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  1. #1
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    Default Easy oiling mod for Hercus 0 mill

    G'day Guys, I have just finished stripping a model 0 mill previously filled with grease and was having trouble getting to the nipple on the spindle pulley cone assembly as it was in a slight bore. Clearly I wasn't the first as when the machine was stripped the only sign of wear on the entire machine was some scoring on the pulley cone and spindle, clearly from lack of lubrication as this area is critical to lubricate well when using the back gear.

    Sorry for the crappy images as I only had my phone, but hopefully you can get the idea.



    Above is the original fitting.



    Longer fittings are readily available, I got some from Auto-one. You need 1/4" UNF. Use an appropriate die to continue the thread, then trim to length and clean up the end (not shown).



    The completed fitting will stick out enough to allow the coupler to grab the nipple, but not so far as to foul anything as the untrimmed fitting will.

    A very simple 30 minute job, almost embarrassing to post it up here in fact, but given the damage done to my spindle, and the fact this is such a critical area to lubricate well, may be something to consider if you have this mill.

    Pete

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  3. #2
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    Pete,

    You have to wonder how many of these machine were pumped full of grease. My mill had a prominent label stating USE OIL ONLY inside the door. All the oiling points were filled with grease. The extended nipple is a good idea. What are you using as an oiler?

    Keep an ear out for any noise emanating from the fibre driven gear on the countershaft. The three screws that fix the gear to it's steel hub loosened on mine causing a rattling sound. I thought that I had properly tightened the screws but obviously not enough. A stripped gear is best avoided. Unfortunately, the motor requires removal to the check the screw tension.

    Bob.

  4. #3
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    Thanks for the heads-up Bob. The motor is very easy to remove so next opportunity I'll check them. Yes I don't fancy having to recut that gear!!

    The oiler, ha ha, well bit of a continuing story regarding that on HSM. In the end I really wanted to see if I could get an oiler ASAP rather than ordering one in, waiting for it to arrive, going to pick it up, etc etc, so decided to modify a grease gun. Investigating the usual suspect locations, I found one from Alemlube I wondered if it would work without modification as it seemed quite well built (certainly compared to the POS Mr Bunnings showed me!!!), if not I'd have a go at modifying. As it turned out it did indeed work straight from the box and I simply store it hanging upside down with a hook to also hold the hose up and prevent drips. It hangs from the light post base.

    The gun is Alemlube G10010 and I bought it from Repco for $45 after he asked me if I was in the NRMA and gave discount. The only gripe is the coupler hangs on like heck and can take a bit of convincing to get it to release. Hopefully it will loosen up with a bit of use.

    Pete

    PS you should have seen the inside of that machine before I cleaned it. OMG that would have to be the most unpleasant job I've done in a long while, literally up to my elbows in black grease, and being stinking hot/humid in Sydney I was sweating like heck. Every time I tried to touch anything grease would drop everywhere! SO happy that's over. Mind you I'll be even happier when I'm no longer using diff oil as that stuff doesn't exactly smell like frangipani flowers either I find once it's exposed to air the smell dissipates, but just the same I'd prefer the genuine industrial oil and will get some once this bottle is out

  5. #4
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    I have a pair of Alemite pom pom oilers, one filled with DTE for all the oiling points on the Schaublin and the Hercus vertical head, and the other, with Vactra way oil for all the nipples on the No.O including the cone.

  6. #5
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    I've been unable to find them in the Alemlube catalogue.

    Do you find the vertical head runs cooler on the DTE? I'm also curious as to why you use the way oil on all the nipples on the mill? Did you need to buy these oils in 20 l containers?

  7. #6
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    Pete,

    Blackwoods show a pom pom oiler in their online catalogue, but Alemite don't??
    Oil Guns

    I found this article about grease guns while looking for oilers. Car buff stuff.
    Grease guns, small

    I have only run the head using DTE so I can't make any comparison. I do still feel that the seals are the major contributor to the heating problem in the head.

    I had to purchase the DTE and Vactra in 20 litre drums. I have the Vactra in a couple of oil cans for oiling the ways on the Hercus mill and my lathes. I use Vactra to lube the lathe aprons, gearboxes, tailstocks and basically anything else that requires oil other than the spindle bearings. Same on the No.O. The two oils are the same weight, ISO 68. The Vactra is stickier. I've got a drum of the stuff. I've got to use it.

    Bob.

