Moving and Reassembling the Cincinnati mill - Part 2

Here is the miller reassembled but still without the motor and the vise isn't on the work table. Even though theirs a lot of distraction in this photo, compare the mill's size to the lawn mower in front of it.

Here is the improvised counter shaft with motor and pulleys are installed. And this is the same motor I originally used on the Gingery-designed lathe. Since I'm using a modern motor which is smaller than the original I couldn't mount the "roller" pulley to the motor shaft. I therefore made this bearing assembly which is turned by the motor.

The motor is a 1/2 horsepower motor from a washing machine and is TREMENDOUSLY underpowered for this job. I want a 3 horsepower motor.

Here's a nice size comparison. These are Gingery milling machine castings on the cincinnati mill's table. They are built to the size specified in the book. I cast many of the Gingery milling machine castings back in 2001 or 2002, but the process of scraping the mounting surfaces flat is just too tedious for me. So I set the castings aside.

I intend to see how fast I can build the Gingery milling machine using this milling machine to mill the critical surfaces flat. I also plan to build a new Gingery lathe using this milling machine. And heck I may even use this mill to build the shaper and drill press!

Click photo for a larger view

Here is a base casting from the Gingery milling machine being milled on the top. It's a light cut just to flatten the top for a good fit with the bed casting.

The cutting tool is a blur in this photo but in reality it turns slowly enough to easily follow each cutting tooth with your eyes. I was surprised at how slowly it rotates, but I've never seen a milling machine in use before so what did I know...

Here you can see the result after a light cut taken off the top of half of this Gingery milling machine base casting. This cut was about 1/16" deep. The cutter easily slices through the stub left from the sprue. Clearly a wider cutting tool would be better.

After the top is completely milled flat the casting will be flipped upside down and the bottom milled flat also.

Unfortunetly the bases are the only parts I was able to finish milling. The Y-axis (forward and backward movement) “crapped” out while milling the table. It kept binding and totally locking up. I'm guessing that this problem is why the machine shop I bought this from used this machine exclusively for one type of milling job that didn't require the y-axis!

I attempted to fix the problem unsuccessfully and about 6 months after I bought the machine I sold it to the scrap yard. Now it's off to China to be melted down and recast into a several dozen of those imported mini-mills. The photo is of the milling machine disassembled and toted out the garage on the pallet jack. The jack was completely worth the $41.00 I paid for it. It lifted the machine off the board with the greatest ease and it was simple to pull the load out the garage.

This is all I saved from the machine. The gibs, overarm, draw bar, spindle with spacers and cutter and the vise. I'll probably keep the overarm for myself. You never know when a 3-1/4" diameter 36-3/4" long solid steel bar may be useful as a whole or for pieces. I listed the other parts on Ebay but only sold the arbor and cutter, it went for $26.00 (more than I paid for the machine). The rest is going to the scrapyard.