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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Jan 2004
    Location
    Mackay North Qld
    Posts
    6,446

    Default H & F machines in schools

    Rather than rudely jump in on another thread about the H &F machines I thought it better to start my own as I would like to add my comments on this subject.

    I hope it may be may be helpful to make forum readers to be aware of the H &F machines.

    Given our time over as a major purchaser of engineering machinery we ( High school engineering department) would not choose H&F again.

    Our machines are 3 years old and would average 8 to 10 working hrs per week

    5 x 350mm x 1.5m 3 ph lathes
    2 x 8 speed geared head drills 3 ph
    2 x 350mm pedestal grinders 3 ph
    2 x hyd presses 10 & 15 ton
    1 x 32mm blade bandsaw -250 diam capacity big sucker.
    1 x HM 52 Mill with Eaton DRO
    1x 1200 x 1.6 treadle operated guillotine.
    I would point out that the following problems were not due to student misuse,though to be fair there has been some of that as well.

    As you can see the purchase of this mount of machinery would have been substantial, but having made contact with them about the quality problems we find their response lukewarm and not helpful.

    The saw and the mill are the only units that have not needed major work.I believe this is because they have only been used minimally.

    The electrical controls on their machines are crap.

    One of the lathes suffered a relay fault and could not be stopped short of switching off the circuit box breakers.Not a safe situation when dealing with students and learners.

    We are fortunate enough to have the services of an electrical mechanical engineer.

    This fellow has advised us the 2000 rpm spindle capability of the lathes will cause premature bearing or gearbox failure as the 14" 4 jaws are not meant to spin that fast.I am dreading the time when the head stock bearings will collapse as I can see a $1K a piece for the lathes.

    The guillotine blade when viewed from above above has a 20 thou bow in it as the recess in the moving blade receptacle is miscast and badly machined.
    It spent a month at the local engineering works and after a $1000 worth of work is still only fit to be a boat anchor.

    The grinder wheels were chinese and very soft and abraded away very quickly and were very poorly balanced.

    With new schools setting up engineering shops in our our are we took the trouble to advise them of the the potential pitfalls of buying cheap.

    Hopefully this information can assist any potential machinery buyer and perhaps they may may be persuaded to look a bit harder at all of the alternatives.

    Grahame

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Jun 2007
    Location
    sydney ( st marys )
    Age
    64
    Posts
    4,887

    Default

    Not knowing anything about how a Government or Private learning institution gets there money or makes decisions on purchase,would it be advisable or practical for future replacement machine tools to put out Tenders stateing what is required of each machine .

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Aug 2008
    Location
    near Rockhampton
    Posts
    6,216

    Default

    Unless that 14" 4 jaw is a steel chuck which is most unlikely you run a real risk of exploding them at 2000rpm from centrifugal forces...

    None of what you have mentioned has surprised me... Every one every where seems to say the same thing about the cheap chinese machines, nearly every one has problems somewhere..

    Quality costs money and when you buy something at the lowest price you get what you pay for...

    Your post that makes me feel a bit better about spending what I did on my lathe...

    I am of the belief that if the manufacturer has the balls to put their name on the machine you get a higher quality one then just one that has been badged by the seller..

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Apr 2010
    Location
    Rural Victoria
    Posts
    358

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by .RC. View Post
    Quality costs money and when you buy something at the lowest price you get what you pay for...
    QED

    No doubt some potentially brilliant engineers will be turned off by these experiences and will end up wasting their days in middle management.

    However it is good to see some schools are taking these trades somewhat seriously. A lot of high school engineering workshops were closed in the 80's and 90's which no doubt created today's skill shortage. My school was one of them.

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Mar 2010
    Location
    Nth Qld
    Posts
    687

    Default

    It might be cheaper to buy secondhand Hercus 260's and get them sent to Hercus for a bed regrind. If I recall correctly a belt drive head 260 was around $6k in the early 80's so trying to replace it today with an equivalent machine would cost say triple that, there were prices posted in the Hercus forum. Alternatively the Taiwanese built South Bend 10" looks well built, at least they empty the sand from the castings before assembly.

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Jul 2010
    Location
    Riverina NSW
    Posts
    169

    Default

    Yeah we have machines from there at work and they are ####, wouldnt buy any myself, better off forking out a bit more cash

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Aug 2008
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    near Rockhampton
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    6,216

    Default

    I know some commonwealth TAFE establishments in NSW bought the same lathe I have except in the short bed models... They probably had more money to splash around as well...

