Thread: Any one got a Wohlhaupter boring head?

Scroll down the page....

https://skydrive.live.com/?cid=547fe...1&sc=documents

BT

Thanks Bob
This one is a UPA5s but I'm hoping that there is enough similarity that I won't get too lost. Interestingly, one of the documents has a date of 1962 on it and the head I have looks different so it looks like it's a least 50 years old.There is a Hahn and Kolb label in the box - I'm not sure whether it was a 'special' made for them or whether for a while H&K were a distributor for Wohlhaupter

Michael

Hahn & Kolb sold a huge range of machines and metrology...I think most of their line was re-badged. I think that all of the Wholhaupter line was identical feature-wise back then. I have a manual from that era which covers the UPA 2, 3, 4 models.

Greg

Greg, This head doesn't have the 12 feed buttons around the knurled ring. Instead it has 4 buttons on top of it, one of which kicks the feed into reverse. (remember truth tables from high school? I finally found a use for them and it's only taken 30 years!)
If the manuals you have have that sort of feed selection, I'd love to get a copy.

Thanks,
Michael

Michael...I just had a quick look, and it turns out that I don't have a manual that describes such a configuration. The original that I do have is a torn, grease stained 1954 typed out bulletin from Deckel. Unfortunately it has no illustrations (or more likely they were lost as it's all loose pages). I must have been thinking of some other PDF which I cannot locate just now.

What I do have for you is this informative brochure from their US distributor, DAPRA, which does show quite a bit of operating info:

Not knowing anything about Wohlhaupter boring and facing heads, I'm stunned by the sophistication and compact engineering of these heads.

Digital (mechanical) selectable automatic feed rates... you have got to be kidding?

Regards
Ray

No kidding Ray. I was amazed when I first found out about these too. If you look at these things you'll see that they are listed on Ebay for $1000+ usually. The one I got was no where near that but then again is not the latest model either. (3 selectible feeds rather than 12 - how can I hold my head up?). The basic mechanism seems to be a worm drive indexed by a star wheel and pins - more pins = more feed.
Some of the manuals for these give the basics for setting them up (in conjunction with the table feed) to bore conical holes too. When I work out why that's a good thing, I'll be trying that too!
I can't remember all the brands but there are several on the market that can do the automatic facing trick. Wohlhaupter is one but there is also D'andrea, Narex, Tree and others.

Michael

Originally Posted by Michael G

Some of the manuals for these give the basics for setting them up (in conjunction with the table feed) to bore conical holes too. When I work out why that's a good thing, I'll be trying that too!

Well if you happened to want a conical hole it would be a good thing surely?

Yes all the ones I've seen have gone for big $. Only ever seen one in the flesh that I recall, just at a Grays inspection.

So with the feed/pins etc. Does it give the feed X(number of pins) "bumps" per revolution rather than a constant feed?

Stuart

I think it faces helically...that is the feed winds out over the entire revolution.

The conical hole caper requires a known vertical feed rate obviously...but if you have that you can also use the Wohlhaupter to perform thread milling. Somewhere there's a table for this on the Deckel mills...spindle speed v table rise rate. (I guess this allows the user to duplicate such beloved and fragile old car features such as threaded cast-in bosses and large diameter/fine threaded spigots. So that future generations can learn robust profanity too)

From the manuals, each button is 8/10th of a thou, and they also say to space the button pressing out around the perimeter so my guess is that every time a star wheel or something similar hits one of the pressed in pins, it indexes radially 8/10th of a thou. Sort of a spiral but if you looked under decent magnification there would probably be a spot per pin where the cutter marks jump out slightly.
I don't know whether the one I have works that way but if I have the chance to strip it this weekend I'll try and take some photos - should be instructive if nothing else.

Greg, the thread milling sounds interesting too, although laborious. My mill has a separate feed motor for the axis travels, so is independent of spindle revs. If I was unlucky I could end up with some really weird thread pitches. I'll have to do the maths one day to work out what I could do. Multiple passes could be tricky to synchronise - have to think about that

Michael

I took the beastie apart this morning and discovered what the problem was - me. I had thought that the selection buttons were a simple on-off. They are actually fwd-off-rev. I did this with a camera in hand, so below are some pictures.
The first couple of pictures are of the head to give an overview. The branding is so faint that the seller probably didn't realise that it was there.
Attachment 189013

Attachment 189014
The next is with the slide removed. There is a small bevel gear that transmits to the shaft the worm is on. The nut has the other half of the worm and so turns the screw.
Attachment 189015
This the unit with the collars removed. No interchangeable spindles here - that is a continuous piece of metal. The star that can be seen is mounted on a shaft that goes into the body of the head where it has a small bevel gear on the end, mating with the one on the worm shaft. So, slide movement is all down to the star wheel.
Attachment 189016
Now the key part. This collar (below) is normally located over the star wheel. Depending on which button (the dowel like object next to the dowel) is pushed, either the top or the bottom of a C shaped part is pushed out. This of course trips the star wheel so that it feeds. One pawl trips the star wheel enough to feed 1/10 of a thou on diameter.
Attachment 189017
I suspect the newer 12 button models have the buttons being pushed directly into the path of the star, simplifying the design a little, although losing the opportunity to easily face in or face out.
So my problem was that because I had some buttons up and some down, I was effectively cancelling out the feed in with some combinations. I've cleaned and regreased the head now so knowing how it works I should not have any more problems.
If anyone has one of this model note that the collar around the base of the taper that has to come off before anything will happen is a LH thread. (I should have realised - after all a piece of kit that I have for a totally different purpose made by a completely different company in another country is also a LH thread)

I also did the calculations on whether I could cut threads with this head and have worked out that I can cut 4 metric pitches and no imperial threads (my mill is metric), so I suspect that I will still using the lathe

Michael

Hi Michael,

Thanks for posting that, makes it much easier to understand how it works. Very clever bit of engineering.

Is there a useful application for going +1, -1, +1, -1 .. boring precise oval shaped holes maybe?

Regards
Ray

Nothing beats understanding the workings by means of disassembly and reassembly. I was looking at some photos this morning of a Swiss made Kaiser boring and facing head and there are some similarities with the Wohlhaupter.

KAISER boring head pictures by deckelite - Photobucket

Deckelite is Tien Nguyen Binh, a regular contributor on the PM Deckel and Schaublin forums. He certainly has some wonderful machines.

(Schaublin offered the Kaiser in a 65mm diameter version as an accessory for the 13. A FP1 can accommodate the larger UPA-3 because it has a whopping 60mm more vertical clearance between the horizontal spindle and the fixed table than it's Swiss cousin.)

Michael,

I found a pdf of the operating instructions for the UPA-4 and upwards while searching for the dimensions of the UPA-3 in some stuff I had stashed away. The file is too large to attach. If it would be of any use I can print the pages at work and post them to you or I can ask one of the kids at work to resize (?) the file. Send me a PM if you are interested.

What machine are you going to use that head on?

Bob.

Thanks for thinking of me Bob. I have various instructions for 12 button Wohlhaupter heads, so unless it's for a 4 button version such as I have it's probably not worth the effort to send.

The head is being used on a Sajo UF52 universal mill. When I was looking to upgrade it was one of the smallest well featured universal mills I could identify. Of course while looking for a machine I couldn't stop myself buying suitable tooling like this head (none of the stuff I had was suitable as the old mill had an MT3 spindle).

Michael