Need help with a Lagun Mill.

Hello I am reconditioning a Lagun Mill I bought cheap. It says it is a model FU3-LC, however when I search for this model all I find are Horizontal mills and mine both a Horizontal and a Vertical head. I am going to need parts for the vertical head, however I can not find any markings on it to indicate what series Lagun head it is. The machine appears to have been painted many times and it is possible this information has been covered up. I have ran Lagun mills in the past but not one with this style head. Are there any Lagun milling machine guru's hear that could tell me what head this is or point me in the right direction. If I can't find out which head it is and can't get parts I guess I am looking at a head swap. I did find a Lagun FTV-2 head locally for a decent price. Would they interchange?

I spent 1/2 hour looking for a machine like yours on the Net. Saw a few heads that look the same, but not the machine. I would think your best bet would be to contact the factory in Spain by emailing them with several pictures. Many times they ask you to take a picture of the inside of the electrical cabinet. Have you looked inside there as it might have a electrical print or tag with the serial or model number. Do the same thing with the USA distributors as they may have old file cabinets documenting that old machine.

The name plate on the side of the ram is Old...I would think that machine is a 1960's or 1970's and I would be surprised you can get off the shelf parts and if they have to make them, they will be a small fortune. You may want to buy the other head or if the machine is hatched, buy a whole new machine. Good luck. Rich

I have emailed them in Spain a few times and not gotten any response. I suppose it is possible my emails might be going to their spam folder or something. I head swap is seeming more and more likely. Thanks for taking the time to try and help me I appreciate it.

I wonder if you've got a clone of a clone...

(I don't think that that's a Lagun head)

I've had a couple of Laguns, and there are some significant differences on this head:

1) The speed control is not an analogue dial with low and high ranges

2) The quill downfeed mechanism just doesn't look right in a lot of ways

3) The quill lock is a piece of round stock with a straight pin coming out of the side, and every Lagun lock I've seen was a one-piece forging.

On the bright side, it looks like a hell of a cool tool, and I would bet that our friends in Ft. Wayne or Chicago could polish that head up even before you manage to find enough bronze wool and PB blaster to do your part...

I am starting to wonder the same thing. I was just up at my shop working on it. Honestly it reminds me a little bit of an old DoAll mill I used to run in vocational school the spindle brake lever is just like that old DoAll. Its a good head honestly it runs quiet I would rather fix it and just change that analog tachometer over to a MachTach read out but I can't hope to find parts if I don't know what it is. I am just kind of stuck. I am praying maybe an older machinist than I will see it on here and recognize it.

Call these dudes and ask what they think: H&W Machine Repair & Rebuilding - Parts and Service for the Metalworking Industry

Sasquatch316 said:

I have emailed them in Spain a few times and not gotten any response. I suppose it is possible my emails might be going to their spam folder or something. I head swap is seeming more and more likely. Thanks for taking the time to try and help me I appreciate it.

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The mills were made in Basque-country Spain. Traditionally, so have 60% of ALL high-tech and manufactured goods in Spain been, flint spearheads, cave paintings, Bronze canon to sub-machine guns, to sewing machines, bicycles, and computers. Work usually involves several firms, and you'd need a hundred years of history to grok how they play all that cooperatively, competitively, and with formal "coop" entities as well as family connections.

Republic-Lagun, OTOH, is a US firm, and has always been. Dealer-distributor, and even claim to be the oldest one in the entire USA.

They HAVE that historical linkage.

Contact person is listed on the website. Ethnic Basque surname unless I'm getting really old:

Republic Lagun

If they don't have what you need in their "three million parts" stockpile?
They'll at least be able to tell you have an "orphan" and are on your own!

Spain? Useful only if you want to GO there and scout.

Really interesting part of the country, and you'd love it! Cheapest flights out of London to Bilbao or not-so-far-away Santander. Roads are great. Drivers are as mannerly and skilled as Germans - better behaved than we are at home, IOW, so its a safe run.

