I bought a mill!
 

After several years of casually looking for a Bridgeport style mill, I finally got serious and bought one last weekend. It is a Willis model 1050 knee mill. It was built in 2007 or 2008. It has a 10”x50” table, 3hp motor, variable speed, quick change pneumatic drawbar, X axis power feed, way oiler pump, work light, and digital readout on X and Y axis. It’s a tight machine with flawless ways, less than 0.020” backlash in the lead screws, and the table doesn’t have a single mark on it. It currently has a 6” riser on top of the column that I’m going to remove.

When I plugged the readout cables back into the box, the X scale wasn’t reading correctly and the numbers were jumping around. I cleaned the scale and reader and now it works fine.

Holy smokes! That's no "home hobby" machine!

Congratulations on a great acquisition. I have a smaller hobby mill and I'm not sure what I'd do without it. I can only imagine what I could do with yours!

Did you get much tooling with it?

It’s actually a little larger than a Bridgeport mill and about 400lbs heavier. I’ve been running this style mill for 30 yrs so I wanted to have what I’m accustomed to using. I didn’t get any tooling with it, just a set of cheap R8 collets.

Nice find! :beerchug:
I'm envious, you have a power collet and a power cross feed.
Assuming you are going to build a phase converter, rotary or static?
I built a static one out of old motor capacitors.
It also drives my vintage flat belt drill press when needed.
You are going to spend more on "tooling" than you paid for it eventually.
Ha,LOL

I cut my teeth on a brand new round arm Bridgeport in High School back in '61
Vivid memory of my machine shop teacher cranking the X and Y axis,
with Redman chew in his jaw.
One hell of a teacher!!
You won't see that in these politically correct days.
Ain't much one cannot make or do on a mill.:biggrin2:

My problem is learning how to use them. I have a smithy combination unit, but I've never used the mill function. Granted, I've only had it for a few months.

The lathe has saved my bacon once already on a CC driveshaft. :beerchug:

The people over on " practical machinist" forum are great, if you haven't visited there.
I've had my 1918 south bend lathe for exactly 50 years, bought it from the original owner. who gave me a 30" Rockford shaper as a gift,
its about the same age.
I don't use the shaper much but when I need it, it is priceless.

I've read posts from that forum, but never joined.

The only time I've seen a shaper in action is YouTube. Quite the machine. :beerchug:

Very nice! I one day will add one in my garage. Make sure you anchor the base to the concrete floor once it finds its final resting place!

Until you load something too heavy on the table and it tips over on its side. Seen that before!!

What are you going to clamp on there to tip it, another mill? :biggrin2:

When I was an apprentice the shop I was working in occasionally did some casting work. A senior machinist had to drill and tap some NPT holes at 45 degrees, his setup had the head kicked over and the mass of the casting slightly off center on the machine table, as he wheeled it to right in "x" to check clearances the machine tipped over and fell on its face. Wish I had a picture of that one! Thankfully nobody was hurt, it happened in the blink of an eye. While it was an extreme for the machine and by all rights outside of the capacity I've always thought it is good insurance and have been pro-anchor bolts from that point on!

Ok,
I stand EDUCATED!
One is never too old to learn!
I removed my post so as not to advise someone into doing an unsafe act. :beerchug:

Cheers friend! :beerchug:

Got the mill running a few weeks ago. I used a 5hp VFD to get 3-phase power. It is housed inside a Fat 50 cal ammo can on the back of the mill base. The original drum switch is wired into the inputs of the drive to control Fwd, Rev and stop. The head was a little noisy which turned out to be a worn key and bushings in the variable speed motor pulley. I epoxied new plastic bushings into the pulley and made a new bronze key. Now, the mill is much quieter.

Changed up the wiring on the mill. I added a line reactor before the VFD to hopefully eliminate faults caused by voltage spikes from the incoming power. There was a digital readout on the quill that didn’t work, so I put on a new one. I also tightened up the gibs and the lead screw backlash.

I recently added a power feed unit to the knee. It is much nicer raising and lowering the table now.

What have you been machining lately?

I still haven't needed the mill, I do need the lathe about twice a year for some sort of project or another :D

I’ve mostly been using the mill to make tools. My biggest project was building a cutter grinder to sharpen endmills. I recently built a 24” brake for my shop press.

That’s some impressive work!!