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Jan 2004
    Location
    Mackay North Qld
    Posts
    6,446

    Default

    Part of the problem is that many of the people who buy the engineering machinery ( at least in the Queensland State high school system,anyway) are not from the appropriate trades.The Hods who do the buying are at the mercy of the vendors,could well carpenters and be buying for the engineering shop.
    They have no idea that H&F is quite willing to sell them H&F generic ( carbide insert) tooling AND FAIL TO POINT OUT that no one else has the spares.Once their cherubs bugger up the initial reserves of spare inserts and tooling,it takes time money and effort to secure the spares.
    Machinery spares proper are hard to get as well.Spares like a drawbar that the kids chewed up the thread were a 4 month wait.

    I could not afford to have machinery offline for that amount of time and fabricated a new threaded end for it to get it going .

    Time and money are in short supply for teachers and lathes often sit unused for far too long because local tooling spares could not be purchased.When the kids finally buggerd the last of the H&F tooling we went over to standard industry tooling and had no probs since.The local vendors rep even came out and run an inservice for the students ( and their teacher)

    With many the belief is,that carbide inserts are the only way to go. I think differently to this and train my kids to use HSS first then expose them to inserts later, in yr 12 .

    Also hopefully when mine leave they will also be capable of sharpening their own twist drill bits as well as the HSS tools.

    Grahame

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Apr 2010
    Location
    Rural Victoria
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    358

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Grahame Collins View Post
    Part of the problem is that many of the people who buy the engineering machinery ( at least in the Queensland State high school system,anyway) are not from the appropriate trades.The Hods who do the buying are at the mercy of the vendors,could well carpenters and be buying for the engineering shop.
    They have no idea that H&F is quite willing to sell them H&F generic ( carbide insert) tooling AND FAIL TO POINT OUT that no one else has the spares.Once their cherubs bugger up the initial reserves of spare inserts and tooling,it takes time money and effort to secure the spares.
    Machinery spares proper are hard to get as well.Spares like a drawbar that the kids chewed up the thread were a 4 month wait.

    I could not afford to have machinery offline for that amount of time and fabricated a new threaded end for it to get it going .

    Time and money are in short supply for teachers and lathes often sit unused for far too long because local tooling spares could not be purchased.When the kids finally buggerd the last of the H&F tooling we went over to standard industry tooling and had no probs since.The local vendors rep even came out and run an inservice for the students ( and their teacher)

    With many the belief is,that carbide inserts are the only way to go. I think differently to this and train my kids to use HSS first then expose them to inserts later, in yr 12 .

    Also hopefully when mine leave they will also be capable of sharpening their own twist drill bits as well as the HSS tools.

    Grahame
    I wished I'd been in your class!

    Our metalshop teacher was sacked when I was in year 9. You see, he gave us free reign on our projects. We had to learn how to grind tooling and sharpen drill bits first though.

    Some of the kids wanted to make knives, however, this guy was smart. He told these potential Rambos the only way to make a knife was to use an old file, and then shape it with another file.

    Years later I realised what he had done. Of course most of the kids gave up after a few sessions of futility, and decided to build other things.

    However, the damage had been done. Obviously one of the students blabbed about what they were making to their ignorant and emotional parents and in the resulting hysteria the school found a scapegoat. I never got to build my project, a model steam engine.

    The teacher was not replaced. I believe metalwork wasn't taught again right up until the school was closed and demolished early in the new century.

    Despite the school's best efforts at sabotaging my career I worked my way into the engineering industry anyway. Most of my knowledge is self taught, and supplemented (sometimes even corrected!) by the teachers in my night classes at TAFE.

    Regardless of the 'trend' or 'fashion' in state education my children will have access to the machines in my workshop. The steam engine(s) might have to become a father and son and/or daughter project. If I can find the time!

    Maybe there a lot of lathes and milling machines in people's sheds because of denied opportunities and lost human potential?

    I didn't know what I wanted to do when I was younger. However some kids might find their direction in these classes, and it is abysmal to see them having to learn on crap machines, when they are available at all. Is the future of Australia's engineering sector worth so little?

