Why would a tool room remove the handle for quill feed speed on their mills ?

I went to an absolute auction of a company that had done injection molding. In their tool room they had 2 Acers, 2 Acras, and 2 Titans. This was in the Macon GA area.

All of the machines followed the basic Bridgeport Series 1 Vari-Speed Copy.

They all weighed between 2500-3000lb.

All had the handle and knob for quill speed REMOVED- there was still the little tip to add it back but no way to use quill speed. Everyone at the facility was laid off except for a guy from production, he started to say, "Well, they ran." However all machines had surface rust on the ways and they had some surface rust on the tables, all had idiot marks on the tables.

The guy from RBA silenced the guy from production and said all machines are as is, and had not been tested and there was no way to test them. Not quite true, as the machines were locked out, but still connected, power was still up in the plant(CNC's were being demo'd- including one they crashed).

Curiously there were two mills made by Acer that were brand new, in the corner- marked "LEASE- NOT UP FOR BID." The handle had not been removed for the quill feed speed on those. There were also several JET lathes of tool room size 14"-18" swing also marked "LEASE- NOT UP FOR BID". They were in immaculate condition.

The lathes they were auctioning ranged from an old Logan to Korean South Bend, all beat except for the JET lathes.

I'm just wondering in a tool room that specialized in reworks, is there a reason they'd have removed the ability to use and change auto quill feed ?

THANK YOU !

Have you ever banged your head on one leaning over to inspect your work ? If you never use the down feed removing the handle prevents you banging your head.

Regards Tyrone.

If I understood the OP, it was the quill speed adjustment knob, not the down feed. Unless all cutting was done with one size tool in one type of material, it seems rather odd to me. Unless, perhaps, this was there way of showing that the mills were "decommissioned" - kind of like the power hand tools with the cords cut that I sometimes buy in job-lots at an auction for $5. (Usually I can get 4-5 identical tools, which I can assemble into 3 or so working tools.)

Of course, if they'll sell the mills for $5, might be worth it ...

The mills had the after market 'quick release-any position' handle and they were snagged. The original bump-your-head fixed position handles were tossed years ago.
John

awake said:

If I understood the OP, it was the quill speed adjustment knob, not the down feed. Unless all cutting was done with one size tool in one type of material, it seems rather odd to me. Unless, perhaps, this was there way of showing that the mills were "decommissioned" - kind of like the power hand tools with the cords cut that I sometimes buy in job-lots at an auction for $5. (Usually I can get 4-5 identical tools, which I can assemble into 3 or so working tools.)

Of course, if they'll sell the mills for $5, might be worth it ...

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You read my original post correctly.

It was like this almost exactly on six machines- except the machines were white and had the quill feed speed in slightly different locations.

Friday was the day for inspections and to contract a pre-approved rigger.

There was one place there from Atlanta that has been in the machinery business for only about 5 or 6 years. They were in Stone Mountain, then moved north. They were founded by a guy who is an industrial chemist, and his little brother, little brother used to stay at home all day and play X-box, older brother found out how little the plants he was working for bid off used machinery. They started a used equipment business with the little brother handling sales and email. The little brother was there and he'd placed bids on the machines for right at $1300- they will paint them and mark them up much higher. There was a guy who'd come up from Tifton to make a sealed bid and he found out the younger brother showed everybody his $1250(plus fees) bid, and the guy from Tifton was about to beat the shit out of him.

I'd seen all I needed to see. I can almost guarantee though- those "LEASE ITEMS"- they won't be there after this Thursday. Because the auctioneer was wanting to put those in the same "corral" as the plant owned machine.

jhruska said:

The mills had the after market 'quick release-any position' handle and they were snagged. The original bump-your-head fixed position handles were tossed years ago.
John

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These were new enough to have quick release- they had been "misplaced. The auctioneer had gotten bump your heads all aftermarket and had been attached via set screws to insure they weren't "misplaced" again. They looked horribly wrong on the machines.

Not sure about the OP's machines, but the quill hand-wheels were off of all of the vertical knee mills I've worked on, and growing up I never saw any of our guys ever use the power down-feed. They are a bump hazard, and the old BP ones are fragile, and they do get in the way of the head-tilt bolts, so maybe some maintenance guy decided to do some preemptive down-grading to keep their operators from getting too clever with their quills.

I put the hand-wheels back on our machines as the hand-wheel and power feed is handy for a lot more than just boring. Just depends if your shop is the kind that has one rubber dead-blow hammer on the bench, or a 10lb. ball-peen hammer on every machine.

geardoc said:

You read my original post correctly.

It was like this almost exactly on six machinesView attachment 254953

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If these were production machines, it was to keep the power feed disengaged so it wouldn't be used. They are really not supposed to be used for drilling, not robust enough, only boring, and the shop foreman got tired if having machines broken by lazy guys who flipped the power feed on rather than do it manually.

Dennis

often one guy dont like the handles and removes them. if another likes the handles he keeps them in his tool box or a common shop cabinet. over time often stuff gets thrown out cause some if they dont know what it is figured its not needed.
.
just saying i have seen a lot of stuff like that. its either in somebody's tool box or it got thrown out as not needed. if machine gets moved and they often are moved many times over a lifetime. often accessories dont make the move or get left behind.

Actually, I think I did not understand the OP - I thought we were talking about the speed adjustment for a varispeed head. THAT would be a problem if it were removed. But the powerfeed selection - as shown in the picture - I can understand many shops not wanting to mess with it.

That said, I do use the powerfeed on my BP from time to time, for boring as intended - very handy.