Thread: Hercus OLM279

Originally Posted by rickw72

Hi Ben,

Just so you know, the ozmestore collet sets are not ER25, they are something else. May or may not be important to you.

Rick

Ben,

CTC's ER chucks are cheap enough to warrant having a few with cutters in place so that you dont have to fool around changing cutters and losing positioning. I ended up with six chucks for my No.O. A Vertex Posi- Lock, my first chuck, it accommodates screwed shank cutters and I was fearful of cutter pull out, A pair of CTC ER25s, a CTC ER20 and a couple of Clarkson Autolocks. One of the Autolocks is an intermediate which will accept 1" and 25mm shank cutters. It was a bit of a push for the little 1/2 horse motor to handle some big inch shanked cutters.

If I was to recommend anything and this is only my humble advice, I'd suggest an ER32 or two and something smaller like an ER 20 or 16. Sometimes the collet nut can get in the way so a smaller version can prove handy.

Peter is right about a soft arbor, Hercus used 1214 for some of theirs. They were not hardened. The threaded nosed arbor for chuck mounting supplied as an accessory for the vertical slide's indexing head is one example and their 3M to 2M sleeve another. A give away is their readiness to rust.

A pair of things I reckon you should have are drive dogs for your spindle nose. I will furnish you with details later.

Bob.

HI,

Yes AB, I'm looking for a oil gun for my Mill. I tried searching Ebay for Wanner and Alemite and found zip. This is all I could come up with:

Lathe MILL CAR Boat OIL GUN Petroleum High Pressure Oiler Pump Action Toolbox | eBay

Not cheap but if it works it'll have to do. Any suggestions?

Apart from putting more oil on the mill, I've done narda with it. Hopefully this week I may at least get the horizontal arbour off.

Cheers Ben.

G'day Ben,
For what it's worth I made up an oil gun from a cheap grease gun I picked up on ebay for around $12.00 (like this one less the exorbitant postage: Grease GUN Pistol Grip SET Cartridge Flexi Hose Nipple 2 X Long Short | eBay )

I already had a pom pom gun which I bought from Pirtek to use on my Myford but while it worked ok these things are a pain because they always leak unless they remain upright which given their shape is not easy to achieve. They also don't work great if you can only access the oil nipple with the gun in a horizontal position or the nipple is beyond the reach of the relatively short nozzle.

What I did was get the cheap grease gun and swap the standard nipple adaptor on the flexible hose with the one from the pom pom gun. (I had to re-tap the pom pom nipple adaptor to match the thread on the hose) This left me with an oiler that works great, can get into all sorts of awkward spots and doesn't leak because it's easy to hang up.

If you don't want to mess around with modifying the nipple adaptor you can always swap out the nipples on your machine. I actually ended up doing this with my Myford but I didn't want to do it on my mill as there wasn't enough clearance for standard nipples in some places, hence the modification.
Cheers,
Greg.

Someone's converted a grease gun to an oil gun.
High Pressure Oiler

Jordan

HI,

I was cleaning up some parts today and found the vertical head arbour, originally thought it was a dead centre. Had some light surface rust but has cleaned up nicely.

Managed to get the horizontal arbour off, all looks pretty good.

I'm just cleaning it up during my lunch hour and any free time I have at the moment. I will post some pictures soon. I will try and get the motor off in the next couple of days to check the plastic gear.

Ben.

Good day to all the proud Hercus O mill owners,

And what a great source of information you provide

I am also in the process of giving an O mill a new lease on life and for the most part enjoying the expierence.

As I dont have the maintenance manual Was wondering if someone can tell me how Hercus recomend to preload the tapered spindle bearings on the O mill
The CD for the O mill is for sale on EBay but I dont think it will contain this kind of info.

Thanks Tom.

Originally Posted by TomW

Good day to all the proud Hercus O mill owners,

And what a great source of information you provide

I am also in the process of giving an O mill a new lease on life and for the most part enjoying the expierence.