  8. #7
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    That makes sense Bob. It seems to me that none of the oiling points on the mill are especially critical with regards the type of oil used, with the exception of the spindles, they just go to plain bearings, gears, or shafts and I think as long as they were kept with any form of quality lube they'd be fine. Indeed I have every reason to believe this machine has been greased for a considerable part of its life and shows no sign of wear other than the cone pulley I mentioned couldn't get a coupling onto the nipple.

    I wonder if that pom-pom oiler has been dropped from their range as that catalogue number isn't coming up with anything, not can I see it by manually going through their site. I have the email address of the NSW ops manager and just asked him so will see what he says.

    It's a shame the oil is sold only in 20l drums. I'll get some and give a lot of it away to others in Sydney who may be able to use it.

    Pete

  9. #8
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    Pete,

    There's obviously no harm in having grease in all those nipples excluding the cone. It makes sense to have something that's not going to leak out.

    Further to your useful modification, the only "improvements" I've made to my mill are the replacement of the hand crank with a Hercus T31 hand wheel and the fitting of little knurled locks on all the graduated collars. I also installed Kipp handles to lock the table and knee. Your machine most probably came with Kipps fitted. My machine is an early model (OL-8) and never had them.

    Did your mill come with any accessories such as the horizontal arbor, vise, dividing head, rotary table, angle plates or even the seldom if ever seen, slotting head?

    Bob.

  10. #9
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    Quote Originally Posted by Anorak Bob View Post
    Further to your useful modification, the only "improvements" I've made to my mill are the replacement of the hand crank with a Hercus T31 hand wheel and the fitting of little knurled locks on all the graduated collars. I also installed Kipp handles to lock the table and knee. Your machine most probably came with Kipps fitted. My machine is an early model (OL-8) and never had them.

    Did your mill come with any accessories such as the horizontal arbor, vise, dividing head, rotary table, angle plates or even the seldom if ever seen, slotting head?

    Bob.

    The little knurled knobs are a good idea, I haven't got around to doing that as yet (still just cranking the machine up), but definitely will. Also for the lathe but am waiting for a new knurler, my old one is one of the cheap push in jobbies, it works but I don't like to strain the little lathe like that. I like the way you made them that length, good tip! BTW is that the original paint on the machine or did you repaint it? Mine is original but looking slightly beat up. I'm not too fussed at the moment, I rebuilt my lathe (though still have a little to do) and sweated on the paint job. Yes it looks great ... errr, if I don't say so myself but I cringe every time it gets scratched or chipped. It's high gloss too (basically painted it as if it were a car for example) so that makes the situation even worse! I'll finish it one day, but won't do another machine like that again. Too much work and they never left the factory looking like that anyway.

    Yes I have the horizontal arbour, some funcky thing to go on the over-arm I'm not sure actually what that's for, but confess I haven't looked properly at it. A vertical head and the dividing head. Again I haven't looked properly at the latter, but it looks unused. Sadly no slotting attachment, that would be handy for cutting gear keyways. There's also a coolant system but pretty sure it's a 3 phase pump and I'm still debating whether to use coolant, and if so which kind. A replacement pump, 240V, is not that expensive but haven't had a chance to look at that yet. I also got a heap of blunt tooling; 5 slab millers of different widths, a milling cutter that's completely worthless, goodness knows what they drove that into! 4 slot cutters (1/8th if I recall correctly), and all the bits that should be there were. It's a metric machine too, so I was very happy about that!

    I'm running this from a SEW Eurodrive VFD, the motors were originally single voltage so needed to rewire them for delta. I have, and did, the same for the lathe. At the moment the VFD is just laying next to the mill to get it working and see where I stand. One machine you almost certainly wouldn't have seen is the Hercus Surface Grinder I bought at the same time. I wanted to get the mill cutting so I could make a tool to remove the stuck arbour on the grinder. As it happened when the milling was almost complete I thought "I wonder if I could get it off this way ....?" It came off and the whole milling project was for zilch. Never mind, I got to see the mill actually doing useful stuff

    Where did you get the handles? Mine simply has nuts on the 2 axis to lock them and I was just thinking a few moments ago that it's a PIA to use a spanner each time. The free axis definitely need to be locked on this machine I notice, but will try nipping up the gibs a bit more and see if that helps. Obviously that was completely disassembled for the cleaning.

