Thread: Perrin Freres Milling Machine

Hi Bob...

The survey till tell what's what with that. I expect that we would be removing a couple of thou at most, assuming a straight mill cut was made. If the gibs are snugged right now there is some binding at the extremes of the travel. I hope that is not the sign of a banana milling job at last overhaul.

At any rate, there's always the fall-back of using moglice or some other epoxy-based compound on the sliding portion of the machine, and scraping that for bearing. (In the case of gear interference)

I'm touching up my 24" spotting master right now for tomorrow's chin-scratching session.

Greg

Not much progress today. Removed the coolant pump which someone has modified in the past. (Of course for the worse...we'll need to make a new intake pipe).

Also got the shop evacuated and scrubbed and order restored before we proceed with the next phase. The saddle is rigged for a crane lift in the morning, as is the main casting.

I just did a cursory check with a heavy layer of Canode dye on my master: small high spots which are not enough to tell anything beyond the obvious need for scraping. I didn't try to quantify how low the low spots are.

Also, Mike and I were playing on Google Earth and found the factory in my earlier photo, right where they left it at Rue des Oesches 45, Moutier. The town looks charming as hell on Google street view, and at the west end of Rue Industriale is the Tornos complex of buildings. Photos look like early April, but a warmish day.

Tomorrow we meet an informant who may have clues to direct further sleuthing re the mills previous owners.

When last we left this saga, Mike and I were on the trail of a lead, which fizzled out. We were offered a head from a Nichols mill, but it was rusted frozen, and had rust inside the NMTB40 taper spindle socket. Pass.

We did learn that there was an ammunition factory in Bendigo that closed up years ago, and there were lots of interesting machines that entered the auction stream up until about six years ago. There must be lots of Deckels and Schaublins on farms up in that part of the world. Armed with that info we are asking the usual suspect machinery dealers if they might have some green oddity of a vertical head resting on a shelf somewhere.

The saddle was lifted off last week, and we pulled the x table from the Deckel Tuesday night in order to see what parts need to be made. The good news is the entire power feed mechanism is only about 14 discreet parts more than the feedscrew assembly alone (which is another 18).

Finally, the Nichols head made me think of Maho heads which could work on this beast with a simple 1:1.5 gearbox assembly in a casting that translates the Perrin mounting to the Maho.

Hi Greg,

Reckon an update on your mate's mill, and The Deckel, are due.

I can see I'll have to come around with a big stick.

Kennearth

Maybe Monday Ken, I am busy with other things at the moment.

Greg

Originally Posted by Greg Q

...We did learn that there was an ammunition factory in Bendigo that closed up years ago, and there were lots of interesting machines that entered the auction stream up until about six years ago. There must be lots of Deckels and Schaublins on farms up in that part of the world. Armed with that info we are asking the usual suspect machinery dealers if they might have some green oddity of a vertical head resting on a shelf somewhere.

.

Hi GQ,

I remember the Bendigo Ordinance factory, they had some pretty big machines for making bits and pieces for ships, as well as making some pretty heavy ordinance. In later years they did some civillian contract work.

It might be worthwhile to get in touch with the Bendigo Historical Society, and the Bendigo Society of Model Engineers, they could provide a few leads.. Maybe who ran the Auctions, what was sold and who to.. that sort of thing.

Regards
Ray

PS: Here's a good picture...

It's a ring gear for an ore crushing machine.. image from.

Ordnance Factory, Bendigo Bruce's Place of employment for 35 years

I found these photos on a Yahoo Swiss Machine group site. Might be of interest. Nice robust plunger arm setup. Hey GQ, has the Deckel CD found it's way to you yet?

BT

Hey BT...Yes, the disc arrived last week sometime. Thank you so much for doing that for me. I'll be sending you an email also. For some reason my original disc lacked the one manual that I needed (or much more likely I failed to install it on my drive before I lost the disc).

The Perrin dividing head that you linked looks very interesting.

On another note it appears that my Walter rotary table deal went south and I've done my dough. (Or at least until I pay him a visit later this year in person.)

[QUOTE=RayG;1310920]Hi GQ,
It might be worthwhile to get in touch with the Bendigo Historical Society, and the Bendigo Society of Model Engineers, they could provide a few leads.. Maybe who ran the Auctions, what was sold and who to.. that sort of thing.

Regards
Ray

Thanks for the tip Ray...I'll get onto them with a query. Mike has contacts in the world of museums etc so maybe he can get it done faster than I can.

I may have posted these photos before, if so, too bad. If not, they may be of interest.

Freesbanken

BT

BT,
You would have an exploded diagram that explains how they get the drive from the hoz spindle to the Vert spindle? Thats a crazy looking angle.
Stuart

Unfortunately Stu, I don't have a section though or an exploded drawing of the Perrin head. I know that comes as a surprise. Below are sections through the offset vertical heads that I do have. The simple Hercus and the more complex Schaublin.

The French make an artform of not following convention. That head casting is very shallow in front of the horizontal spindle nose. There doesn't appear to be much room for a gear. It would be interesting to see what goes on inside there.

BT

Originally Posted by Anorak Bob

That head casting is very shallow in front of the horizontal spindle nose. There doesn't appear to be much room for a gear. It would be interesting to see what goes on inside there.

Indeed, I think you should buy one so we can find out

Thanks
Stuart

I think there might be room for a gear train in that Perrin head casting. The speed ratio is 1:1 horizontal/vertical. An arrangement very like the Schaublin 13 could have been done (I think) in the S-shaped part of the head.

Either that or they used chains

The max speed for the Perrin spindles is 1200 rpm, hardly a speed demon.

Greg