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  1. #1
    BobL is offline Member: Blue and white apron brigade
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    Default Finally got myself a small mill!

    Well after years of procrastination I finally decided to get myself a small mill and I hope I can pick it up later today.

    It's a Hercus 0 that has been supposedly been sort of refurbished and was being sold by a retired former local Hercus Agent working out the back of Fiora Machinery in Cannington. No tooling or vertical head unfortunately, but the main thing I want it for is trimming and squaring up smallish pieces and cutting slots and flats etc. AN important consideration was that it is small enough to get through the 30 m long very narrow path down the side of the house and into the shed and then to actually fit it into my shed. There will need to be some rearrangement, shortening of a work table and disposal of stuff to fit it into the shed in the first place.

    I had though about getting something like the small mill drill like we have at the mens shed but it has to be one of the most soul-less pieces of MW gear I have had to deal with. Anyway for me, it's mostly about the voyage of farting around and getting useful stuff out of it.

    More importantly, local MW guru "Anorak Bob" has an Hercus 0 so it gives me even more of an excuse to chew more MW fat with him and an starting the process later this week.

    Long, long shot, if anyone has a vertical angle head or a dud mill with a working vertical head that you would be willing to sell I'd be keen to know about it.

    Pics later today if I get a chance to pick it up.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Mar 2011
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    Dural NSW
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    Bob
    I have owned one of these Hercus O Mills for about 25 yrs or so.
    Its a great little Mill & I have swapped notes with Anorak Bob on many projects.
    Sorry I cannot help you with any of the attachments you are after, but will keep my ear to the ground.
    All the best.
    Bruce

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Oct 2011
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    Sydney, NSW
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    Hi Bob,

    I've had my mill for several years now. The small footprint and size is a great feature. Sometimes it's a little too small. I'm considering moving mine on (I can finally afford something bigger - both financially and knowing we aren't going to move again for awhile).

    Ben.

  4. #4
    BobL is offline Member: Blue and white apron brigade
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    Now for inevitable scrounge/hunt/purchase of tooling etc.
    Any suggestions for places to puchase from?

  5. #5
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    sydney ( st marys )
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    EBay,Gumtree,Alixpress,Alibaba,markets,garage sales,industrial suppliers etc.

  6. #6
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    Bob
    I mentioned I would keep my "ear to the ground", anyway I dug out from my filing records a contact I purchased some extras for my Hercus O Mill.
    The contact is Ferrett Machinery Services, contact Gary Ferrett ph/fax 0297346800 mob 0417218255 email [email protected]
    Not sure if he still in business however could be worth a try !!!
    All the best
    Bruce

  7. #7
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    Oct 2001
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    ACT
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    Default

    great little milling machines, well done on the purchase.

    You can do a remarkable amount with a horizontal mill, either with the cutter directly into the spindle with collets or by using the overhead arm and arbor with side/face cutters.

    Cheers

  8. #8
    BobL is offline Member: Blue and white apron brigade
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    I posted this last night but either I did not hit save or it seems to have vaporised, so here we go again.

    I picked the mill up yesterday.
    Early run through rush hour to pick up the trailer at my sons place - of course it was full of rubbishso trip to the recycling centre to dispose of that (that's my rental fee for storing the trailer at his place - no room at our place).
    Then a trip to pick up an engine crane, but it was in use till 2pm so I did some grocery shopping and walked the dogs for a bit.
    Pick up crane and head out to pick up the mill and a bloke there with fork lift says he'll put it in the trailer for me but he's busy and I'll have to wait - almost about to get the crane out when he comes back.
    Home by 3pm and time to get the engine crane out and it was easy enough to get the small (~230kg) mill off.

    Then I have to get it down the narrow side of the house - nowhere near enough room for the engine crane down there so I got out an old dust collector trolley and as you can see it sagged a bit under teh weight of teh mill.
    IMG_3004.jpg
    so I added some more pieces of along timber to spread the weight - see photo below.

    Then these are the narrow gaps we had to traverse.
    Firstly this bit with the rough brick paving - the gate is 770 mm wide but we made it, easy peasy.
    I had the neighbour help steady the mill as it was moving a little from side to side.
    IMG_3007.jpg

    The area with the smoother paving till right down the back there had some gaps between the pavers we had to avoid.
    You can see a small stump on the left hand side of teh path. That tree was about 5m tall and was really restricting access and had started to split the Fibre cement fence so fortunately it had to go and was conveniently taken out about a month ago.
    IMG_3008.jpg

    And finally under the back veranda till I sort out some space in the shed.
    IMG_3005.jpg

    I'm pretty pleased we managed to get it this far because I thought I might have to take it apart.

