Thread: Unusual Mill - Zimmerman

This has been passed in at least a couple of times, so I don't think I'm spoiling anyone's fun: friedrich zimmerman milling machine fz - 2 manuf 1969. Nothing on the "page title" site; a few dealer listings was all I could find. My question is: what where these mills designed for? Looks like large workpieces, but relatively light cutting. Looks like what a round-column mill-drill wants to be when it grows up.

I just read some of the blurb on the Zimmermann website. It seems they were made for patternmaking and model making.
Joe

Oops. How I failed to see that in a search I have no idea. That's embarrassing. I guess I was assuming they were obsolete and saw what I expected to see. Thanks Joe.

Took me a while to remember where I had seen these before , but Joe just pinged my memory when he said pattern making .
We had two of these in the pattern makers shop at one place where I worked , they used them mostly for making wooden patterns for casting .
IIRC one had a copy attachment or a pantograph set up so they could make multiples of the same patterns .
I never actually ever saw them working ,I only visited the pattern shop to get off cuts of the timber (Jelutong ) that they used ,to make fishing lures from.

Kev

Thanks Kev. Makes sense.

As above - commonly seen in Patternshops, I used one when I did my apprenticeship..... Essentially a milling machine used mostly for wood, aluminium & other softer materials......, typically larger items.