Member postings for Steve355

Hi

To go with my nearly refurbed horizontal mill I will be looking for a dividing head. I feel I need a flexible one but something small - it’s a small mill and most dividing heads seem to be large and very heavy.

The two I’m currently considering are the smallest Vevor semi universal (but generally I go with vintage stuff and refurb them) or a VDH - they quite often seem to come up on eBay.

any thoughts on these or similar others?

Steve

Edited By Steve355 on 28/12/2021 10:26:54

Starting to come together now… just the motor to do.

then tidying up

As was…

Thanks very much for the info chaps. I’m well into the refurb now and it’ll be a few days before I get to reinstalling the spindle and bearings, but then I’ll return to this. Last weekend was stripping, priming and painting. Stripping was a miserable job!

Space left to try to restore the BURKE lettering ground off by someone for inexplicable reasons….

Ok, well if you do have any chance to get any info, that would be gratefully received. I think you are probably right though.

How does one set bearing tension in this arrangement?

it did come with a countershaft assembly, unfortunately not original. The motor isn’t original either, neither is the stand as far as I can tell.

Having now stripped some of the paint it seems likely it has been repainted at least once.

With any luck I can strip it on Sat, start the painting on Sunday. Might even have it back together by Christmas.

Actually, its a bit of a mystery.

At the nose of the spindle, there’s a cover, followed by a Timken bearing, followed by a felt washer, followed by a bearing seal, to keep the grease in I guess.

But at the tail end, from the outside in, there’s a cover, in which goes a steel bushing, then a Timken bearing. No felt washer, no bearing seal. I wonder if these are missing, or if this is how it is meant to be?

The bearings all look in good condition, and the spindle also.

a few pics below.

Front 

Rear

Edited By Steve355 on 15/12/2021 18:26:39

well its out!

On another refurb topic, any thoughts about getting this spindle out? I’ve removed all bolts I can see, bearings at both ends are visible. I can’t see any more retaining fixings. Tap it gently from the back?

here was my DW mill masked up…

and finished…..

was definitely worth the trouble.

Anyway, paint ordered now, decision made 😁

There look to be quite a lot of resin letters available on eBay for making earrings and other girly trinkets. Stuck on with loctite and carefully sanded, then painted over with enamel machine paint, that might do the trick.

Excellent, Ian. On my Zyto I left the paint as is (for now) but on the Dore Westbury I completely disassembled, cleaned, and sprayed over the old paint. It wasn’t in too bad condition, mainly ugly and chipped in places. But on this Burke mill I think it needs to go back to bare metal.

What stripper did you use?

thanks

Steve

Stop taking the p1ss 😉

I like refurbing tools. I’ve fixed up loads of hand tools, planes and vices from car boot sales etc and got them back to the fabulous quality they originally were - a level of quality you can’t buy today unless you pay serious dosh. And I’ve done an incorrectly built Dore Westbury mill and a fairly shagged Zyto lathe. It keeps me off the streets and out of the wife’s hair.

To paint or not to paint…. that is the question lol. Opinions sought….

I’ve got the gearbox and X and Y axes to bits and cleaned up now, knee tomorrow evening. The bits I’ve polished have come up ver nicely.

I have a decision to make - do I paint it? I’m generally in favour of leaving machines in as original state as possible, but the paint it very chipped in places. It’s also very thick! To strip it all off may be a big job.

But it would look great fully refurbished. decisions ….

Also, at some point in its history somebody has ground off the name “Burke” from it. I’d really like to restore that if I can. Any thoughts as to how to do it would be welcome.

Unfortunately I don’t think there is one. Quite surprising given there are quite a few about.

Hi

From searching the forums I can see there are quite a few Zyto users out there.

Has anyone replaced the headstock bearings? If so, it would be great to find out what you ordered and from which supplier? Both the bronze bushings and the spindle nose bearing.

Thanks

Steve

Edited By Steve355 on 13/12/2021 10:30:11

Well, I think I might pgk’s advice above and not fix it if it isn’t broke. I was really struggling to get the grease and swarf out from behind it, but I’ve achieved that now, and it seems to be in good condition, turning smoothly, looking straight.

Hi all

As stated on another thread, I picked up a Burke horizontal mill recently, refurbing it is now my exciting new project now the Zyto and the Dore Westbury are working acceptably.

I eventually managed to get it into the shed and assembled. Next step is to strip, clean, replace, refurb all the bits etc.

I am already stuck.

There is a little power feed gearbox on the end of the table. it’s basically a worm and a gear attached to the x axis feed screw. I’ve got it mostly to bits, it was pretty much full of ancient grease and what looked like brass or bronze chips. So I’d better fully disassemble it.

To get the worm gear out , it looks like there is a pin through it’s spindle holding it . One end is rounded, the other looks like the end to try to knock through, I have tried hammering it carefully using a brass rod so as not to flatten it. But no movement. I’m reluctant to hit it too hard for fear of damaging something.

Any thoughts? Heat it? Freeze it? Drill it out?

Thanks

Steve

Hi all, thanks for all the excellent responses. Plenty of reading choice for me!

Steve

Hi, no, it doesn’t seem to have an original motor or stand. Clearly it has been modified at some point. There was one which sold on eBay yesterday which looked in a more original condition. Shame, but many of these machines have been modified in some way. But I agree that lathes.co.uk could do with better info on it.

Hi again

I have this Burke no 4 mill, still in the car, but I’m picking up a block and tackle tonight to help move it, as was suggested.

Unfortunately I know close to zero about horizontal milling. For the lathe and the vertical mill, there is excellent educational material on YouTube, from Blondiehacks and similar. So I know about tailstock alignment and tramming a mill now, and speeds and feeds et cetera.

Does anybody know of a decent educational resource for setting up and using a horizontal mill? There are quite a few videos on YouTube, but they all seem to be specific operations on the horizontal mill, rather than how to set one up and a basic intro to using it.

Thanks

Steve

Excellent idea, thanks. There is no boot lip which makes it easy. Then it goes on the sack truck to the shed. Getting the mill on the stand may be tricky, but that can be managed I think.