    IMG_3006.jpg
    Last edited by BobL; 10th Nov 2020 at 08:44 AM.

  9. #9
    BobL is offline Member: Blue and white apron brigade
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    Was tied up with family stuff this morning but managed to get cracking after lunch.

    Semi major chuck out of crap in the shed - mainly bits and pieces of wood and metal, and managed to squirrel away some more stuff under the house.

    This was the obstacle course I had to contend with out the back
    IMG_3015.jpg
    I have laid out sheets of marine ply and taken light weight machines on wheels direct across the lawn but this time I decided to go the longer way around as I did not have enough ply to go all the way across the lawn and didn't feel like doing the ply shuffle.

    I had a closer look at the mill and decided it was going to have to a bit of a birthday, and have the motor and wiring completely replaced anyway so I stripped off the top, the table top, electrics suds pump and motor, which lightened it enough so that I noticed when moving it.

    It was now light enough that I didn't need the neighbors help - I could even lift one end of the trolley and mill up the small steps involved to get through the doorway of the shed.
    IMG_3013.jpg

    Getting it off the trolley was easy as the trolley was nearly bottoming onto the floor so I just incrementally rocked and seesawed the mill off. As you can see the poor old trolley has developed a bit of a bow.
    I use that trolley mainly to move sheet goods and it should still be able to do that.
    IMG_3014.jpg

    Inside the shed I used some 38 mm steel pins literally "from the back of a truck" to move it into position - that bit was easy.

    And here it is, in its close to final resting place.
    I'll have to find a another place for the Anvil but it can stay there for the time being while I refurb the mill.
    I'm going to put some HD feet on it so I can level it and also so the motor can be above and extend over the bench behind it .
    IMG_3016.jpg

    I know its only a little mil but the shed now seems to have some sort of semi completeness about it that it never had before.
    The funs or frustration starts here - I think?

  10. #10
    Join Date
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    Thanks for the write up on the delivery of your mill, Bob. I wish my mill was as light, I used an engine crane to move my mill from under the carport to the shed, at the 1.25 tonne point it could lift it but not at the 1 tonne mark.
    I think the knee and table go around the 250kg mark, while the vise is about 40 kg as I can just lift and carry.
    You're right, a shed's not a shed, unless its got a MILL.
    Kryn
    To grow old is mandatory, growing up is optional.

  11. #11
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    Looks good Bob.

    I don't think we discussed your motor replacement yesterday so I'm wondering why you would be keen to swap the ASEA for something else. Star/Delta conversions are something you can do blindfolded.

    Let me know if you need a hand with the removal of the arbor.

    Bob.

  12. #12
    BobL is offline Member: Blue and white apron brigade
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    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Anorak Bob View Post
    Looks good Bob.

    I don't think we discussed your motor replacement yesterday so I'm wondering why you would be keen to swap the ASEA for something else. Star/Delta conversions are something you can do blindfolded.
    I meant to tell you about this yesterday and it's all part of the issue with VFDs limited max power ranges.
    At less than 50Hz the motor running on a conventional VFD can only develop power proportional to the frequency.
    So at 25Hz (half of 50Hz) the motor can only develop 1/2 the power, and at 12.5Hz it can only develop 1/4 power etc.
    Below about 10 Hz power drops off even faster so that on some VFDs, 5Hz can bare turn the motor/machine over. On my WW lathe for example the belt/pulley friction is sufficient to stop it running at about 8 Hz.

    By using a Vector Drive VFD this improves things considerably.
    AT 25Hz the moor now delivers ~2/3 the full power, at 12.5Hz it still develops about 1/2 full power and as low as 5Hz you have 1/3rd original power

    An additional way to improve things is to use a more powerful motor.
    If the machine originally used a 1/2HP motor, doubling the motor power and using a vector drive VFD does the following
    12.5 - 120 Hz : >0.5HP
    5 - 12.5 : >0.3 HP
    This greatly improves the range of speeds over which a machine generates useable power.
    I have the same setup on my lathe and I find I rarely have to change gears in high range.

    Let me know if you need a hand with the removal of the arbor.
    OK - I'll give it a crack and if unsuccessful I'll give you a call.

  13. #13
    BobL is offline Member: Blue and white apron brigade
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    In between visiting Anorak Bob and working on the Dust Collector impeller and other projects I've had little time to get to the mill but yesterday I finally managed to get the MT3 arbor out. Bob suggested heat and a good belting but I did not want to use a flame so instead I used a 650șC hot air gun and my large Rock Oak mallet and it finally came out. It was dead dry in there and probably had never come out since it was purchased.