If you don't get an email back I have a student who lives in Spain and I will ask (email) him to help you track it down or at least get an answer. I still suspect that machine is 40+ years old and many companies stop making off the shelf parts after that long. If you can wait a month, I am going to the IMTS show in September and will check at the Lagun booth. You could email me more photo's of the machine so I can show them off my phone. can write me at [email protected]

Sasquatch316 said:

I am starting to wonder the same thing. I was just up at my shop working on it. Honestly it reminds me a little bit of an old DoAll mill I used to run in vocational school the spindle brake lever is just like that old DoAll. Its a good head honestly it runs quiet I would rather fix it and just change that analog tachometer over to a MachTach read out but I can't hope to find parts if I don't know what it is. I am just kind of stuck. I am praying maybe an older machinist than I will see it on here and recognize it.

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The mechanical tachometer and its mounting resemble the second-tier down, second-generation Alzmetall drillpress drives. Their first-gen and biggest ones - no longer in the line - used a PIV Werner-Reimers metallic belt drive, followed by gears, had no tachometer.

The ones that resemble your mill have a two-stage resilient belted vari-drive that is different and - AFAICS - also better (and less noisy!) than the old Reeves Vari drives used by folks like Clausing and Powermatic.

My SWAG is that your one is also belted with a similar system to Alzmetall.

The speeds and ratios wanted for a mill would "usually" extend to lower RPM than a drillpress, but the needs are otherwise not greatly different from the more powerful among drill presses - 3 HP to 15 HP.

If you can open-up the top of it and get some photos, it might get you to a better level of understanding and confidence as to what, if anything, it will take to tune it up and keep it going.

Alzmetall doesn't make belts - they buy them. Whomever does make the belts will probably have them for this unit as well.

If it has gears, too? Gears are made every day. Bearings can be found as well.

NOS mechanical tachometers are in the market that might be very easily fitted. Italian made and Stuart-Warner. Look for Marine/Diesel tachometers for appropriate RPM ranges.

I don't class this as risky business at all, nor likely to cost much money.

No need to make a problem out of a solution- you seem to have a decent workhorse.

I have repaired the tach and it is working fine now. It runs off two rubber O rings that needed replaced. I was thinking of getting the MachTach simply because this mill is really tall and it is hard to see especially for my brother who is only 5'5" tall. I am a little over 6' and I can't reach the draw bar to tighten it without standing on something. The issues I have currently is the power feed on the quill will not work. I tore into it today and found that the shaft which goes through the head horizontally which has the quill handle on the left side and the power feed on the right side has a big chunk taken out of it where the key way is milled into it. I am thinking of just milling another key into the shaft 180 degrees from the current one there does not seem to be any timing issue. I also discovered that there are pieces missing where the lever is located the changes the quill power feed rate. Since the part are gone I got no idea what they would even look like so I am considering simply setting the gears for the slowest feed rate and putting a shaft locking collar above and below them so I would have power feed but not be able to change the feed rate. The final problem is the machine will not shift into low gear. i plan on tearing into the top of the head tomorrow and I will take pics and post them when I do. I have no idea what I will find in there or what might be keeping if from shifting into low gear. I just know if I need parts I can't get them unless I can figure out what head this is. If that is the case I will have to bite the bullet and do the head swap. I am setting this up for use in my home shop. I don't need a cutting edge milling machine by any means I just want to set this thing up nice. I am planning on a power draw bar because of the height, three axis DRO, digital quill, the works. I figure since my health is preventing me from working anymore other than doing a little bit of stuff for myself I might as well spoil myself a little bit. lol

Sasquatch316 said:

I just know if I need parts I can't get them unless I can figure out what head this is.

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Well... no. Not really so.

You will need to know what the PART you need has to be, but it doesn't matter what brand or model number the head was named as if you can ID that from dimensions - much as you did the "O" rings, or from "function" as you are doing with the damaged shaft.

These heads are just are not that complicated.

Broken or worn, you repair or replace, like-with-like.

Outright "missing" you might do a bit of re-inventing, but the logic of what has to happen for any given function is still basic mechanical "stuff" for a given space, OTHER parts layout, and the result wanted.