    Finally, what are you using for cutter holders? I'm currently using an MT3 - ER32 adapter and I quickly made up a drawbar (ie all thread) to suit the vertical spindle length. I already had a plastic bushing I'd turned up for the top of the bore that I use on my lathe. It works just fine, and with a decent looking drawbar would be even better, but a bit agricultural for my liking!

    Pete

  11. #10
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    Pete,

    The knurled knobs have brass ends to prevent any damage. The carefully edited photos show only those parts that I repainted 5 years ago. I did not progress past the knee and saddle. I keep the mill covered in a vain attempt to not remind myself that the little machine badly needs repainting. Unfortunately, those carefully prepared and painted surfaces don't last very long as you know.

    You are lucky to have the dividing head. My mill was equipped with the vertical head and horizontal arbor only when I bought it. Over the years since, I've been able to buy or make the missing accessories.

    My mill, like yours has a coolant pump buried in the base and I have not used it. I run the original ASEA motor via a Teco FM50 vfd.

    The Kipps were scrounged secondhand.

    When I bought the mill, I purchased a Vertex Posi Lock chuck. I used that for a few years until I bought a couple of ER 25 chucks and collets from CTC in Hong Kong.

    I also have two Clarkson Autolock chucks. An intermediate that accepts 1" and 25mm shank cutters only and a small chuck.

    The Autolocks were purchased because I had a fear of the cutters being pulled out of the ER collets. Hasn't happened yet! I only have E and ER chucks and collets for the Schaublin.

    Some photos of the surface grinder would be nice. I have the sales brochure for one and saw one a few years ago.

    Bob.

  12. #11
    Metmachmad is offline Turning useful pieces of steel into scrap metal.
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    Regarding stickier oil suitable for machine ways and other places where you don't want oil flinging off too easy, an oil rep gave me a good tip as to how to make your own.

    Mix some 80/90 gear oil with some engine oil, about 50/50%, you can even vary the stickyness by altering the mix ratio. More gear oil makes a stickier mix.

    These mixtures have all the qualities needed for machinery, slides, bearings, gears etc and also has EP (extreme pressure) characteristics.

    Also it works out very economical as you can usually source gear oils in 1, 5 and 20 litre containers so you don't have to end up with gallons of oil you'll probablely never use.

    Just thought I would share this tip with everyone here.

    PS: This mix also makes good chainsaw bar and chain oil.

  13. #12
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    Hi Pete, I got one of those funky things that fit over the horizontal arm as well. I did some checks and it is a carrier for a cutter guard, (if we have the same thingo). cheers

  14. #13
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    Default Thanks for the suggestion on Gear Oil 80/90 for lathe bed & gears

    Quote Originally Posted by Metmachmad View Post
    Regarding stickier oil suitable for machine ways and other places where you don't want oil flinging off too easy, an oil rep gave me a good tip as to how to make your own.

    Mix some 80/90 gear oil with some engine oil, about 50/50%, you can even vary the stickyness by altering the mix ratio. More gear oil makes a stickier mix.

    These mixtures have all the qualities needed for machinery, slides, bearings, gears etc and also has EP (extreme pressure) characteristics.

    Also it works out very economical as you can usually source gear oils in 1, 5 and 20 litre containers so you don't have to end up with gallons of oil you'll probablely never use.

    Just thought I would share this tip with everyone here.

    PS: This mix also makes good chainsaw bar and chain oil.

  15. #14
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    Just curious why the engine oil is added? If it's for ways why not use straight gear oil?

    I recently swapped from diff oil (stank) to chain bar oil and it works well, it has tackifiers in it and is possibly the next best thing to way oil.

    Pete

  16. #15
    Metmachmad is offline Turning useful pieces of steel into scrap metal.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Pete F View Post
    Just curious why the engine oil is added? If it's for ways why not use straight gear oil?

    I recently swapped from diff oil (stank) to chain bar oil and it works well, it has tackifiers in it and is possibly the next best thing to way oil.

    Pete
    I suppose one could use straight gear/diff oils, so I'm not absolutely sure as to why engine oil is added but I'll hazard a couple of guesses.

    Engine oil probablely thins down the gear oil, especially during very cold weather when gear oils are very thick.

    It makes the mixture cheaper or more affordable.

    Easier to dispense via an oil can.
    Last edited by Metmachmad; 12th March 2011 at 02:11 PM. Reason: omission of word
    Turning useful pieces of steel into scrap metal.

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