Thread: Victoria (Elliot) V1 Milling Machine

More pics, in no particular order. i dont have many of it before i pulled it apart for CNC stuff, not even after i gave it a proper bath
I will try and keep the butchery to a minimum in this thread to keep the purists happy, so pics may be light on.

Now that's what i call a gearbox!



Keen eyes will spot the oil pump and tubes. The piston is driven by an eccentricly mounted bearing on the bottom-left. I retightened and reaimed all the tubes so the gears used for high speed are best lubricated.

The quill was a bit stiff, as was the spindle so that all came apart to get cleaned and rebearing'd. Couldnt buy the outer races in Aus so 'recoed' them instead, painstakingly on the lathe with a flapper wheel in a power drill.
I plan on doubling the max speed From 1000rpm to 2000rpm, so i took an oil feed out of the gearbox to the top tapered roller bearings and added a drain back from the head into the box.

All back together:

I replaced the original motor with a 5hp single phase unit which is hard wired to the shed on a dedicated circuit. Startup current: 130amps!

You know you've got enough HP when you take a deep cut and instead of stalling the tool it snaps the vice in half and throws a 10kg lump of steel halfway across the shed. Granted that vice was never meant for milling, but funny nonetheless.





Dont worry, i fixed the vice! Its amazing what some superglue can do!
No, but seriously, 47kg of hardened and ground precision, thanks Hafco! It is the lockdown type and very nice to use...

Very nice Andrew, as you say much more solid than the Bridgeport and all the clones.

I wouldn't be to worried about the gears getting enough oil, at high speeds the amount of oil that gets splashed around is amazing, my machine has a window in the box so you can see whats going on. Even at low speeds the oil goes everywhere. Mine has a sort of tank at the top of the box that the pump (cam driven like yours) fills and then it has holes in all the right spots to drizzle oil onto the gears and to the bearings. My head has 3 of its own baths to lube everything.

Hmm, thats why they call it a drill press vice and not a milling vice.

Its really amazing what these machines can do compared to even the larger chinese ones, i went from a HM50 to the Vernier, i never knew there could be so much difference in 2 machines designed to do the same job. I can sink a 100mm carbide cutter (only running 5 out of 10 teeth at the moment, need to get some more) in steel 3mm DOC and Mlle (https://www.woodworkforums.com/f65/ve...post1595989yes my machines have names) doesn't even struggle. But then she does kinda make you "Vikki" look light weight.

I am a bit envious of your head with quill, but i guess you also can't rotate your head front to back.

Thanks for posting,
Ewan

Originally Posted by Ueee

I am a bit envious of your head with quill, but i guess you also can't rotate your head front to back.

Thanks for posting,
Ewan

That's what 4th axis is for!

The 75mm cutter that came with it has 4/6 teeth and had no issues taking 2mm DOC in that block of 1045 once i got the vice glued back together )
I was running a 3/4" HSS 4 flute, 1" deep and 1/4" wide cut in alloy and it didnt have a care in the world. No noise, no chatter, nice finish. It was great to watch these inch-long chips just drop out the back of the cutter....

I found a couple of crappy pics on my phone of getting the head apart:


Massive interference to the inner race was a pain to disassemble. I ended up having to fill the splined area with dry ice, apply LOTS of heat to the bearing race and then bash the crap out of it with my Thor hammer. That process still took 3 goes to get it off. The big gear shown below is bigger than the bore so i couldnt take the assembly out and use a press. The gear and splined bit must be installed from the back, before the head goes on.



This last gearset takes drive from the box and transfers it 90deg to turn the splined section of the spindle. The grease is now all gone and these gears are oil fed from underneath. The old greasing system kindly bought a pipe up here for me which has been connected to my additional oil feed. The oil drips down off the gears, lubes the quill in the bore, then most of it collects in a reservoir and drains back to the box. A very small amount leaks past and er, acts as corrosion protection on the toolholder )

(Looking up the empty quill bore)


I wish i had some pics of the actual quill removed and cleaned up. A work of engineering art.



Oil piping. Top line does the top bearings and tees off to do the gears and quill as described above. There is an inch of clear hose just before the T piece so you can always confirm oil is flowing. Bottom line is the drain, conveniently back to the original fill point for the box.

Ewan! You cursed me!


That was my biggest and favoritest cutter





Oh, i forgot to mention, there is considerable lash in the X leadscrew.... enough that trying to climb mill is more like 'grab mill' and may have catastrophic results.
My fault entirely, i thought i might get away with it due to the smaller chips. Nope.


Hopefully i can save the work now, it is a big piece of steel and i was almost finished machining it (ballnut mount)

I took some more photos while i was working on this yesterday.

A view inside the belly of the beast, showing the knee drive. Unlike most mills ive seen the knee drive runs in the centre and the Y axis screw is off to the left.
The knee appears to be worked via a pair of bevel gears which turn an acme leadscrew. Once again everything is lubed by the one-shot. The centre support for the shaft is just a bronze bushing, the front support where the handle goes was bushed as well but i modified the carrier to take a bearing instead/as well.



This is about as far as im game to disassemble the machine, there will be no lifting the column off the base like other members!

Good use of a piece of 120mm stock....





A view of the ways. 11" wide on the Y axis. There is a black line along the oiling path, some discoloration on one side but no deep scratches. It has also had a chip taken out and been welded up at some point which you can see on the left of the ruler. Overall i am very happy with the condition, the photo doesnt do it justice. The bits that look like scoring are actually not scored at all.


Underneath view. I have a feeling im going to need to get in under that round cover with 3 screws in the centre soon. It is positioned right below the X leadscrew nut so i will find out on disassembly of that axis.



Ran into a bit of an issue here. The Y axis lock (empty round hole) has been overtightened which has deformed the cast as the plunger was pushed down by the angle of the gib strip. I was counting on a flat surface under there to mount my ballnut block so had an uncomfortable couple of hours massaging it flat with a selection of hammers and dollys, upside down, under the apron. Fun times. It is all flat now luckily so my block mounts up nice and square.

Well, this made its last chips as a manual machine a couple of weeks ago.

To follow the rebirth into CNC, see here:
https://www.woodworkforums.com/f170/c...e-mill-177181/