Index Model 645 Mill

T. J.

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Oct 31, 2015
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I went to pick up a milling machine yesterday - what an adventure! I'll give you the complete narrative, so everyone has ample opportunity to laugh at me :grin:.

I live in the Texas Panhandle, which is probably as much of a machinery desert as anywhere in the country. So I obsessively scour Craigslist, EBay, etc for machinery in a large radius around me. (I bought my lathe in Wichita Falls - about 250 miles away) So a few days ago I found an ad for this milling machine on EBay. It's in Enid, OK - about 300 miles away. The photos were horrible but I was able to determine that 1) it was an Index Model 645, 2) it came with a milling vise and a rotary table 3) it had a power feed. The seller didn't know much about the machine, so was unable to answer my questions about spindle taper, wear, etc. But he only wanted $700 for it. So I bought it, figuring that even if it was completely unserviceable, I could part it out and/or scrap it and recover my money. So we made plans for me to pick it up and he said he even had a hoist to load it on my trailer and some extra guys to help - perfect!

I drove 5 hours to get there and meet the guy, who obviously doesn't bathe frequently. No other guys to be seen. He takes me to the machine:
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This photo was taken from the door of the building. If you look close, you can see the motor and belt guard of the mill in the middle-left of the pic, behind the two toilets. Most of the stuff between the door and the mill is heavy. Oh, and there was a piano behind me. :cower: Mind you, he's had 10 days to get ready for me to pick it up. He asks me if I brought any help (no), then says he has a broken rib and can't lift much. This is getting even better. He calls some friends to come help, one shows up, then leaves and never comes back.

Undeterred, he and I start working. First, we have to bring the A-frame with the hoist from another building about 100 across yards the parking lot. It also had a lot of 'stuff' around it that had to be moved. Then we begin creating a path to the mill buy pulling stuff out of the way with a come-a-long and a pickup. About 3 hours in, we're to this point:image.jpeg

I didn't take any more photos of the loading process after this because I was sweating so much at this point, my phone was getting too wet in my shirt pocket. (Remember - it's August in Oklahoma). We drug the mill to the door with the pickup, stopping once about halfway to reposition it with the come-a-long. We positioned the A-frame in the door and backed my trailer up, ready to back it under once we had the mill lifted high enough. Easy right? Well, his 1-1/2 ton manual hoist would barely get the back end of the mill off the ground. So with a floor jack and lots of wood blocks, and we finally get it high enough for the base to clear the trailer bed. Then come-a-long it into position over the trailer axles. At this point, I'm completely exhausted, soaked in sweat, and look like an oilfield grease monkey. The loading process has taken 5 hours. Now I have a 5 hour drive back home. Here's a pic of how I strapped it down. This was taken after I had it home and backed into my barn.
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It probably would have been better to leave the head upright and place two straps across the ram. At any rate, this was very stable and the mill did not move at all on the ride home.

In the next post, I'll have some closer photos after I have time to inspect things a little further. I think the ways are probably OK since they had a thick coating of oil. The spindle has an R-8 taper and turns smoothly. My main worry is the condition of the table. I'm afraid it may be pitted:apologize:. We'll see once I get it cleaned up...
 
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Sweet, looks like you got a good buy, but had to put some sweat into it to get it.
 
Wow! That was way too much work. o_O He should have given it to you for "free" to cover your labor cleaning up his storage area. On the plus side, as it was buried, you know that it hasn't been abused lately. ;)

Glad you got it home safely. I'll be looking forward to seeing it come back to life.

-Ron
 
Wow! That was way too much work. o_O He should have given it to you for "free" to cover your labor cleaning up his storage area. On the plus side, as it was buried, you know that it hasn't been abused lately. ;)

Glad you got it home safely. I'll be looking forward to seeing it come back to life.

-Ron

Actually, whoever buys the lathe that was sitting next to it owes me big time because they can use the same pathway to get it out! There are a few gems among all the junk in there. There was an Atlas shaper in good condition and complete with the stand. I thought about negotiating for it, but there was one big problem. I would've had to move all that stuff again in the other direction to get it out!

As for abuse, it's seen its share. I'll get to that in a minute. But first, I found out some history on it. I ordered a manual from Wells-Index today ($49) and while I was on the phone, had them look it up in their records. It is serial #9942. It was shipped from the factory in October 1963 to Hart Machine Tool Supply in Oklahoma City. That company's tag is still on it. It included options of an R-8 spindle taper, power feed, and vernier scales.

