Another Cincinnati Toolmaster finds the forum

RandyWilson

H-M Supporter - Gold Member
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As I'm sure everyone knows from other threads, I had a Cincinnati 1B follow me home a few weeks back. It started with me finding a very poorly written Craigslist ad, listed as a Verticle end mill, for a 20 yr old Enco with essentially no time on it. The seller turned down my generous offer of about half what he was asking. From there, somehow that idea morphed to a Bridgeport as the way to go. But as anyone that knows me can attest, "normal" avoids me. Every car, every piece of equipment ends up being obscure or unusual. I was looking at options of "importing" a BP/clone from the rust belt when this Cincy showed up on Craigslist one Friday night. As Someone said in another thread, be patient, have your money right, and be ready to jump. I walked in with cash.

Here is the new child Sunday afternoon waiting patiently on the trailer for a friend of a friend to show up with a boom truck.

IMAG0393.jpg



And here she is Monday night just before the rain storms under motive power of a HF engine crane after said boom truck didn't show.

IMAG0396.jpg

I'm still slowly cleaning out the barn f the late father-in-law's "collection" so there was and will be a lot of dig and backfill as areas are opened and repurposed. It's going to be a while before I have purdy pictures.

Via the intense negotiating and horse trading, I ended up with a package that included.

A Toolmaster 1B with power table. 2ph that has been converted

18 C flex collets from 3/8 to 1", with some duplicates

8 A flex collets from 1/8 to 1/2

2 C end mill holders, 1/2 and 3/4

1 A to C adapter

3 B&S taper collets, of which one is really a 3MT (!!)

1 2" Kennametal boring head

12 various end mills

A 6" mill vise that is pretty beat.

A 10" rotary table, again is "well used"

A 3hp RPC, aka the fire starter.

And a bunch of odds and ends that had no market value by themselves. A partial hold down kit, straight shank end mill holders, a small drill chuck; stuff.



Several of the items, notable the vise, rotary table, and RPC, are in a condition that made them unmarketable as a stand-alone. But it gave me a starting point. The RPC was a necessary evil. As much as I consider them bad magic, I figured that with two separate 3ph motors a VFD was out of the question, so the RPC was brought back to life.

IMAG0400.jpg


This is AFTER I repaired a bunch of bad connections at the capacitors and ground lug. The contactor chatters like crazy. And the motor bearings are shot. It's a noisy piece. Really noisy. But necessary, so it's running with plans for a full rebuild. Then it hit me. The table motor isn't switched off and on like other mills. It runs full time with a clutch/dog engagement for the table. I should be able to feed both motors (1hp and 1/4hp) from the same VFD. But no, I thought. That won't work. Changing the spindle speed will also affect the table. Finally the DUH settled in; if table speed is important lock the VFD to 60hz and change the belt speed; just as you have to do with a RPC. The Huan Yang has been ordered.


In addition to the stuff included, eBay has provided more end mills, parallels, 1-2-3 blocks, angles, and on. I don't see an end to it soon, either. The goal here is not to restore the machine. The goal is to make things, and rebuild/buy the machines and tooling as needed to reach the accuracy needed. I have a lot to learn, a lot to digest, a lot to prioritize, and surely a lot of questions.


Has anyone put a DRO on a toolmaster? I'm in the planning stages of that. Every picture I can find shows the X scale clumsily mounted on the front of the table in and amongst the power table controls. I'm thinking that it could fit better on the back of the table, maybe requiring a tweak to the saddle stop.
 
Nice score! The DRO can be on the front or the back. If on the back, you will lose some Y axis travel. On the front probably not, depending... On the front, the DRO typically gets in the way of the table stops, which I consider necessary equipment. Also think about your chances of installing chip guards and power feeds. Think about it all for a while and have a plan that will make you happy long term before cutting any metal...
 
I have a 1B and put a import dro on the back of the table, works great
I have a vfd powering it, a tech fm50 I am thinking of putting it on my rod as it makes the motor very noisy consider a true sine wave vfd if you are going this way because the older pancake motors don't seem to like the vfd power
There are a number a good threads on the practical machinist cincinnati forum on this model
I just put a Bridgeport reconditioned 6f power feed on mine and it works great because it is 110vot


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Nice score, congratulations. There a few around on our corner of the country. Good sturdy mill for sure , power feeds great .
 