Only a few ways it could have been done in the space it worked in, IOW.

What you have in front of you IS a three-dimensional "blueprint" of sorts.

Missing-pieces to the puzzle? That's an opportunity for a bit of fun, not grief!

BTW.. among those "3 million parts and accessories". Republic-Lagun might even have a manual. Phone calls are dirt-cheap, continental USA these days.

US distributor of Alzmetall had NO info for my 1950's AB5/S. But it was the head of the firm that was kind enough to take the time to respond.

These aren't Boeing or GMC sized outfits. "Real folks" answer the phones at most of them.

American Express QUIT doing that? I cancelled 49-year-old Platinum, Gold, and Green in one go. Who needs Artificial Idiot phone answering and advertising-on-hold?

Try it!

If an Artificial Idiot answers? THEN you swap the head!!!

Barry said that in the 30 years he has been rebuilding knee mills, he has never come across a head that looks like that.

Jon
H&W Machine Repair

The Base looks Lagun enough compared to pics

The H/V look to have a different engineering DNA from the Verticals. Bought, badge engineered or?

The head has a standard bridgeport type mount so it could be from anything.

Most of the H/V machines drive the vertical from the horizontal, so the 'LC' must be for an independent vertical option, and maybe the actual head was optional, or again, a different DNA

Wow that is not reassuring. LOL Maybe I should pick up that FTV-2 I found. I am honestly wondering now if another head will fit or if maybe this thing is some odd sized thing. If memory serves I pull the nuts off those four front tram bolts and there is just a t slot in that knuckle they fit into isn't there? So as long as the bolt circle is the same another head should fit right? Its been a couple decades since I have taken a mill head off.

Sasquatch316 said:

Wow that is not reassuring. LOL Maybe I should pick up that FTV-2 I found. I am honestly wondering now if another head will fit or if maybe this thing is some odd sized thing. If memory serves I pull the nuts off those four front tram bolts and there is just a t slot in that knuckle they fit into isn't there? So as long as the bolt circle is the same another head should fit right? Its been a couple decades since I have taken a mill head off.

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it is waaay easier than you are worrying-it into.

As Gustafson pointed out - you have an independently-powered head. You do NOT have the challenge of a complex drive system that has to transfer power off the horizontal spindle.

The "least" vertical head you can mount is an ignorant "pencil" style air die-grinder.

The "most" will be limited only by how much mass and cutting stress the ram and mounting joint can stand.

No relation to your mill, but USMT's "Quartet" used a ram and dovetail easily double the size and mass that of a BirdPort. The smallest head option - my one - had but a 1 3/4 HP motor, and mounted ON the ram, belts and right-angle gearbox to the head, #9 B&S taper for tooling.

Their last and largest vertical option, Houdaille-Powermatic years, had a 5 HP motor, BeePee style rather than on the ram (gearbox couldn't stand the torque), and could haul 50-taper tooling.

Worst-case, you have a weldment to fab and some holes to drill accurately, some other entire self-powered head - BirdPort to Bulgarian - is soon at work.

Look up member RC99, downunder. Mounted an outlander East-Bloc head to an unrelated mill wherein he even had to modify the dovetail and ram. Mill didn't get asked if it held a contrary opinion. He JFDI.

I still vote to repair the one you have.

Any OTHER head isn't going to be brand-new, is it?

It, too, will need "something or other" repaired as well as fitted.
Where's the gain? You know it's NAME?

Mills ain't like well-trained dogs. They don't "come when you call their name".

Most don't even start breathing hard until you caress their starter buttons. Some things just don't seem to change, "technology" or no, yah?

2CW

I have had a standard Lagun vertical for more than a quarter century. It was lightly beaten when purchased, will hold tolerance well, the head is quiet[for a vari]

I hate the 'feel ' of it. plastic handles
The quill fit is not as good as it should be.

But it is a solid machine

I ran it solid into the vise last week

First time I have trammed it in 15 years.

Try that with a bridgeport.

My point is that this is probably a rough tough machine, if you can make it go it will kick butt for years