I had a little time this afternoon to mess with it. The collet in the spindle came out easily and the taper seemed to be smooth. Now on to the table. I removed the vise and rotary table. The vise is made in India, but looks to be decent quality. I'll have to clean the rotary table up to find a makers name. The t slots in the table were packed full of brass chips, dirt, and rust. Here's what the table looked like after I got the slots cleaned out a little.
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It looks better in the pic than in real life. :guilty: I scrubbed on it a bit with some mineral spirits and scotchbrite and did find some shiney iron under the rust.
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Also, I was too optimistic about the ways...
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I'm gonna remove a little more of the thick rust on the table manually, then I'll cover it with towels soaked in Evaporust. Also I'm thinking about pressure washing it to get the caked on dirt & oil off before I start disassembling it.

Here's where I could use some advise. The table and ways look pretty bad to me. How bad do they have to be to say it's not worth refurbishing? I don't mind spending some time and money on it if I'll have a useful machine in the end. If it's not going to be capable of accurate work, I'd rather cut my losses and keep looking for another mill.
 
I don't think the table looks that bad (unless "real life" is much, much worse than the pic). Remember, most of the work you do will be using a vise or rotary table. As long as you can get everything level with itself and trammed you should be golden.

-Ron
 
It is a little hard to tell from the pictures how the dovetail ways look.

My advice is to clean them up and run some tests:
1) to find worn spots (and with no power), you can tighten the gib adjustments so the table just moves in that direction and then trying moving the table to its extents. If you tighten the gibs on a worn/loose spot then the table will not move end-to-end until you loosen them again.

2) if you have power to it you can tighten the gibs for good motion and try cutting something. Look for any "throbbing" at the dovetail interface, if it's well lubed sometimes you can see the light reflection changing off the oil at that line. Start with something soft (wood/plastic/Al) and if all good move on to something harder.

Due to the amount of "dirt" on that machine it's probably worth removing the jibs for a good cleaning and lube before doing those tests.....if already have so much time and effort in it just getting it home, it's be a shame to give up too early.

Personally I don't see any show-stoppers, but much of it is about your expectations and what you intend to do.

Good Luck, and please keep updating us!

-brino
 
I have a 645 just like yours that looked much worse than yours when I started putting it back together. At least yours has all of its parts! The table on mine looked like someone used it for an anvil. I sent it out to a grind shop in Houston and had it re surfaced. You may get lucky and find someone in the Amarillo area with a surface grinder that can resurface your table top for you. If not, Commercial Grinding in Dallas may be your best bet. One nice thing about Index mills, they use Meenite cast iron for all of the casting in the machine. The ways are slightly chilled and tough and hold up well. Get you a flat oil stone and some mineral spirits, start honing all of the way surfaces to remove dings, rust, etc.. After doing that, start evaluating wear, if any, and consult us, and go from there. I'll be glad to offer advise on pulling yours apart if you need any assistance. Ken
 
I was in Enid, Oklahoma back in 1985 on a testing job at a oilfield location just north of there. I recall seeing a large acreage of used machinery that I have ever seen in that town. I wanted to go rummaging thru it, but there was no time and I wasn't in my own vehicle. The story I was told, it was owned by an Indian guy and was not interested in selling any of it. I alway wondered what happened to that grave yard of machinery.
BTW: Hart Machine Tool Supply in Oklahoma City, was a industrial supply house that sole machine tools back in its time. I had a old Lehmann lathe that was sold thru them back in 1929 to a oilfield machine shop I want to say around Tulsa. Don't remember, been too many years remembering details. So its no telling who the end user was that bought the mill from Hart Industrial. Ken
 
Thanks for the encouragement guys. I've regained a little optimism after scrubbing on it a bit more. :)

I finally got it off of the trailer this afternoon.
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It was about all that tractor could handle. I've got it sitting in my barn for now. I'll do some cleaning on it there first and a partial disassembly. Then I'll move it into my backyard shop in pieces and reassemble it there. It'll be a little slow going, since I have several other irons in the fire. One of which is getting my Logan lathe painted and put back together! I'll post my progress as well as lots of questions I'm sure!
 
Sounds like a great adventure. Probably not what you had in mind when you left that morning though:(. Some days the rows are a little harder to hoe, but the end result is worth it. Can't wait for more posts to see it being put back to work.
Cheers
Martin
 
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