As I dont have the maintenance manual Was wondering if someone can tell me how Hercus recomend to preload the tapered spindle bearings on the O mill
The CD for the O mill is for sale on EBay but I dont think it will contain this kind of info.

Thanks Tom.

AB sent me a copy of the operator's manual (which I didn't scan and had thermal binding put on it so I can't scan it now - which I should of). I'll type down the relevant paragraph:

"The main spindle is mounted on opposed Taper Roller Bearings and is preloaded to 1 1/2 to 2 inch/lbs. This is best measured by a spring balance attached to a cord wound arond a 2" dia. collar on the arbor, and represents the torque required to keep the spindle moving after it ahs been started from rest by hand. To adjust the bearings, the lock screw in the Spindle Take-up Nut is loosened and the nut tightened to give the required loading."

That's it. I'm guessing they mean the horizontal arbor. Did you buy the Hercus mill that was recently advertised on Gum tree? It didn't last long and looked good.

Hope this helps

Ben

Thanks Ben

Yes I bought it recently on gumtree here in WA. It is a good machine and came with some good accessories and as they come up for sale so rarely here that I felt this may be my last chance to get my hands on one.
I bought a Hercus lathe earlier this year and it had a box of gear with it that actually belonged to a mill. It had a slotting head which is excellent (can try it out now)and a horizontal arbour 1" complete with spacers and locknut but with no keyway milled in either. This seems unusual to me but Im sure there will be some explanation.
Thanks again for info re the bearing adjustment
Tom.

Originally Posted by TomW

Thanks Ben

Yes I bought it recently on gumtree here in WA. It is a good machine and came with some good accessories and as they come up for sale so rarely here that I felt this may be my last chance to get my hands on one.
I bought a Hercus lathe earlier this year and it had a box of gear with it that actually belonged to a mill. It had a slotting head which is excellent (can try it out now)and a horizontal arbour 1" complete with spacers and locknut but with no keyway milled in either. This seems unusual to me but Im sure there will be some explanation.
Thanks again for info re the bearing adjustment
Tom.

Hi Tom,

You are going to have to post some photo's of your mill and the slotting head. I'm sure many people will be interested and envious at the same time.

Ben.

HI,

I'm posting some photo's of what I've done to my Mill - only been able to clean it up some and remove the horizontal arbour. I put the vertical head on just to see how it fits. Noticed I'm missing some locating dowels.

I was hoping to get some done, like get a VSD but work is busy at the moment and will be going away for a month or two this week.

Anyway here's the photo's:OLM279TABLE.jpgOLM279RHSIDE.jpgOLM279REAR.jpgOLM279LHSIDE.jpgOLM279FRONT.jpg


It's come up nicely, I only used lathe oil on the metal areas and some domestic cleaner on the paint work. I can see the normal Hercus green under the cream colour. There's little surface rust which I reckon I'll get off without much problem. When I get back I'll use some kero as well. Everything came off with ease. The travels are all very tight as well.

I got a old canvas cover as well, I'll post that later. I bought that 80mm vice from ozeseller on ebay, which hasn't turned up yet. Looking at MT3 collet chuck sets.

Cheers Ben.

Originally Posted by bwal74

Hi Tom,

You are going to have to post some photo's of your mill and the slotting head. I'm sure many people will be interested and envious at the same time.

Ben.

I hope Tom does post some photos of the real slotting head. It would be interesting to see how close I came with my pretend version. I've never seen a Hercus original.

https://www.woodworkforums.com/f65/sl...5/#post1258645

Bob.

Here are some views of the slotting attachment that came with my Model O.

Jordan

Originally Posted by nadroj

Here are some views of the slotting attachment that came with my Model O.

Jordan

Serves me right. I should have asked if anyone had one before I started on my pretender. Steve Durden told me he hadn't laid eyes on one so I assumed they were rarer than hens teeth. Trust you to have one JP.

BT

Just a fluke, Bob. It was included with the mill when I bought it.
Your beautiful version could pass for factory made, probably better.

Jordan