Brown And Sharp 000

[bosephus]

I bought this old gal last month off of Craig's list mostly to save it from the scrap yard .... ok Maybe I have a case of cheap junkitus as well .

When I got this little mill it had an air cylinder on it in place of the original lead screw and power feed .
As it didn't work very well and seriously limited table travel I took it off and began thinking of ways to make it a hand Miller .
And well here's what I come up with so far for zero cash outlay .
I found a rack and pinion off of an old table saw fence of all places and mocked it up .
As this is more of a proof of concept test run then a finished product I did the install without making any changes to the mill itself and have everything mounted securely enough I think to make a test cut in some aluminum once I find a cutter .

I think if this mock up works out I'll search the local salvage yard and see if I can come up with a rack and pinion of a lathe carriage or something similar to do a permanent higher quality job .

Throw your thoughts and suggestions out to me .... I am very open minded as to other solutions to make this old girl work again



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[rrjohnso2000]

That is a nice find. If your mockup works why not just run it?

I have no idea what your intentions are, use or funds you want to invest, but rack and pinion work great. Those are often set up on production machines, you can run them fast. There are some limitations but can be worked with.

Depending on your timeline, if you need parts faster McMaster is the place to get them. Although I'm sure you can hunt out something cheaper.

It can always have a leadscrew installed to. Good luck that is a good looking unit

 

[bosephus]

ralph

thanks , it is a nice little machine . it would have been a real shame to see it scrapped .

as to why not just use my mock up ,... the issue is the pinion gear . its a bit small at less then .500 in dia , fine toothed and it is rather soft .
i'll pull it apart this evening to take some more pictures but i dont have much faith in its ability to repeatedly carry any kind of load .
it was never intended to do anything other then move the fence on a table saw .

i only used this because i had it on hand and it lets me try out my idea without spending anything other then an hour or two of sweat equity .

and as to time and budget .... time i have plenty of , the budget .. eh its pretty darn small

 

[T Bredehoft]

Just a suggestion, if you have a dealer locally who deals in used machinery, the rack and pinion from a surface grinder should do admirably. Not as good as a lead screws, too fast, but better than naught.
'Course you could get a lead screw from him, too.

 

[Tony Wells]

How long a piece of rack you need? I have a short one in the junk pile, not sure about a matching pinion but it may be there too. No clue on what it came off of, but it has mounting holes already.

 

[bosephus]

Hey guys ... sorry it took so long to get back . My router took a dump and I haven't been able to get online for a couple days .

But I took a pic of the pinion gear I have mocked up ... as you can see its not much of a gear and is pretty soft .

Tony .. the rack i have on it now is 24 inches long .
But it is quite a bit longer then it needs to be .
Anything over 16 inches would work as normal table travel is 15 inches ... 17-19 inches would be ideal
If you have a piece of rack that long and a matching gear .

I have plans on hitting up the local scrap yard this week and there are quite a few old machines laying around there so there's a good chance I'll find something a little better suited for not much money .
So let's play by ear for a few days



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[4GSR]

A rack off of a 9" South Bend lathe may fit the bill. I can measure up the pitch and pressure angle and dimensions of the rack I have if you like. Ken

 

[Uglydog]

Looks like 14teeth. Dime sized.
I'll also look in my stash.
If we can't find a donor gear, then somebody should be able to make you a spur gear to fit.
I'll check my stash to identify if I have anything which might be close.
Please let us know DP, OD, ID, confirm teeth, etc.

Daryl
MN

 

[Tony Wells]

I'll dig it out and see how long, and the pitch, etc.

 

[bosephus]

Thanks guys .... I'll be going to the scrap yard tomarow afternoon . I have a dr's appointment and it's right on my way home .

And as to finding a gear that would match the rack i have ... well there would be one hurdle to that prospect . I am about 99% sure that it is a metric pitch .
And I'll need to figure out how to measure the pressure angles and such on a gear ... something I've never done before but i llearn quickly if need be

For some odd reason I can't help but think this little guy would make a rather nice and fast gear cutter if I get it working and could find a small indexer that would fit on it .