[How do I?] 1980 Bridgeport Series 1

Congrats on the new to you machineemoji106.pngemoji106.png. There may be very compelling arguments for the other machines but IMO you cant go wrong with the classic BP. I would consider just getting a servo 140 feed or clone of. vs messing with fixing the original power feed. I think need for repair and adjustment of the flat springs on the BP quill is very common. It was one of the few things I needed to fix when I brought mine home. Would have been much easier having the repair manual when taking it apart though. A little head scratching and mechanical common sense later I was able to get it back together and working but that darn spring popped and unwound on me several times. emoji57.pngAbout the fine quill feed hand wheels, I agree not many people use them and they get lost or tossed. Thats why when I went to look at my mill and saw it had one still attached I knew that machine was a keeper! I looked for quite awhile to find one that wasn't abused, neglected, clapped out and needing a total overhaul. Check out this tool porn. Original paint....


Hi Cheeseking,

Wow, was it even used when you got it? Very nice machine!

Mine has a lot of mileage on it because it was used to make jigs etc... for the company's big cnc machines. I was in awe the first time I went to look at this machine because of all of their equipment. I bought it from Tucker Technologies in Tucker, GA. and they are about 20 miles from me. Here is a LINK to their equipment list. They make and refurbish jet engine turbine blades. It is a plain jane brick building and from the street you would not think all that equipment would be in there.

I found this at Amazon.com ; 2 Spoked Black Powder Coated Aluminum Dished Hand Wheel, 5" Diameter, 3/8" Hole Diameter. It comes with the handle and it is made very well. The handle it came with is a metal revolving handle! Best of all it was only $11.96.

Amazon.com also had the Bridgeport BP 12193433 Feed-Reverse Knob. Now all I need to do is drill the wheel to the appropriate diameter, drill the hole for the pin and done. I wonder if anyone has ever drilled out the pin hole to a larger size, tap it and the wheel then run a thumb or other type of screw into it to hold it in place? The same size screw that the feed reverse knob has could be used for the tapped pin hole. Just a thought :encourage:.

I have a question for anyone reading this... I dropped a tram ring on the table and hooked up my dial test. If you are standing in from the of mill, the table looks like it has four bars with t-slots between them. The back three bars are flush, but the bar in the front closest to the operator was high.

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I have a question for anyone reading this... I dropped a tram ring on the table and hooked up my dial test. If you are standing in from the of mill, the table looks like it has four bars with t-slots between them. The back three bars are flush, but the bar in the front closest to the operator was high.


Define ''high''. Is that condition the same for the length of the table, or is it just local to the center(ish) section?
 
So does the tram ring sit flat without rocking? ie- your not sitting on a ding or burr in the table top. How much is it out .001 or .100 ? Gib locks on the knee/table tight? If everything else is good you may need to adjust the nod of the head slightly to eliminate the "high" in front.
Not sure which X feed unit you have but BP/Hardinge website has the exploded diagrams and parts list. 6F and 8F? If not there's tons of places on the web to find a manual may even have one here in the downloads section. As far as a "how to" instruction I'm not sure but I recall a guy selling step by step BP rebuilding manual.
Here some links might help you
http://bbssystem.com/viewtopic.php?t=62&sid=67c0345201a33d44227495a4c701b38d
http://cncmanual.com/bridgeport-j-head-series-i-mill-rebuild/ (has a section on the quill which might be useful to you)

I stumbled across my mill on CL at a vocational HS that was shutting down their machine shop and selling all the equipment. Anecdotaly I was told the machine was only used by the instructors but who knows. I use mine but definitely keep it cleaned and oiled.
 
Define ''high''. Is that condition the same for the length of the table, or is it just local to the center(ish) section?

When the dial tester swings around from 8 O'Clock around to 4 O'Clock the height s the same. Once it passes 4 O'Clock and hits the closest bar (between 5 O'clock and 7 O'Clock ) the dial test shows that part of the table is higher than the rest of the table.
 
So does the tram ring sit flat without rocking? ie- your not sitting on a ding or burr in the table top. How much is it out .001 or .100 ? Gib locks on the knee/table tight? If everything else is good you may need to adjust the nod of the head slightly to eliminate the "high" in front.
Not sure which X feed unit you have but BP/Hardinge website has the exploded diagrams and parts list. 6F and 8F? If not there's tons of places on the web to find a manual may even have one here in the downloads section. As far as a "how to" instruction I'm not sure but I recall a guy selling step by step BP rebuilding manual.
Here some links might help you
http://bbssystem.com/viewtopic.php?t=62&sid=67c0345201a33d44227495a4c701b38d
http://cncmanual.com/bridgeport-j-head-series-i-mill-rebuild/ (has a section on the quill which might be useful to you)

I stumbled across my mill on CL at a vocational HS that was shutting down their machine shop and selling all the equipment. Anecdotaly I was told the machine was only used by the instructors but who knows. I use mine but definitely keep it cleaned and oiled.


Best I can tell the tram ring does sit flat with no rocking. However ! I did not try to slip a gauge in between the ring and the table. That would have shown a gap if the front is indeed higher, which I believe it is. What I did was really more of a cursory check and I was not trying to measure the difference to the thousandth .

Also to answer Jim, I did not check the entire table just the table centered under the quill. I would need to go out in the garage to check which gauge I was using rather what the measurement of the gauge.
 
OK, based on your description so far it seems the the head is just slightly out of tram. Doesn't sound like a table problem. If it's within 0.001 or so, it's close enough. You could chase zeros, but will never be perfect.
 
OK, based on your description so far it seems the the head is just slightly out of tram. Doesn't sound like a table problem. If it's within 0.001 or so, it's close enough. You could chase zeros, but will never be perfect.

If you imagine the slots have numbers, rear slot #3, middle #2 and front slot #1... As the indicator passes #2 towards #1 it begins to move on either side of the tram ring.

I know I am going to get this wrong... My indicator measures .0001 and the indicator showed 34 on the dial. So that would be .0034 , or .00034? I always get it confused.
 
I know I am going to get this wrong... My indicator measures .0001 and the indicator showed 34 on the dial. So that would be .0034 , or .00034? I always get it confused.

I'm going to say it's reading 0.0034 unless you have 5 digits.

Check the readings at 12, 6 and 3, 9 Don't worry about 4, 8. So far it really sounds like the ''nod'' is off a bit. You just need to adjust it. After traveling, if the head was in tram I would be amazed.

To adjust the nod, loosen the three bolts (blue arrow), and adjust using the worm screw (red arrow)

To adjust the rotation, loosen the four bolts on the front of the head (green arrow) and adjust using the adjuster screw (cyan arrow)

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Thank you ! This will help tremendously. I agree it is probably just out of tram. I don't remember the measurements, but on both sides there was an increase as the DT moved towards the front.
 
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