Help in identifying antique milling machine.

Greetings from a new member over here in Australia. I am hoping the collective knowledge on this site can help me identify an old milling machine I want to restore.

I have tried forums her and in the US with not much luck. I have also thoroughly looked at vintage machinery and lathes UK but no luck. This is getting harder than I thought.

I will attempt to load some photos and see what happens.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Edited By JasonB on 17/11/2021 07:28:20

Thiel ? certainly older than anything I have used.

Pooles ?

Has some simliarites to a Pallas mill but I think this one is a little larger and the Pallas has a seperate countershaft. May be from the same family though.

I have a Pallas 'column' in the Shed - one of those projects that was overtaken by events...

Regards,

IanT

If there is no indication of the manufacturer on the machine it may be difficult, the only one resembling yours, that I have managed to find is Birch (lathes.co.uk)

Thor

..it's similar to (but not0 a Burke - there were several small American mills of a very similar style all around at about the same time, these often use a Brown & Sharp taper in the arbor - the sizes are very close to Morse, some careful measurement might be needed to establish what you have..

Edited By DiogenesII on 17/11/2021 17:57:33

Denby or Denbeigh. Origen USA, but some made in uk under licence. I had one very similar. Previous owner had welded a “ vertical head” onto the end of the overarm and bolted a motor onto the back One speed via belt and pulley. Shame the head was at 93 degrees.
After a lot of work, remachining the head I used the 3 step pulleys and back gear from a ML10, refaced the table and managed to get rid of most of the backlash.

The major problem was that the longitudinal and cross feeds turned the wrong way but it was all I could afford at the time. I donated it after 10 plus years to a friend who makes fairground type organs as a dedicated wood Miller making pockets for reeds.

it appeared in catalogues pre 1910 but not in the 1920’s.

It is very similar to the Birch.. ..do you what taper it has? ..and what threads the fasteners use ..it might provide a clue..

The one piece half circle casting clamping the round overarm down to the two separate support standards is unusual and, probably, a unique identifier.

However it is in general design a very generic small, lighter duty horizontal mill for its era. Quite possibly never marketed under a manufacturer name being supplied direct to large tool merchants and machine resellers who would have their own branding applied. Possibly via a bespoke door casting to cover the hole in the side of the plinth.

When new it would most likely have been flat belt drive via lineshaft. The multi step Vee pulleys will be later additions indicating that its been modified at least once in its (long) life.

Clive

It may like the last Centec2, the rights and moulds sold on to a new maker (Granville) these had no cast in names at all, but are unmistakably Centec apart from the knee.

And it is a universal from what I can see of the table so that reduces the options from cheap hobby to small production machine. The release leaver for the table is perhaps unusual.

I would start with threads. Metric, imperial (UNC or Whit).

If imperial, check the 1/2 inch bolts/set screws as they will be different tpi.

The motor may even be original and offer some clue (frequency, voltage, power, method of wiring).

Dimensions of parts - support bar, shafts, pulleys, for instance. Bolt hole separation for the base. May be others.

All useful for a guess as to origin, even if there is no manufacturer’s name.

On mine the threads were USA, and the name was cast onto the door. If going to be badged it would be easier to just change the door.

Both Browne & Sharpe and Pratt and Whitney made similar machines.

**LINK**

Many companies made similar machines

An assembled photo might help identify it.
Are the parts numbered?

Vintage machinery.org have free downloadable documents from that era. the best site I know of for old US metalworking machines.

**LINK**

Thank you so much for all your replies. I believe I am one step closer to finding out what make it is or one step closer for stopping my search.

I think Clive is spot on. Probably a generic machine marketed under various names. Probably why the name is on the door. The more prestigious manufacturers of that era had names cast on the machine, Cincinnatti, Browne and Sharpe etc. Im curious to know why you think this machine was made in the USA? For sure this was a line shaft machine and the pulleys a later addition.

Still, the overarm support and vertical bolts are defenitely unique. Not sure how many manufacturers in that era used box ways. Machine threads are all UNC. I have yet to locate any numbered parts.

I would like to begin assembling the machine but thought I would try to find a manufacturer to get it right. I would appreciate some guidance if possible. Not sure how the belts, pulleys etc are all organised.

To be honest I didnt need another machine but I purchased a small surface grinder and this machine was thrown in for $200 AUS (about 100 pounds sterling. Plus it has a Victor Universal head that fits to the drive shaft. I couldnt say no and now it has grown on me. A horizontal mill would be a great addition to my little home hobby shop. The history is also fascinating.

