Denbigh Horizontal Milling Machine

I have a very old Denbigh milling machine, about 15 cwt, floor standing, back geared, flat belt drive to open cone pulley from wall mounted countershaft and flat belt from rear of spindle to table feed. Styling of machine suggests manufactured 1890/1920 but I understand this company continued to make older style machines well after other companies had changed to box style columns. I would like to find out more about the company and their machines. Tony's website shows only the later machines. Does anyone have know more?

Dave

Hmmm, 300 odd views and no comments, perhaps it's rare.

Perhaps owners of older machines may be able to help.

The spindle runs in 2 bronze bearings, 1 at the front and 1 at the back. The front bearing is tapered, very similar to Super7 but 3 times the size. The rear bearing is carried in a sleeve which adjusts back and forth by 2 ring nuts, also similar to Super7 arrangement BUT the rear bronze bearing is also tapered, large dia at front, small dia at rear, same as front bearing. I can adjust spindle so it revolves with no play but a light tap on the front of the spindle will lock it. The only possible location for a thrust bearing is on the outside of the front bearing. The spindle nose is threaded about 20 TPI so possibly there was a cap which fitted on this to bear against the face of the front bearing.

Can anyone help?

Thank you, Dave.

Dave,

There may be something of interest within this thread.

MichaelG.

Thank you Michael, it's nice to see someone else is interested in the old stuff.

These were basic, no frills machines, built to do the job and were no better than they needed to be. They are easy to refurbish with simple tools and suit old boys like me who enjoy tinkering.

My son told me that scrap metal was selling for record prices, seems to think I'm worth a fortune!

Dave

We had a Denbigh Mill at the toolroom I worked in. Good old ploddy machine that never went wrong. I did some work on my traction engine on it.

Also cut the rib detail for a hot water bottle mould on it, but couldn't use the dials as they were not accurate enough.

If I remember right, it had a 3 (or 2) man noose as its emblem

Yes, that's right, unusual logo, implies the thing was designed to do you damage. No idea what they thought of racks and shackles, probably had a bluebottle on their fly presses.

Dave

Not really, it's a Staffordshire Knot , Denbigh were from Tipton, Staffs, that's before border changes put Tipton into the West Midlands

The Denbigh milling machine you describe is possibly the same model as the one I have.

The spindle, as you say, runs in 2 bronze bearings, the front large tapered bearing has a chamfer at the front (also in bronze about 45 degrees) and there is a cap fitted to the spindle that bears against this. I can get some pics and have a closer look, let me know? I have sent you a PM.

Paul

Thanks Paul, obvious now you mention it, I looked at the parts many times and the chamfer at the front simply did not register, I must be getting old! I spent a few hours with some engineers blue, some bearing scrapers and blisters and achieved a very satisfactory result.

Jack. Yes, as pointed out by Paul I failed to recognize that the chamfer at the front of the spindle was the thrust face. My machine is Denbigh Type New B, information on www.lathes. Your machine may not be the same but all tapered bearings need some sort of thrust arrangement to stop the bearing locking up under end pressure, this could be located at the front or back of the spindle. I think there is a photo in my album, let me know what you need. I would be interested in pictures of yours. I wonder if your bearing is Babbit (white metal)?

Dave

Thanks to your post coming up in google, and the shared locking problem i've managed to identify mine ad a Denbigh H4, but oddly it has had a vertical head fitted on the over arm as opposed to the arbor brace, I'm struggling to upload any photo's at the min - both the spindle bearing surface and sleeve are very hard ferrous, I'm wondering if they are cast iron, I seem to remember that cast on cast is self lubricating? I'll upload pics as soon as the site lets me,.

The Lorch lathe that I worked during my apprenticeship,had hardened steel spindle running in hardened sleeve bearings, the steel was glass hard as our boss described them,and they would only run with thin oil,so the mill may have similar bearings.

Edited By jack holmes 1 on 10/12/2015 20:26:14

bearing in second pic- spindle removed from first one - spindle components below

Jack, nice photo's, the front bearing looks like cast iron, appears to be in reasonable condition. Probably worth reusing. I'm fairly sure the Denbigh spindles were all cast steel. My machine has a tapered bronze bush supporting the rear of the spindle (tapers in same direction as front bearing), this is carried in a sleeve with ring nuts at each end for adjustment. I scraped the front bearing to fit using a 1/2 round scraper and Micrometer blue, first the long taper and then the chamfer until the spindle would just fit without binding. I also replaced the original Gitts oilers with Adams type drip feed oilers. Very pleased with result. It's not unusual to have a vertical head fitted to the overarm, many horizontal machines had them fitted by the owners and manufacturers later fitted them. I recently made an adaptor to fit a Bridgeport M head to my machine, it's a bit more useful than the original vertical head and also has about 5" more daylight.

Dave

Cheers Dave, I had a quick scrape at the sleeve on Saturday, the blue showed one very high spot and after gradually working away at it, the bearing now fits a whole lot better- no binding or locking up at all now! It could probably do with a bit more time, and the right tools (I only had a half round file available) but its definatly the way forward

1/2 round bearing scrapers are available from the usual suppliers, not at all expensive. The bearing may compress slightly when you refit it, do a trial fit of the spindle and rescrape if necessary. Spindle and drive pulleys on my machine had never been balanced from new, it's something worth checking.

Dave

Don't overdo the scraping, both tapered faces of that bearing function so if you take too much off the narrow taper the broad taper will not let the spindle enter far enough.