Thread: Can anyone help me identify this mill drill?

Looks like an Arboga to me.

Originally Posted by Burner

I recently picked up this mill drill and would like to know if anyone can make an educated guess at who would have made it. Unfortunately the owner has been confined to a home and is unable to shed any light on its history. I also bought a press frame an old dividing head and small rotary table as well as a lot of steel offcuts. It was quite a load!!

Arboga, you'd struggle to find a better drill press, the motor is integral to the head and is usually a two speed dahlander wound, This configuration makes the conversion to 240V 3 phase operation is a bit problematic, so the critical question is do you have 415V 3 phase power?

It might be a U2508? Here's a 2508 manual for comparison https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?...by&app=WordPdf

Ray

As others have said it's either an Arboga or a copy of an Arboga. Hard to tell from the pictures and the Taiwanese copies, at least, were well made.

*SOME* of those are suitable for light milling as there is a captive ring or similar on the spindle nose to stop Morse taper tooling coming loose when side-loaded. Check carefully if this is the case before attempting to mill with it. My Arboga radial arm drill has essentially the same drill head but power feed and no lock ring, so it's only a drill press.

Arboga drill presses are one of the finest you can own so look after it, it'll outlive you and still be going fine work.

PDW

I thought it looked like an Arboga, but I wasn't sure. Even if it is a copy the machine is well made and only the one gear change handle is broken. The guy selling it had only recieved stupid offers, like $50 or $100. I wasn't about to leave it there if it is an arboga or not. I do have 3 phase and almost all of my machines run on that. It has no markings on it so I thought I would ask you guys.

I must also confess that I picked up an Arboga radial arm drill a little while ago. It is a bit rough and has some bearings that are a bit noisey in the gearbox. It is a project that will need to wait a while. I am having to store some of my older machines in the old hay shed that the photos were taken in while I get my workshop sorted out.

The paint job doesn't look very Arboga, though given its likely age it maybe have been resprayed.
It has some sort of Clarkson chuck. As PDW says, while be interesting to see whats going on with the taper.

Stuart

I am sure it has been repainted at some point. The electric controls have also been replaced and I will need to have a proper look at it when I can get it near some electricity again. I have taken some photos of the captive ring as I had never seen one of them before either. I guess that limits the size of tooling that can be fitted as the collar needs to fit over it, like boring heads etc.

Is it usual to have some type of tang fitted to the morse shank as this Clarkson Autolock chuck does? Can the locking ring hold the taper in the spindle tight enough to enable milling without the spindle rotating on the tool?

Here are some pictures of the captive ring and chuck.

Hi Burner,

The captive ring and C-washer are correct as per the Arboga system. You may need to make different "ID" C-washers for different sizes of tooling, and may also need a few spacer rings (fitting inside the captive ring) to allow for tooling with various amounts of overhang of the washer groove from the spindle nose.

My experience is that the captive ring holds the tooling securely, and if it has a tang it should not spin and mark the spindle taper .

The slotted tang on the Clarkson is a bit strange because a complete tang is helpful. The Arboga is designed with a fixed pin inside the spindle, so that when the quill is fully retracted the pin hits the tool tang and ejects the tool from the spindle taper. Unless there are parts missing, there is a little stop lever that prevents the quill completely retracting to the 'tooling eject' position. When required, you swing the stop lever aside to allow for tool ejection. It's a really elegant solution - no tools needed, no excessive force applied to hold in the taper, no draw bar bashing to remove it.

Great acquisition!

Cheers,
Bill

Great find.
Gear change handles are or were available from 600 machinery for $82 each, I made my own from a block of polyethylene, takes time but do-able.
The threads on my much older drill are a mixture of imperial and metric, the course imperial threads only being used in the casting holes. The quill is engaged by pulling the down feed lever out to the right.
Hope this helps. Regards, Mm.

Thanks everyone for your help. I haven't used many mill drills as we have always had Milling machines where I have worked and I have had this cheap little chinese belt driven thing for 20 years but not used it much since I got my milling machines. There is always something new to learn!

The tang on the Clarkson is a socket head capscrew that has been machined to the shape of a tang and then screwed into the shank draw bar hole to form a tang. I will need to go back up to the machine to check out if the pin for ejecting is in tact.