Heres a few more pictures.

Could it be John Holroyd? or at least one of the companied they either took over or merged with.
as per this post on Practical Machinist?
https://www.practicalmachinist.com/vb/antique-machinery-and-history/j-holroyd-co-ltd-horizontal-milling-machine-276418/

See also Graces Guide.
https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/John_Holroyd_and_Co

Bill

It looks very much like a development of the Denbigh H4 or a machine based on it (I own an H4); introduced in the 1930s or 1940s. (See the Denbigh chapter on lathes.co; ) They were not built as hobby machines but for small industrial production work.

However,

If Denbigh it will have the trade-mark Staffordshire Knot embossed on the side of the column, and the door in the stand. Denbigh was an English, not American, company, based in that county whose emblem is that knot.

It will also have a 3 Morse taper spindle; Whitworth bolts generally, and 2BA screws holding the flanged knee-screw nut to its column. Mine at least has a solid, not tubular, over-arm.

The H4s were made for bench mounting or bolting to a separate stand that on its own rather resembles a cast-iron khazi, with a trade-marked door in its side. The cupboard appears designed to swallow small items amnd not give them up!

They were fitted with flat-belt pulleys on the spindle itself for overhead drive, though Denbigh also sold a confection in iron to allow such a machine to run from its own motor. No cast-in side-arms for V-pulleys.

Also the H-series were not universal mills - or at any rate, those on the lathes site are not; and nor is mine.

That peculiar drop-bracket and the side countershaft do not tally with Tony Griffith's archive photos although my own version has some differences from them too.

Mine has also lost its drop-bracket so I can't compare that.

Denbigh was involved in the badge-engineering trade so this one could be from almost anywhere; but I recall seeing one much more like my and the archive-pictured H4s, superbly restored and much "breathed on", displayed at one of the Sandown exhibitions (are we allowed to mention them here?). That machine had a different name on its main casting though - "Patrick" if I remember aright. It was also fitted with what seemed a back-gear but I don't recall if that used an original mounting (as on yours) or specially-built.

One curious aspect of my Denbigh H4 is that two of the feed-screws are 6TPI but the other, 8TPI. I forget off-hand which. I do not know if this was standard for that design or to some special order.

'

The Hs 1-3 were simpler machines with lever-operated long feeds. The H4 has power-feed drive originally from a 3-step flat-belt pulley pair on the back of the machine. Mine is lost but the mounting-pad on the casting is clear.

Edited By Nigel Graham 2 on 18/11/2021 22:39:38

Thanks again for all the information. All those machines are close but still there are distinctive differences. I was wondering if anyone has seen a base like mine with only two holes that have a small raised section around each on another machine? Lathe, tool grinder etc. It could be an indication of a manufacturer.

Nigel I will have a look at shafts and fixtures tomorrow and take some pictures. What do you mean by drop bracket? Forgive all my questions but not quite familiar with this type of machine.

A pleasure to help, Michael!

Base: the holes, with bosses to give proper flat surfaces for the fasteners, are of course for bolting the machine to the workshop floor, but just two like that is very unusual - I would expect 4, one in each corner, on any make of machine. (As mine has. I used self-tapping concrete-screws with big washers to secure it.) Perhaps they had "value engineers" even in the 1930s!

I see the column for the elevating-screw is held with socket-head screws. they bain't be from round 'ere! Maybe someone lost the original hex-headed set-screws at some point in the mill's life, and it's possible the holes have been re-tapped or fitted with thread inserts.

'

"Drop bracket" - at least that's what I've always known it as

Start with the over-arm, to set the terms' context. That is the long bar or tube clamped right along the top of the machine, adjustable for projection.

The "drop-bracket" is the fitting on the over-arm's outer end, that carries a bearing (usually a plain bush) concentric with the spindle, to support the outer end of the bar that carries the cutter. The arrangement is somewhat similar to using a boring-bar between centres on a lathe.

On your milling-machine then, it is the rather elegant curved casting that makes me think of a musical instrument! These fittings are usually a more functional polygon though on the original H-series it was a rounded casting like a figure-of-eight in profile. Your 4th photo down shows it all assembled except for a cutter, and though hard to tell it looks as if the cutter spacers are all on the cutter bar itself.

The spacers give you two possibilities: mounting a cutter at an appropriate, approximate distance along the bar, and to give an accurate gap between two ("ganged" cutters, for. e.g. making T-nuts, or end-squares/hexagons on the end of cylindrical work.