Milling Machine Identification

The three phase motor that this Champion mill is fitted with does look to be the original motor fitted from new, its external appearance is the same as the single phase motors that they were usually supplied with during that period.

I do recall Chester demonstrating one of these Champion mills fitted with a variable speed inverter at one of the Model Engineering exhibitions, must have been at least 25 years ago.

Mgnbuk is correct in his assessment of these early Champion milling machines, when new they were somewhat rough and ready and rather crude in places with no real feel of quality, although the price was quite low. The table was quite good though with a nice ground finish and Tee slots that extended past the coolant troughs and right up to the ends of the table. The tilting milling head was opperated by a worm gear which was an unusual addition on such a low cost machine. I agree that a £1400 asking price for one of these mills is rather excessive.

Edited By Lathejack on 14/09/2020 20:50:38

Edited By Lathejack on 14/09/2020 21:09:00

Just read back through this thread, and realised that my translation was too late !

£1400 certainly seems excessive to me.

MichaelG.

Hi Paul, yes it is a Champion mill and it is similar to the Warco ZX15 and the overall given weight is 135Kg. I bought mine for £809.00 which included a collet chuck and set of 8 collets and delivery, in 1997. Didn't find mine to be particularly rough although it did need a little fettling to the column base to make it true to the table. A photo below to show the correct way to lift it, as shown in the user manual that came with my machine. Of course the two bars don't have to be as long as the ones I've used.

If however, you can use longer slings, you won't need to have the head swung round as I have above.

Regards Nick.

Edited By Nicholas Farr on 14/09/2020 22:05:27

Thank you all for your comments & help on this, if he would have been any closer to me I would have been & brought it before he had chance to increase the price & now I would have been left with something that I would be struggling to run without a 3 phase supply & looking at getting another £200 to £400 for an inverter which as mentioned before - probably wouldn’t work!

I consider myself to have had an extremely lucky escape there thanks to everyone who replied & I thank you all - on further investigation & re-reading the messages he sent I’m convinced things are not all they seem with it... he first listed it as a “heavy duty wood & metal drill”, it’s now listed as a “heavy duty milling machine”, he knew absolutely nothing about it & it’s history & seemed adamant that there were no other markings or ID plates on it, and he has 2 Facebook friends (it’s on FB marketplace). Lucky escape there methinks!

Thanks again folks, the combined knowledge on this forum is outstanding & i consider myself very lucky to have access to it