1981 Supermax YC-1 1/2VA mill (BP clone)

[Richard King 2]

Supermax now goes by YCM . I suspect you can buy parts from Sharp, First Machinery and Acer as they are also Taiwanese Bridgeport copies. A friend of mine repairs and sells parts for Bridgeport and Acer mills. Next time you need a part or some advice send him and email or call. http://www.besmermachinery.com/

 

[motormech1]

Supermax now goes by YCM . I suspect you can buy parts from Sharp, First Machinery and Acer as they are also Taiwanese Bridgeport copies. A friend of mine repairs and sells parts for Bridgeport and Acer mills. Next time you need a part or some advice send him and email or call. http://www.besmermachinery.com/

Awesome, thanks Richard! Yeah, I'm finding that they're almost all the same. Another brand I found is Kent USA. Should've done a little more digging before ordering Bridgeport parts but I think I'll use them since I already have them.
I'll definitely be in touch with your friend.

 

[Richard King 2]

Awesome, thanks Richard! Yeah, I'm finding that they're almost all the same. Another brand I found is Kent USA. Should've done a little more digging before ordering Bridgeport parts but I think I'll use them since I already have them.
I'll definitely be in touch with your friend.

First makes the majority of the Mills and the other people put their name on the machine. There are 2 companies named Kent. One was the original and owned by brothers (could have been cousins, some relationship). One moved to the USA and started Kent USA and started to buy mills from First and calling them Kent. The other brother stayed in Taiwan and built surface grinders. I have taught machine building classes at the original Kent and at First.

 

[Harry Knutz]

First makes the majority of the Mills and the other people put their name on the machine. There are 2 companies named Kent. One was the original and owned by brothers (could have been cousins, some relationship). One moved to the USA and started Kent USA and started to buy mills from First and calling them Kent. They other brother stayed in Taiwan and built surface grinders. I have taught machine building classes at the original Kent and at First.

I have a "Kent Usa" 1340 Lathe that has been a great machine, I would not hesitate to buy another one.

I have bought parts for my Bridgeport Clone from a company in California called "Supra Machine Tool Inc" They have most parts for Taiwanese import clones.

 

[motormech1]

I have a "Kent Usa" 1340 Lathe that has been a great machine, I would not hesitate to buy another one.

I have bought parts for my Bridgeport Clone from a company in California called "Supra Machine Tool Inc" They have most parts for Taiwanese import clones.

Thanks for the parts tip. Looking right now for some I discovered I needed today while assembling the quill housing.

 

[motormech1]

Ran into a parts stoppage on the quill housing so I figured I'd get the turret/ram assembly remounted. One more bite of the proverbial elephant. Some of the paint and filler are gone so I'd like to do some clean up on it at some point but for now I just want to get it running.

 

[motormech1]

Making progress. Finally got the parts and got the quill housing assembled and mounted only to realize I needed new step pulley bearings. Fortunately, amazon will have new timken's here in 2 days. Gotta love the 'zon! Got all of the vfd and panel parts in too. Making good headway this weekend. Should be real close to getting her running.

 

[motormech1]

While I'm waiting on bearings I got the VFD panel ready for wiring. I have some neoprene sheet foam I'll fit around the inside of the VFD opening to help keep dust out later on.

 

[motormech1]

Finally got a free day to work on the mill and ran into more damaged/missing parts! I did get the new bearings in the step pulley but found destroyed threads and multiple repairs to the cam pins and their respective holes to which I now have to add one more set of holes. Must get beat up a lot on these Bridgies.

 

[motormech1]

Worked on getting the one shot oil lines fixed but I’m not sure if all the passages are flowing oil. Might have to take the table and saddle off to clean things up and check everything out while I’m in there. Thanks to a quick forum search I found the right metric sized tubing.