Bridgeport/Clausing 8512 mill for sale; thoughts?

[Aaron_W]

You can get B&S collets from Little Machine Shop

Brown & Sharpe collets


I think the table would still function properly with only the left hand crank, but I would want to try it out before committing to that. I would be concerned with why that was done.

It seems like the M head or round ram has been routinely viewed in a negative light in this forum.
I have no experience with them myself.
Aaron, the Clausing 8512 is sold without the head?

I'm not sure if 8512 is an actual designation, or just a part number for the mill minus the head. They listed many individual parts in the catalog. You could buy the standard mill heads separately as well. With an MT2 taper (8520 / 8530 mill) was #8628, and with the B&S #7 taper (8525 / 8535 mill) it was #8629.
There isn't a ton out there on these conversions, but apparently Clausing sold a conversion, and it may have even been possible to buy the mill complete the Bridgeport head installed.

I don't know a lot about Bridgeports but I think the issue with the older round ram mills is you set the angle by hand, loosening a collar, pivoting the head, and then tightening the collar so not as easy and potentially less accurate than the later ones where the tilt is don't with a gear system (I'm assuming, I've not spent any time working with a BP or clone). The tilt on the Clausing is also a round ram, so the M head isn't really different in that respect.

 

[hman]

@Choiliefan - Interesting observation! I hadn't noticed the offset of the head previously. But I can imagine why the PO did it that way. By mounting the spindle casting "sideways" on the ram, it looks like he was trying to provide for nod adjustment/tramming of the head (which the usual M-head, with its round ram, lacks). Side-to-side tramming is still do-able with the round ram. But without either a scale or a fine-adjust worm screw, this adjustment would be difficult at best.

It seems like the M head or round ram has been routinely viewed in a negative light in this forum.

I wonder if that's mainly because the standard M-head lacks nod adjustment(?)

@ARC-170 - I may not have the complete facts in hand, but so far, this conversion looks like an almost-good idea that never quite succeeded.

 

[Weldingrod1]

A strong resemblance to my Rockwell!
A great smaller machine, round ram and all!

Yeah, the missing right hand handle is weird, and you may want to change the head mounting to non-nodding style. That offset is really odd.

Sent from my SM-G892A using Tapatalk

 

[ARC-170]

I think the offset was so it could be rotated to become a horizontal mill.