Thread: TRICK R8 Tooling

Originally Posted by FlatBeltBob

Power drawbar , and a power feed on the knee are my favorites .
I gave up on the kurt automatic that is supposed to raise & lower the drawbar . It just never worked reliably .
Bob

I'll second the power drawbar. Fast & easy, that's for sure. My Kurt has performed flawlessly for the six years I've used it. There's another power drawbar advantage seldom mentioned: for some of us, it requires a step stool to reach the drawbar comfortably - talk about a time sink!

I just bought an APT boring outfit from a member here. I also heartily agree with taking out the little PITS key. It will sometimes go a little sideways into a collet,and there's hell to pay getting the collet out. I got an old right angle attachment stuck in my mill at work. Had a terrible time getting it loose,and took the key out after that. Never a problem with slipping. Keep the r8 and hole dry.

A number years ago bought a Royal quick change R8 & 1 Jacobs taper holder. Then made another 10 or so holders out from scrap hydraulic cylinder rods' It's OK for center drilling, pilot drill, tap drill, tap, counter bore/sink on flange type work. End milling nothing to brag about. I'm glad I bought mine when they were only a couple hundred $. Now it's 5 bills just to get started

Tormach uses a collet system which I find easy and repeatable.

Originally Posted by FlatBeltBob

Power drawbar , and a power feed on the knee are my favorites .
I gave up on the kurt automatic that is supposed to raise & lower the drawbar . It just never worked reliably . I use the Aussie manual plunge air ratchet .
My universal "fits all" knee feed , only took 12 hours of making custom adapters , but in the end , is well worth it . I can zip up or down and limit the need to extend the quill .
If this tiawan crap unit burns out I will spend the extra for a SERVO unit so I can have a power feed knee for the longer boring jobs .

I would love to have one of the vertical shaper heads . There are a few jobs that could have really used this unit .
Bob

Something that always bothered me about this: On the Bridgeport mills we have here at the university (some with very low hours in department shops) it isn't uncommon to get a serious droop in the knee when unlocked. An indicator held in the spindle while the knee lock is snugged will often show 0.002 of movement in the y-direction and sometimes even a similar amount in the x-direction.

For this reason I've taken to boring with the quill lock lightly engaged using the quill feed. I'd love to have the granularity and controllability of the knee, but have nightmares about non-orthagonal bores.

Am I crazy or does anybody else mill/bore exclusively with the knee locked?

Henry Wettersten

Side request- if anyone has any parts for a Ultron Snap Change (drawbar especially) please let me know. We use these in our production shop and are having a tough time finding replacement parts.

11 years go by and nobody told poor Henry to adjust his knee gib? Man, you guys are slipping.

I wish I had a gib to adjust in my knee, one of them has started making noises and doesn't feel all tight after 42 years of regular usage...

I worked for a guy once that made his own R8 holders. An old German and the fastest machinist I've ever seen, Ex instructor at San Francisco State, teaching machine tool technology and running their mechanical shop.

The draw bar was longer than normal and had a running bushing that fit the spindle. The R8's were amputated in form and made from "stressproof" with less than an inch of extension behind the taper. The mill an Induma knee mill had a pneumatic draw bar that was the guts of a butterfly wrench and some relay logic. As far as I know not commercial in the traditional sense. I believe there were less than 50 sets and conversions made all went to shops in central CA; acquaintances and ex students.

The fastest manual tool change system I ever personally ran was a factory feature on a Tree Mill. The tool holders were cylindrical, the double angle master collet, locked and unlocked/ejecting with the quill feed lever. Capacity as I recall was 1"

Originally Posted by clashmin

Side request- if anyone has any parts for a Ultron Snap Change (drawbar especially) please let me know. We use these in our production shop and are having a tough time finding replacement parts.

email me [email protected] rather than rsvping this forum. thanks

Originally Posted by gbent

The best R8 trick I've seen is to take the spindle out and install an Erickson Quick Change #30 spindle.

Only on mills where there isn't room for 40-taper!

"Are ATE" refers to what happens to tooling as attempts to trust a B&S 7 DOWNGRADE, yah?

Originally Posted by eKretz

11 years go by and nobody told poor Henry to adjust his knee gib? Man, you guys are slipping.

You didn't notice?

It was only a BirdPort.

WE aren't the one s "slipping".

BeePee has been doin' that ever since it grew itself an ass of its own and sneaked away from just one more add-on head for a milling-machine to become a stabiity-impaired traveling circus.

Originally Posted by thermite

You didn't notice?

It was only a BirdPort.

WE aren't the one s "slipping".

BeePee has been doin' that ever since it grew itself an ass of its own and sneaked away from just one more add-on head for a milling-machine to become a stabiity-impaired traveling circus.

Eleven years ago I wasn't in any shape to notice much of anything. I was in bad shape with my back (failed back surgery, awful chronic pain) and probably had depression, didn't go to any shrink. Did a lot of sleeping and wondering about whether to keep on going. Didn't do much logging in here for a long period. Got a little better mentally and physically and came out the other side though. Now I just put my head down and keep on trucking the best I can. So yeah, when Henry was posting that I wasn't in a position to notice.