    In between Dust Collector impeller vibe testing I have been also looking at the mill lube pump.

    The pump head/impeller housing was an encrusted ball of Ca, rust and Al corrosion product embedded with some lube residue? I had soaked it overnight in CLR but that did nothing so I tried vinegar and that sort of softened the corrosion a bit. I was reluctant to use anything stronger as the impeller looks like it's made of cast Al.

    I finally applied a bench grinder mounted fine wire wheel which fair ripped the corrosion off the outside enough for me to get to the screws that hold the impeller housing onto the motor (Steel screws threaded into the Al Impeller body) but these did not move so I applied some heat and a soak in various penetrants but that did nothing so when I went to try to get then out the heads snapped off.

    Anyway I was then inside the impeller which was chokka with corrosion product, more soaking in vinegar which softened the corrosion and it eventually crumbled away and I could just finally manually turn the impeller so could take it all apart. I tested the (pump motor 415V) motor using a 240V 3P VFD and it runs fine. The VFD and motor draw ~200 mA (some of that is the VFD) which is interesting because the motor current rating on 415V is supposed to be 190 mA.

    Now I need to get the broken screws out of the impeller housing and reassemble everything. It will be interesting to see the current draw under load when the pump is running in fluid.

  14. #14
    BobL is offline Member: Blue and white apron brigade
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    Continuing with the bottom of the mill and working my way up.

    Yesterday being mother's day and today was babysitting day so not much time to fiddle with the mill but in between various duties I did some electrolysis.

    The first thing was an old angle plate that AB gave me last week.
    No before photo unfortunately but it was fully red/brown rust and after four hours of electrolysis (which also took the external grey-green enamel paint off the non contact sides, but strangely not the red paint in the T-slots)
    2.5A @6V for about 4 hours. Na2CO3 electrolyte. Carbon Arc Rods as negative electrodes.
    No orange/red scum is produced with this method so the negative terminal never needs cleaning.
    H2 and 02 production is minimised so risk of explosion is reduced
    Electrolyte can be left to stand whereby black iron oxide precipitates out of solution so electrolyte can be reused more or less indefinitely.

    AnglePlate4.jpg

    and a light polish on a scotchbrite wheel.
    AB is going to resurface the two contact sides of the Angle plate with his gear in a couple of days time - thanks AB.

    AnglePlate.jpg

    Next was the coolant lube tank

    Before - ie pretty rusty - no holes and plenty of meal left so well worth doing.
    RustyTank.jpg

    The electrolysis was performed in situ.
    Thee negative was connected to the tank itself and two Positive (Carbon Rod) electrodes placed inside the two sections of the tank.
    To prevent shorting the rods onto the tank, the ends were placed inside small teflon beakers and some HDPE was used to prevent the ends of the rods falling into the electrolyte.
    Here you can see how little froth/scum is produced after 4 hours and how clean the froth is.

    OldTank.jpg

    After about 4 hours I stopped the process and scraped out all the loose crud that had come off the walls of the tank and then restated the process for another 4 hours.
    I could have used a higher current but the power supply was getting hot and I didn't want to push it - I eventually put a 100mm computer fan onto the heat sink of the PS.

    As usual, within minutes of removing the power, emptying out and rinsing off the electrolyte off the steel started to rust again.
    This was after about and hour drying in the sun.
    Electrolysis.jpg

    So I poured a half a cup of tannic acid into the tank and swirled that around and after doing this 3 times and letting it dry in the sun in between cups, it looked like this - shown alongside the before electrolysis shot.
    BEforeandafter.jpg

    The black/brown iron tannate layer should prevent further rusting till I decide what to coat it with.
    Anyone have any suggestions.
    I was thinking just using a couple of coats of industrial enamel?
    Would epoxy or PU be better?

  15. #15
    BobL is offline Member: Blue and white apron brigade
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    The vector drive VFD for the mill arrived yesterday and rather than go through the fitting of a new motor, for the time being I decided to have a look at the Existing motor and see how tricky it would be to convert. Turns out it was a doddle because the Star point was right there inside the mains motor connection box (See red arrow) and there was just enough wiring accessible to add the necessary extensions to reconfigure into ∆ mode. It seems to run nice and smooth although I have not run it in the mill yet.

    I'd also like to publicly acknowledge Anorak Bobs assistance with answering my plague of questions and making helpful suggestions about the mill as well and giving me some relevant gear from his amazing stash of stuff.

    motor.jpg

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