Bob -- That's exactly it. The machine has the factory table feed built in. The controls are center front of the table. This is precisely why I was looking at putting the scale on the back. The machine is advertised as having 10" of Y travel when in fact it has more like 10 1/4. There is still a fair bit of clearance between the saddle and column when, but even if I have to lengthen the saddle stop and limit travel to 9.5 or so it won't be a big loss.



Jeffers, thanks for the point to PM. I've been reading backwards through the threads. I found your pictures, looks good. It wouldn't hurt my feelings if you posted them here, too.

The VFD has been ordered already. The same HY I have on the lathe. If it can't be dialed in, it will at least buy me time to properly rebuild the RPC.

One thing I've noted in the various threads on both forums. It seems that most/all 1B serial numbers that have been posted start with 6J1V5D. On the face it says every machine we have was made in 1956. And according to MikeC over yonder, the 1V means they are 1A machines. Something to ponder, but I have a theory on it. I have documentation that says my machine was put into service in 1960. Further, it has a 42x10 table, where the 1956 manual says they all has 36x10. My theory is this toolmaster line started in 1956. They initially cast up a large quantity of columns/knees/saddles/turrents. Serial numbers were issued to each, as per documentation, and then they sat in storage until being sold, at which point the head, table, and options were fitted to customer specs.


And a correction. The rotary table is actually an Excel 12". And it is cleaning up fairly well. I just need to see if I can tighten up the backlash some.
 
Bob -- That's exactly it. The machine has the factory table feed built in. The controls are center front of the table. This is precisely why I was looking at putting the scale on the back. The machine is advertised as having 10" of Y travel when in fact it has more like 10 1/4. There is still a fair bit of clearance between the saddle and column when, but even if I have to lengthen the saddle stop and limit travel to 9.5 or so it won't be a big loss.



Jeffers, thanks for the point to PM. I've been reading backwards through the threads. I found your pictures, looks good. It wouldn't hurt my feelings if you posted them here, too.

The VFD has been ordered already. The same HY I have on the lathe. If it can't be dialed in, it will at least buy me time to properly rebuild the RPC.

One thing I've noted in the various threads on both forums. It seems that most/all 1B serial numbers that have been posted start with 6J1V5D. On the face it says every machine we have was made in 1956. And according to MikeC over yonder, the 1V means they are 1A machines. Something to ponder, but I have a theory on it. I have documentation that says my machine was put into service in 1960. Further, it has a 42x10 table, where the 1956 manual says they all has 36x10. My theory is this toolmaster line started in 1956. They initially cast up a large quantity of columns/knees/saddles/turrents. Serial numbers were issued to each, as per documentation, and then they sat in storage until being sold, at which point the head, table, and options were fitted to customer specs.


And a correction. The rotary table is actually an Excel 12". And it is cleaning up fairly well. I just need to see if I can tighten up the backlash some.

Do you need an operator / maintenance manual? I have an electronic copy I can send you


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Congrats!! I really like my Cincy 1B. So much so that I didn't have much respect for the relatively wobbly BPs at my the tech school.
My 1B came with most of the wires in the column cut. A friend of the family helped me figure out the re-wiring.
The head is pretty mechanically self explanatory. Mine needed a parts which I made on 10" Logan lathe.

Please give a shout should you need manuals or pics or parts etc.

Daryl
MN
 
Thanks. I read Josh's threads, both here and there, while learning about the 2ph version. His contributions have made it to the vintagemachinery archive. Mine also came with some documentation that I need to compare to his.
 
Congrats!! I really like my Cincy 1B. So much so that I didn't have much respect for the relatively wobbly BPs at my the tech school.
My 1B came with most of the wires in the column cut. A friend of the family helped me figure out the re-wiring.
The head is pretty mechanically self explanatory. Mine needed a parts which I made on 10" Logan lathe.

Please give a shout should you need manuals or pics or parts etc.

Daryl
MN



Thanks for the offer, Daryl. I seem to be in pretty good shape. Once I got past the 2ph discovery, the only thing that doesn't work right is the balance spring for the quill. Other than that, things have gone surprisingly well.

Did you ever get your A adapter made? I have one here that I can measure.
 
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