest thread was 10" from CREST to CREST!! We made large wooden screws,among other things,so big thread capacity was welcome. We used a router in the lathe to cleanly cut the threads for some of the large wooden presses in the museum. That was nice,at least.

The lathe had no ball bearings on the crossfeed or compound handles,and never felt smooth. Everything was bronze bearing. The manual carriage oil pump could not be made to work,though I did modify its piston per the tech's instructions. The rapid traverse motor soon stopped working.

Operating this lathe felt like driving a Mack truck! Everything was heavy,with no sense of feedback through the controls. I made it do what I needed it to do,but the lathe was a PITA the whole time I had to use it. My journeyman,Jon,and an electrician who we allowed to use the shop,would not use the lathe. We had a 14" lathe they used instead.

We had Romanian techs from the importer over about 3 times. One crazy guy had his whole family,with children with him while he worked on the lathe for hours. I thought that was damned unprofessional. They never got the tailstock scraped in really correctly. The factory indignantly denied that a lathe with these defects could have gotten out,but they were FOS!!!

The lathe was noisy as Hell. After working at it a few hours,I'd be really tired out just from having to listen to the damned thing. It had 24 speeds,which might have contributed to the noise.

There were many,many other problems with this lathe,but I have forgotten most of them by now. Luckily the lathe was used in a museum,and NOT in a production situation. This lathe was the worst POS I have ever worked with.

From the disjointed translation above,it sounds like the factory was a cluster fuck!!! I don't blame the Chinese for not being happy with the lathe,but they can all take their commie B.S. and stick it!!!
 
I have worked all sorts of machine tools and this would rate a 7 out of 10 in terms of quality etc but mine must have been one of the better ones. It's got the normal gear noise you'd expect from a prewar design (Oerlikon lathe design,Switzerland) and I've worked contemporary English Dean Smith and Grace machines which were a lot noisier .The Chucks on mine are Elliot, made in the UK. I have had to grind lathe chucks before and even had to make adaptors to fit different ones so that's not really a valid criticism :). I cannot see why the tailstock ( or any tailstock) would give a problem, I would have removed it,measured the way groove and adjusted it,the tailstock on mine can be shifted both sideways and vertically to center it correctly.A lot depends on whether or not the chuck has been fitted correctly but today I can aim the laser through the headstock.
Also mine has a massive oil sump,so fitting an oil cooler wouldn't be required and it gets damn hot in Australia. I have experienced,last year, a taiwanese lathe which had a hot noisy headstock and it was because the bore for the bearings was out of line by several thou. ( it was so bad a previous operator had removed the bull gears)
Perhaps your machine had been twisted in transport,something I was warned about when I was first introduced to Lathe work and had drummed into me over the time of my Apprenticeship as we often had to assist in installing machines including a 12 foot horizontal lathe. . Rough transport companies can do untold damage to a 3 meter lathe bed which is what the Romanian company found when a large lathe was dropped ...but still delivered .:eek:
Also,one of the first things I was instructed to do when I was first allowed to touch the lathe was to start the machine and let it run for a few minutes to "warm it up" because as you noticed, the normal operation of any machine includes running temp as opposed to cold temp and this can vary in work diameter changes,thats normal.
If the headstock was lifting 002" I would imagine something was actually loose ,even a worn bearing in the headstock which would explain your headstock noise.The bearings were sourced from Sweden from memory. Plus, I wonder what sort of oil yours was using. I have used Shell EP 600 in a very old gearbox (1913) which not only made it run quieter but cooler as the oil help conduct heat away from the gears as they loaded up.
I find the controls on mine are very smooth and light considering the size of them.

What must be understood about Romania ,without descending into political discussion ,is that from 1946 the population had to experience Soviet totalitarianism in the form of Murders,forced collectivization ,forced nationalism of all industries and state controlled information . The population was even forced to have babies.(remember those scenes from Romanian orphanages in the early 1990's? )The Factory was private concern that was siezed by the government and renamed M.I.C.M so It is little wonder the factory was disorganised but as history has shown us,the output of machines in terms of international sales was in the top Ten.Some folks there today yearn for the return to the communist system because of the massive corruption that replaced it.
I refuse point blank to operate chinese made machines because it seems the very materials they are made from are of such a poor quality that things like lead screws etc wear within 12 months. That is something I have never had to deal with before,a quality lathe always came with a lead screw certificate issued by the government testing organisation in the UK or Where ever ,again something the chicom machines never have.In these days of CAD and where a customer can sit in an office in another country and simply email their design to a machine here without even having to discuss the design etc means that it's only us small operators who use a manual lathe today so it's all academic . :typing::)
 
use it what it was made for and 10,000 engineers got your projects guaranteed on those machines

any lathe with rebranded name( like MSC MICM )is subject to theft in production due to the history

soviets destroyed machine tools as they retreated, why would you think they're gonna start producing you the best tools after the fall of communism? communism is good in this aspect, and anti-commie propaganda don't got direct influence on the machine tools.

romanian machinists don't got the same opinions as you (not just from my talks with them -- don't take my word for it, check the machine tools listings --- ), german, russian and romanian lathes in equal ammounts being sold on the used list. Less than 10% english. 0% asian. tocmai.ro . You'd think if they sucked so bad as you describe it, now with the fall of communism since 3 decades ago, they would be off the market or selling less than their german counterparts (in fact, this is not the case).
 
I'd like to find another thread cutting plaque for my lathe so if you see another SN400 being sold which still has the plate attached I would love to get a photo pf the plaque .
I see a lot of Ward turret lathes for sale,probably bought cheap by those who thought they could use them for one off work ,but those would be the only older English lathes i have seen being sold for a long time in the medium heavy range.
Again without starting a discussion on politics, my 2nd wife was russian and her parents were party members, I understand completely about how the soviets operated but as you say,the system did rpoduce a lot of good equipment .I am happy with my old commie machine...:D
 
hola , soy de peru , tengo un torno similar , también quisiera un manual , pero investigando y después de trajinar obtuve el tablero de roscas , solo ponte en contacto , para intercambiar experiencias
 
"..:)Hello, I'm from peru, I have a similar lathe, too, would like a manual, but after researching and bustle got board threads, just contact to exchange experiences..."
Yes that would be great Henry S.
 








 
Back
Top