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Atlas Milling Machine refurbishment and upgrade

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Hazmatt_(The Underdog)

Sun Jul 09 2017, 04:48AM

Registered Member #135 Joined: Sat Feb 11 2006, 12:06AM
Location: Anywhere is fine
Posts: 1735

Okay, so I have a little mill because I have a little garage, and we have to put our cars in at night so space is limited, otherwise I would have an enormous Bridgeport or a Tree.

That being said, I am on a path that I hope is productive and proves to be a good idea.

So this is a small machine and it can do small jobs, but it has some real limitations, and the power feed is a big one. The power feed on this machine is too fast, and I want to preserve horizontal operation because it powers the table power feed, and i hope to hob gears in the future. The idea here is to increase the power to the head unit and preserve the machine as much as possible.

I got the machine with the motor I am re-using, so that was a freebie, and I purchased the vertical head from the machine shop website, but I was still getting some slip from the belt system that normally drives the Atlas, and the bearings tend to get a bit hot after prolonged use, and there are a host of other issues as well.

My goal is to reduce the complexity of the drive train, preserve the machine, and I think this works out fairly well. I was looking at DC motors, but I already had this one like I said, and this was a cost effective use of what I had on hand.

I fabricated the brackets with the mill, did the boring operation to get the large holes (scary as hell to boot!), milled the linear bearings, everything. Now the project is wrapping-up with the wiring of the oil pump, and a wiring overhaul with oil resistant wire and it's really shaping up. Still needs a proper paint job, but that will have to be another day, just getting to this point was a huge hurdle.

In a few days I will have some Buna tubing for the oil circulation path, and hopefully I can get the flood coolant setup finished out to make this a really neat capable machine.

cheers.

paris

Wed Jul 12 2017, 11:33PM

Registered Member #3042 Joined: Wed Jul 28 2010, 12:36AM
Location:
Posts: 121

is it just me or that thing cool ? I saw a site ages ago , a guy was regrinding te fork neck bearing races and milling parts . this is vintage bicycles . theres also another guy who built a complete Excelsior motorcycle , mind blowing the level of talent

Hazmatt_(The Underdog)

Thu Jul 13 2017, 03:00AM

Registered Member #135 Joined: Sat Feb 11 2006, 12:06AM
Location: Anywhere is fine
Posts: 1735

I'm no where near that talented, but I am itching to give it a wrinkle coat paint job or hammer-tone!!!

I'm trying to get the flood coolant parts together at the moment.

paris

Sat Jul 22 2017, 03:59AM

Registered Member #3042 Joined: Wed Jul 28 2010, 12:36AM
Location:
Posts: 121

just for some thing to look see :0)

Hazmatt_(The Underdog)

Sun Jul 23 2017, 02:17PM

Registered Member #135 Joined: Sat Feb 11 2006, 12:06AM
Location: Anywhere is fine
Posts: 1735

Okay so I am completely losing my mind.

I thought it would be nice to have a second speed on the mill right? Only one problem, they don't make 2.5" pulleys with a 1" bore, SO I MADE ONE!
HAHAHAHHAHAHHAH! I must have "metal fever" or something now.

The trouble is I ran out of spindle length to bolt this dude on, I was planning on boring the bottom portion of the pulley to give me more room on the spindle, and I decoratively recessed the smaller pulley for the nut, but I am only going to have ~2 threads clamping the spindle together and that is not sufficient.

So I spent all day yesterday turning a lovely piece of trash. It should make a nice paper weight.

Parting-off is a horrendous process, the parting tools are very finicky and tend to cause all kinds of problems.

If I am going to attempt this again, I will have to either make a single 2.5" pulley, or a cone out of steel which is not going to be fun. Turning steel on a lathe means you get to receive a lot of burns as the chips fall right into your left hand on the apron travel hand wheel.

If I go for steel, and what I have in mind, I'm going to have to buy a lot of carbide tooling, and I'm not sure I'm ready for that challenge just yet.

paris

Sun Jul 23 2017, 08:54PM

Registered Member #3042 Joined: Wed Jul 28 2010, 12:36AM
Location:
Posts: 121

would it work if you had one of those split pulleys with the spacer plates in the middle ? old fan belt design .
NZ , about a month ago there was a 741 indian gear box for sale that had been used on a drill press = 3 speed hand change , funny but obviously worked , now its going back on a bike

Hazmatt_(The Underdog)

Sun Jul 23 2017, 10:34PM

Registered Member #135 Joined: Sat Feb 11 2006, 12:06AM
Location: Anywhere is fine
Posts: 1735

I was looking at an adjustable pulley, but they only go down to like 2.9" with a 1" bore. It's that large spindle bore that is the main problem here.

I'm going to attempt to make a threaded sheave to go on the spindle as an intermediate step, and then machine a cone pulley to mate to the sheave. Not sure if that will work here, but it might be better then scrapping a one piece part that has to have lots of machining.

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