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Jan 2004
    Location
    Mackay North Qld
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    Default

    Gerbilsquasher
    You would have loved the air motor I had my year 10s, build a couple of years ago.

    I did not have the courage to do a steam engine as there are too opportunities for the near do wells to misuse heat and steam.

    They built it all from scratch using stock easily and locally obtained.They had to produce a functioning reciprocal motor.
    We then tuned the motor by adding ball bearings and friction reducing materials.

    The boss bought us a hand held tacho and we had rev out competitions and did things like gauge how good the construction was by reducing the air pressure bit by bit until they finally stopped running.

    The well built motors had the higher revs and still could get down to 20 lbs pressure and still run. The best ran at about 2500 rpm until the flywheel (exciting!!) came off. The motor basically fitted in the palm of your hand.

    All done on a 260 Hercus and Std Man arts workshop equipment

    If you or the kids are interested I'll hunt up the photos.

    Grahame

  11. #11
    Join Date
    Jun 2007
    Location
    Ipswich QLD
    Age
    68
    Posts
    1,996

    Default

    Grahame an interesting thread as I understand that its not left to each school or teacher to buy in machines a its a bulk buy situation. Yet many a person relishes in these same machines as hobby or small workshop machines so is it a case of Gov dept is doing dirt cheap deals with no back up. Having seen so many stories on this forum of H&F's coming out to homes to fix a problem

    What would you buy in remembering that these machines stand idle for 3 months of the year, get abused by students, back up by vendors is required.

    I ask the above as I am looking at purchasing a hobby lathe.

  12. #12
    Join Date
    Mar 2008
    Location
    nowra
    Posts
    1,598

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    wow Grahame i wish i went to your school all we make is boxes and now we are making packing for a product at school
    although i get an almost free rein of the metal room because i am the only kid at our school who can use a lathe or mill so the teacher lets me do project at lunch and during sport

  13. #13
    Join Date
    Mar 2010
    Location
    Nth Qld
    Posts
    687

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    Is is possible for the school staff to have any choice in the purchasing decision?. Surely it would be better to have smaller quantities of better machines to begin with and maybe supplement them with fund raising or grants. In Qld there is a community fund from gambling where a percentage of the profit has to be put back into the community: our local clubs benefit with funding for airconditioning and equipment. If there are similar funds in your area it may be possible make a submission and buy some equipment. Possibly a club may need to be formed or something similar to be eligible, I don't know for sure. You also could start one of those "Men's Sheds" after hours and offer courses for fundraising with the club sponsoring the school. http://www.mensshed.org/page9407/Que...Shed-List.aspx

  14. #14
    Join Date
    Apr 2010
    Location
    Rural Victoria
    Posts
    358

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    Quote Originally Posted by Grahame Collins View Post
    Gerbilsquasher
    You would have loved the air motor I had my year 10s, build a couple of years ago.

    I did not have the courage to do a steam engine as there are too opportunities for the near do wells to misuse heat and steam.

    They built it all from scratch using stock easily and locally obtained.They had to produce a functioning reciprocal motor.
    We then tuned the motor by adding ball bearings and friction reducing materials.

    The boss bought us a hand held tacho and we had rev out competitions and did things like gauge how good the construction was by reducing the air pressure bit by bit until they finally stopped running.

    The well built motors had the higher revs and still could get down to 20 lbs pressure and still run. The best ran at about 2500 rpm until the flywheel (exciting!!) came off. The motor basically fitted in the palm of your hand.

    All done on a 260 Hercus and Std Man arts workshop equipment

    If you or the kids are interested I'll hunt up the photos.

    Grahame
    I'd be very interested, thankyou very much.

    I've been interested in building something like this ever since I what my mate's grandfather built using his old Myford he had in his garage. He built two, one a horizontal oscillater and a vertical double acting.

    He was a retired aeronautical engineer and he had one motor driving his lathe and an air compressor. Unfortunately he died while I was still in primary school and much too soon to share his knowledge.

    We did discover that compressed air drove these little engines just as good as steam.

  15. #15
    Join Date
    Jul 2006
    Location
    Athelstone, SA 5076
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    4,255

    Default

    I dont think you can lay the blame solely at H&F

    Lots of other suppliers provide same or similar crap....I know I have one

    I have always told my self ..Dont byuy crap...but then sometimes its all I can afford...but in the end reality thats false economics....

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