South bend mill

Hello, I am new to the forum. I have the opportunity to purchase an old South bend mill and I know nothing about these machines. Any information would be greatly appreciated. I have a picture of the mill but I cannot figure out how to upload it. I think it is from the 60's.

You're better off asking about the mill in the South Bend section:
https://www.practicalmachinist.com/vb/south-bend-lathes/

Posting pics, try these one of these 3 options instructions on post #94:
Posting Pictures on the South Bend Forum

that's a turkey ...indeed . round ram? proprietary spindle w/ collets . i have seen
those for sale ..... looks like an m-head bpt' , or a cinci 1-A toolmaster . stout-looking iron.


if it isn't beat-to-shit, and you have the collets...... sure... but without the
toolholders and no drawbar .... it will be useless.

For Sale: 9" x 42" Used Southbend Vertical (Pulley Type) Milling Machine, Mdl. MIL, Mechanical Power Feed, 1 H.P. #A1861 Sterling Machinery

Perfectly fine machines at a fraction of BP price.

All spindle tooling is modified from 30 taper. see SB forum various posts how to do this.
Certainly better than (BP) R8, though a slight bit of extra effort. Use ER40 Collet chuck, or ER32 for less overhang with smaller tools. 30 taper solid collets and arbors are common enough. Most were delivered with 30 taper flush arbors as accessories.

Differences from BP:
Head does not nod.
Turret does not swivel on column.
quill travel = 4" (instead of 5")
HP is either lower speed 3/4HP or higher speed 1HP. (2 different original motor options, not 2 speed motor) I've never seriously bogged 3/4HP down in sensible cuts even with largish tools. Routinely used 4-3/4" dia insert face mill burried in CI when first acquired.
Final drive to spindle is cogbelt
If it comes with the power down/up feed, it is a very strange, but quite effective hydraulic system. Infinitely variable up or down, instant rapid return. But most have parts removed - usually the hydraulic powerpac is missing.

Iron is as good as BP.
I would argue that adjustable taper roller bearings in SB quill are superior. They do need occasional adjustment
Round ram is keyed and gibbed, so if you spend a little time tweaking the clearance to repeat when it is re-positioned, it is as good as a BP DT ram.

Like BP, original mechanical table feed works fine if complete in good shape.
If not, same as BP, put an aftermarket unit on the end of the table.
(My biggest gripe about original SB feed is that it does not have rapid)

smt

lots of mills , born before the r8 standard. they all seemed to have a mix of collets.
Tree, Gorton, Cinci toolmaster , and south bend were some i've seen . if you can get
one for cheap.... i would . just don't get stuck without the proper spindle-head collets.

you could have an amazing mill for cheap...gorton mastermil was k-t, cincinnati 1-a or b , tree ,
wells and were different than index ? i'm not an historian.

my mill of choice is a '69 1-D toolmaster with an nt40 and drawbar .

FWIW I suspect we are all talking about the early round ram SB's; not the later imports that were essentially various spec BP clones with R8 or sometimes up to NT40 taper IIRC.

Keeping with my notes previous post, just to clarify - that era SB mill has NMTB30 taper, will take "any" 30 taper shank since it does not utilize a drawbar. So the basic tooling is widely available and more or less cheap.....except you have to remove or cut off any pull studs, and then hard-mill a couple 1/2" dia pads @ 180 deg & 45 deg angle vertically on the shank. The taper is retained in a SB spindle by a long 5/16 ss on each side, pointing up at a 45 deg angle through the integral key drivers.

Setting up a DH on 45 deg angle & milling a number of shanks in one session goes pretty fast after the first one.

30T key drive tooling (like largish face mills) can be bolted right onto the face of the spindle with a taper shank centering slug. Much more rigid than BP. Though both mills will ultimately be limited by the rest of the iron, and the spindle HP.

smt

the south bend , that you refer is a LAGUN/republic . they were connected in the 80-90's .
probably just a rebadge . there were south bend VMC , and cnc lathes.

they tried the 2100 windows NT /vickers that tree and cincinnati also used - and it was a
mess.