Barber Coleman Rebuilding in SE Wisconsin?

Rick Finsta · Jan 12, 2019

We have a couple of old hobbing machines we need rebuilt; mostly as museum pieces but we do have a few part numbers we may still produce in house. Anyone got any ideas?

Street · Jan 12, 2019

isn't CASH in wisconsin he does grinder rebuilds maybe he may like to do other things PM CASH and ask.

https://www.practicalmachinist.com/...-inspection/mattison-grinder-rescrape-288943/

Ziggy2 · Jan 12, 2019

Bourne and Koch in Rockford Il. actually is the current owner and supporter of the Barber Coleman gear equipment.

When you say rebuild and museum pieces, you need to decide how much they are actually worth to you as this could get very expensive.

If you are only doing a few parts in house you need to decide on how much these machines really are to you.

EmGo · Jan 12, 2019

Rick Finsta said:
We have a couple of old hobbing machines we need rebuilt; mostly as museum pieces but we do have a few part numbers we may still produce in house. Anyone got any ideas?

Big Barbers or little Barbers ? gear work or shaft work ?

cash · Jan 13, 2019

Talk to Rob over at Machine Equipment Repair

MER HOME - Machine Equipment Repair

Rick Finsta · Jan 13, 2019

Thanks for the replies!

To be blunt, there is no amortization for this; the owner wants a few of the older machines around for the learning center. We only do around $3500/yr of hobbing work (it is all legacy parts that are in service status, no new part numbers for decades prior to our purchase). I couldn't even justify getting hobbing heads for our CNC turning centers or swiss turns.

Our main purpose in building this business is to support apprenticeships and scholarships for CNC machining and other production training. A few of the old machines (knurling machine, the gear hobbing machines, knee mills, and maybe an old war finish K&T horizontal) are being kept to show the old way certain things were done, just to give historical perspective.

The machines themselves are two different size arbors, but all the gears we produce are less than an inch in diameter. The biggest issue is that there is so much wear in the center of the ways that the gibbs interfere with movement outside of that area, limiting the number of gears I can cut at one time.

Here's a quick video of my first gears:
Barber-Coleman Gear Hobbing - YouTube

I'll give Rob a call this week.

EmGo · Jan 13, 2019

Rick Finsta said:
The biggest issue is that there is so much wear in the center of the ways that the gibbs interfere with movement outside of that area,

Jesus. I've seen some wore-out Barbers but that's BAD !

You could probably grab a new used #3 or 6-10 for less than a rebuild.

Rick Finsta · Jan 16, 2019

Thanks for the tip! I'll take a look around.

Richard King · Feb 7, 2019

Where in WI are you? I have property in Hayward and travel to Rockford a couple of times a year. I could drop by and take a peak. If you would like a donation of work I would gladly help you as I love working with schools and could help tighten them up. I also know Bourn and Koch as I teach rebuilding classes there and I would bet they would also donate some time and parts for a school. It may cost you a few nights hotel room though :-)

Rick Finsta · Feb 9, 2019

Richard, I really appreciate the offer. We are just North of Milwaukee by about 20 minutes. We have our first apprentices coming on in the next few months; we have to get a few things squared away (and honestly the whole state-accredited apprenticeship thing is outside my wheelhouse so the details on timeline aren't known to me).

I haven't had luck getting MER to get back to me so for now they are still just sitting (until we get the next 10 piece gear order from one of these legacy customers LOL).

It does suck only being able to make a few gears at once due to the limited travel.

I'll reach out if we're still stuck and have kids on board in the learning center.

Richard King · Feb 9, 2019

You can also contact American Machine & Gear Works The owner is a member of PM and a great guy. I can't recall his PM name. It means gear maker in German. Cash knows who I mean. I can fix then, but can't make a gear.

Street · Feb 9, 2019

Zahnrad Kopf is the name i believe you are talking about.

EmGo · Feb 10, 2019

Rick Finsta said:
It does suck only being able to make a few gears at once due to the limited travel.

There's a 16-10 as well as the 6-10 but you don't want to make a lot of gears on one arbor anyhow.

To do many on one arbor the bore and face on the locating side must be PERFECTLY SQUARE. Then the faces have to be PERFECTLY PARALLEL. As in, ground.

If you want a shock, stack five or six blanks that you think are good on an arbor and tighten the nut on the end. Put it between centers and indicate it.

Ha ha ha. Spin the parts around, retighten and do it again.

You can tweak an arbor muchly muchly bad by stacking too many imperfect parts on it.

Good gears start with good blanks

If these are spur parts, a shaper would probably be faster and easier.

There might be a brand new 16-10 floating around the US for reasonably cheap but I'd have to check. Rebuilding one is not going to be fun because there's lots of moving parts in those. If the ways are worn out most likely the twenty-seven sets of bevel gears are in bad shape, too.

Richard King · Feb 10, 2019

Street said:
Zahnrad Kopf is the name i believe you are talking about.

That's him and he is in Milwaukee, He is a super nice guy as well as a heck of a great scraper. He should be able to simplify this and drive over to help,

Zahnrad Kopf · Feb 10, 2019

Rick, I just got directed to this. If we can be of assistance, feel free to holler. We are still on the SouthSide, but we were actually up your way today looking at properties. We have severely outgrown our quarters. Too, we are members of the TDMAW and also lined up to get working the Apprenticeship Program, so maybe there is some way to assist in that manner, as well. Feel free to PM or email if you wish. Always happy to help a fellow PM member.

Richard King · Feb 10, 2019

Thanks ZK I knew you would help.

Zahnrad Kopf · Feb 11, 2019

EmanuelGoldstein said:
Good gears start with good blanks

People very often think I am over-exaggerating when I stress that. And the very same amount of attention must be paid the arbor, as well. This is why we grind our arbors and work is done between centers when at all possible. One cannot pay too much attention to the prepatory work when trying to make quality gears.

ewlsey · Feb 11, 2019

EmanuelGoldstein said:
If the ways are worn out most likely the twenty-seven sets of bevel gears are in bad shape, too.

Pretty true of every Barber Coleman hob I've had apart, at least the set right under the actual hob that allows you to set the angle of the cutter.

Also, it's about impossible to buy used parts for these machines. They seem to have changed the design slightly every few years for no apparent reason.

I was at a customer's place one time and they had 4 supposedly identical machines. No two had the same bevel gear arrangement.

Rick Finsta · Feb 11, 2019

Really appreciate all the follow up, gents. ZK, I'll reach out via PM soon.

Cole2534 · Feb 12, 2019

Zahnrad Kopf said:
People very often think I am over-exaggerating when I stress that. And the very same amount of attention must be paid the arbor, as well. This is why we grind our arbors and work is done between centers when at all possible. One cannot pay too much attention to the prepatory work when trying to make quality gears.

I know. Every time you post your OD grinder on IG I get the hunch to find one. :wrong:

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