Thread: Early Bridgeport Mill

Hello all,

I found this image while searching for other things and thought it would be of interest to members here,
An early Bridgeport Mill at Packard Feb. 1941. I do like Bridgeports

cheers
Bill

Looks a lot like mine. Although mine is an early '50s round ram.

Thanks for the piccy.

Findlay.

It looks like a close copy of me Bemato..

That's some christmas tree pulley and a nice fine adjustment tool in his hand.
Anyone know whats in the chuck? some sort of centre finder?

Stuart

Those small pulleys are mighty small aren't they Stu!

I bet that design was very floppy, that ram and clevis look like bad news. The later style is bad enough!

Originally Posted by Ueee

Those small pulleys are mighty small aren't they Stu!

I bet that design was very floppy, that ram and clevis look like bad news. The later style is bad enough!

They're fine within their limitations. I've had one for 20 years. Of course they have their limitations but the M head only has a 2MT taper (or a B&S taper of similar size). There's no back gearing so bottom speed is 275 rpm. OTOH top speed is 4000+ rpm IIRC so you can run small cutters at the correct speed.

I fitted a J head to mine to get slower speeds and powered downfeed for boring. Now, *this* is a bridge too far as you can now run much bigger cutters, and the lack of rigidity with deep depths of cut and big face mills becomes evident. I made my adaptor with a flat face as I couldn't remember the last time I nodded the head.

I'm going to put the M head back on mine and move the J head to the overarm of my Vicky mill. Or possibly on an extension snout on one of the HBMs. Kearns provided a factory accessory vertical head for the 'O' models and I quite fancy having one. I'll skip the nod ability again as I have other ways of doing this if I need to.

PDW