Finally got the milling machine home.

Today me & a mate went to pick up the dismantled Tom Senior. It took us a couple of hours to put the main parts back together. God it was heavy, or am i getting too old for this, ??

Another 2 hours refitting the controls & DRO. Runs lovely & i am well pleased with it. It is old but in pretty good condition ,apart from there is quite a bit of back lash on the Y axis screw. I does not matter as with the DRO it isn't a problem.

But i will at some point strip & see what the problem is. Probably the Nut & Screw. Could be a nice project & some machining to fit ballscrew type. I did some fine cuts on some mild steel & it came out very good.

Although i have not trammed it in yet. A job for tomorrow.

Question. I have 3 chucks for the lathe MT2. A jacobs, a rah something or other (keyless) & a cheap chinese one. They all work fine. Will these be ok to fit on the milling machine that is MT2. I ask because there is no way to use a draw bar with the chucks. Is that how they are. ?????.

Steve.

Lovely looking machine. Yes if you are talking drill chucks for drilling not milling then it's ok without a drawbar - just like you would in a normal pillar drill.

wow, dats a big one

she looks in lovely nick

My Centec has a captive drawbar; I don't know about your new toy.
If it is similar, then the bottom end of the drawbar will preclude the use of a plain shanked drill chuck arbor.

I just set up in the lathe and drilled the ends of my arbors and tapped 3/8" BSW. (Your's of course my be a different thread.)

Bill

Well big it is not really. The whole thing weighs 370kg. The guy in Barnsley that I bought it from has just bought a Bridgeport to replace this one. It was adjacent in the garage.

The Bridgeport was like the big Daddy bear & this one was baby bear. Really. It is a bit bigger than some of the small Chinese mills for sale admitted. Maybe on a par with a Sieg SX4. Just not as modern.

I was recommended it by quite a few members on here after I was, just about refused to be allowed to buy a Sieg something SX3.5 twin turbo. When I went to see it I was pretty much blown away.

A bit like a time machine. As it looked brand new, I could only assume it's previous owners had taken pride in ownership. Expensive. No I do not think it was silly money at £1500. Beautifully made machine, as a few members had already told me about them. Strange that I had never even heard of a Tom Senior & they were made just a stones throw from me. I think the company went bust around 1980. Having traded since the early pre war days. At a place known as the Atlas works in Liversidge near Halifax. Yorkshire. It has the full M-DRO 3 axis. Also it has an expensive Toshiba inverter & 3 phase motor. The DRO kit alone is £540 . The Toshiba inverter is around the £400 mark. So basically got the machine for peanuts. I am looking forward to using it . I need to build the wall in the garage now it is in place. Took some lifting but worth it.

Steve.

Ah thanks for that Bill. I will have a look in the morning, it has a Er collet chuck kit on at the moment with the drawbar. I have not removed it,. So I will make sure the bar comes out. If not then as you say I will have to machine or cut the peg off the MT2 chuck & then drill & tap to accept the bar. Regards.

Steve.

Or just change one of the chuck arbors for one with a hole for a drawbar.

You can change the arbour for the drill chucks to work with your draw bar or get an adapter that fits your chuck taper usually a JT to a parallel shank that you can use in your ER collet chuck so you don't need to remove it but it will reduce your z height a lot .

I would kill to buy a mill like that ! 

Edited By XD 351 on 13/03/2020 07:06:08

Edited By XD 351 on 13/03/2020 07:08:14

Nice looking machine. When I bought my T S light vertical mill I was a bit nervous on removing the milling chuck, but the advise I was given from a member on here was unscrew the draw bar a few threads and just give it a sharp tap with a soft faced hammer BUT make sure the fine feed clutch on the right is disengaged first.

Edited By ian j on 13/03/2020 07:16:36

How does changing the arbour work?

wont the taper in that just break free

all my mt3 tooling has fixed mt3 with m12 threads

That looks nice Steve; mines the slightly larger Tom Senior Major Mk 2 with extra long table. Seniors are very well made machines so I'm sure you will not be disappointed.

Happy milling, Brian

Good British Engineering. Tom Senior was on my original list, but I really wanted both a vertical and horizontal mills. The Centec fitted that bill, in one machine, perfectly for me.

You can of course always hold drills in the ER collet chuck, saves keep changing chucks!

John

Have you come up with a way to lift the vertical head into place without getting a hernia.
I used the horizontal arbour for a job last week for the first time in a couple of years; I then promptly realised how much my current viral infection has sapped my strength, as it was all I could manage to put the head back in place.

I'm not really in a position to make a movable crane due to the workshop layout, though I might be able to come up with something attached to the trolley on which the mill resides.

Best solution would be a long riser block, but no longer available from any of the previous sources, so I may have to come up with a way to machine one on the Centec itself.

Bill

Bill make a "spacer" to sit on the table, of such a height that you can use the table to lift the head into the correct position?

That way the manual lifting is at a lower level and you do not have to hold it in place whilst fitting.

I did a similar thing to lift my Bridgeport head using the table as a crane,so as to insert a 6" raiser block.

The Bridgeport head and ram weighs nearly as much as the whole Senior mill!!

Yes, certainly helps. I have 4 nuts for my ER32 and two for my ER16. Still slower than a keyless chuck when spotting, drilling, tapping and countersinking, but OK for other mill work.

Cheers, that's what I did in the end, with a large block of wood. I probably should fabricate a clamp to make it all a bit safer.

Bill

Careful with thoughts of ballscrews. I have used machines with them fitted for manual work and do not like them. If a cutter grabs it can pull the table along having no resistance like a standard set up. Standard lengths of leadscrew are cheap enough also nuts to suit, a little machining to suit your machine and your done for life. Note to self I must do my Bridgeport Y axis.

Hi Bill,

I have a long riser block, but unfortunately not enough head-room (at present) to change the drawbar - unless I take it out from the bottom). Heavy, but manageable, for this 70+ year old🙂. When I finally enlarge my workshop (hopefully this summer), the mill will be sat on its proper stand and head-room will be adequate for the riser to remain in situ.

I don’t expect it would be a problem, currently, if my tooling was either all imperial or all metric!

I think Gary machined them on his 2B? Even if too long to cut in one go, the important contact areas could be machined OK. My mill has the power feed, so long travel is reduced by an inch or so and the cross feed locking screw/bolt maybe needs changing for a shorter one - but that would mean I would either need to make up a special spanner or use a long socket and wrench, as I currently leave a ring spanner on the head almost permanently.🙂

It allows you to use the drill chuck for drilling without the tang hitting the captive drawbar that was mentioned. The new internally threaded arbor will be drawn into the taper by the drawbar so won't break and the JT or B taper will hold just the same as any other for drilling.

Funny enough I was watching a Hass video last night and they said that on average a keyless chuck was at least twice as accurate as a keyed one with regards to runout assuming similar quality chucks which may determine which one is best to use on the mill.