Help to identify milling machine

Can anyone please help in trying to identify this milling machine. I can't find any makers names on the machine. I'm concerned about trying to get spares especially the fibre gear between the motor and gearbox.

Thanks for any help

Dave

It appears to be a copy of the Emco FB2. Warco used to do a similar machine. The Rishton was also similar.

Pro Machine Tools are the spares people for Emco, they may be able to help.

Edited By daveb on 18/08/2015 06:06:51

Somebody has disabled the speed change levers so appears to be single speed now at 310 rpm.

The colour should indicate the seller to someone if you can find anything else that shade. I think that blue is supposed to be restful and calming as we had a whole building painted internally that colour as there were no windows. No it wasn't a prison just paranoia that some Russian 5 miles away with a telescope might see in.

Kwil

whats been disabled about the speed change levers?

Kwil,

I don't think the gear change levers have been disabled, they are just different from the original Emco or any of the clones. The whole front is different, and the quill lock lever is on the opposite side from the Emco.

They looked as though they were fixed as shown, normally those levers were black mouldings.

"normally those levers were black mouldings."

That's right, and they looked a lot more elegant and 'handleable' than these which just look like 2 bits of square bar.

I remember Warco selling these machines, they called it the XZ or maybe the XZ-15 Mill. Not to be confused with the Warco ZX-15 belt drive head mill.

The Chinese made geared head XZ mill was Warco's replacement for their earlier VHM gear head mill which was a nicely made, almost exact copy of the Austrian made Emco FB2 mill.

The XZ mill was not as well made as the VHM it replaced and has a slightly slower speed range, plus a different table that does not have tee slots that go right to the end of the table as on the Emco and the Emco copies.

It was quite a few years ago that Warco used to offer the XZ mill, maybe 10 - 15 years or more. I remember their engineer in the workshop telling me that they had once sent a whole batch back to the factory. But if you have one that's not badly put together and is working then they can be ok.

Edited By Lathejack on 18/08/2015 21:05:08

Edited By Lathejack on 18/08/2015 21:06:21

Dave, (the OP)

If you look at Tony Griffith's website you can see details of the Emco FB-2 here - **LINK**

If you want a digital copy of the FB-2 manual and parts list send me a PM with your email address - or I think you can find one on one of the Yahoo Emco User Groups.

Or I think you can buy a copied one from Steve at www.machinemanuals.co.uk  for around a tenner.

I have found the best way to order parts from ProMachine is to identify the part number and then do a search on their website for that number.

Phil

Edited By Robbo on 19/08/2015 10:00:49

Edited By Robbo on 19/08/2015 10:01:25

The milling machine shown by David is not really one of the direct copies of the Emco FB2 mill, having a different base casting and table design, and with head differences. But it may still have some internal gearbox similarities to the Emco FB2 and its clones.

The mill shown also has, if I remember correctly, a larger diameter quill than the Emco and the copies, so there may also be some differences in the spindle bearing arrangement. Other than Warco, I cannot remember any other UK supplier, at the time, offering a version of the Warco XZ-15 type of mill that David has.

The later Emco FB2 milling machines were not genuine Emco's, they were in fact Far Eastern copies themselves. These can usually be recognised by their red and black paint job, base castings that taper out toward the bottom, and just three gib strip adjusting screws, instead of four, on the X and Y axis.

Edited By Lathejack on 19/08/2015 18:43:57

Edited By Lathejack on 19/08/2015 18:45:56

Didn't take much finding nearly bought a Chester one after bargaining at an open day in 2004

**LINK**

**LINK**

Your motors not right also shouldn't have fibre gears theyre all steel and several off them.

Parts are a problem like any Chinese cheapy and when available they know how to charge. ie RF25 motor from MM £256 15 years ago when whole mill was £690, Lux transfer box £244 whole machine only £930 now £2k.

Thanks for all the replies. I have downloaded the manual for the emco fb2 from the yahoo group. I can't find any info on the net about the warco xz-15 so will contact warco directly (thanks for the heads up lathejack). On the promachinetools site the equivalent fibre gear for the emco is £66 which seems a lot but i've nothing to compare it with. Does anyone know of anywhere else that sells or makes similar gears?

Dave

The geared head milling machines linked to by Jon are a bit different. They are much larger and heavier designs with bigger bases, tables, columns. They also have much larger heads with longer stroke quills and 3MT spindles, plus bigger motors of, I think, 1 1/2 - 2 HP. These are still widely available.

From trying to judge the scale of David's mill in his photo, and some of its details, I am sure it is the same as the machine Warco used to offer as the XZ-15 six speed gear head mill.

Warco's similarly titled ZX-15 mill was a similar size, but had a four speed belt change head, and was identical to Chester Machine Tools original Champion milling machine which had a rather spindly looking round column.

Hope this is of some help David.

Almost certainly metric gears, if you measure it you should be able to find a standard gear which will fit. Slight modification to bore or thickness should be no problem.