My $2000.00 military surplus mill is alive

What a DEAL! Nice looking machine. Can you link or tell me how to go back and read about your adventure to get your mill? I have thought about bidding on Government Surplus. It seemed so far away and they charge loading fee's, many pictures of machines sitting in the desert without a tarp, etc.
 
middle.road said:
A casual search for a manual during dinner in front of the 'puter resulted in disappointment. -so far

</begin tongue-in-cheek>
I'm thinking that since it's 2018 and this is one of 'unicorn' type of urban legends of a surplus machine still packed in cosmoline,
perhaps this machine is actually from a parallel universe and somehow crossed boundries and ended up in Robert's shop...
</end tongue-in-cheek>
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It is a difficult situation. DEBER was still in business in Italy as late as the late1990s however they are no longer contactable.

As far as the "systems" the three separate oil tanks serve it looks like the knee tank serves the table and all axis, the top tank serves the spindle /quill and quill drive, and the main reservoir serves the horizontal spindle and perhaps lubricates the coolant pumps.

Being I see no oil filters I am assuming none of these systems are actually being pumped or circulated and probably operate in a splash style delivery system.

I did extract a small amount to look at it and by the feel test it is medium to light weight, like a 10 weight motor oil. The smell test was not nice, smells terrible, sort of a cross between rotten meat and moldy wood. it is yellowish in color and is still pretty transparent.
 
Richard King 2 said:
What a DEAL! Nice looking machine. Can you link or tell me how to go back and read about your adventure to get your mill? I have thought about bidding on Government Surplus. It seemed so far away and they charge loading fee's, many pictures of machines sitting in the desert without a tarp, etc.
Click to expand...


Simple tale actually. I live a few miles from Fort Ord. A large military base that was the home to one of largest training facilities during the Viet Nam war. It was decommissioned in the 90's and the liquidation of it's assets began with public and private auctions. At one of those auctions in 2001 this mill was bought by a local individual and he transported to a local storage facility planning to set it up at his home. He never did. It sat in storage for 15 years. Still had the US Army tarps wrapped around it. His Nephew sort of inherited/bought it and ran out of money before he could get it set up, I bought it in the same condition as it was auctioned at 16 years earlier.
 
Richard King 2 said:
What a DEAL! Nice looking machine. Can you link or tell me how to go back and read about your adventure to get your mill? I have thought about bidding on Government Surplus. It seemed so far away and they charge loading fee's, many pictures of machines sitting in the desert without a tarp, etc.
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Starts here: https://www.hobby-machinist.com/thr...20-swivel-head-ram-type-universal-mill.64316/
And for machines sitting outside without protection see this -=-LINK-=-
A new member here, @PaulWestSki , bought one of each.
 
RobertHaas said:
It is a difficult situation. DEBER was still in business in Italy as late as the late1990s however they are no longer contactable.

As far as the "systems" the three separate oil tanks serve it looks like the knee tank serves the table and all axis, the top tank serves the spindle /quill and quill drive, and the main reservoir serves the horizontal spindle and perhaps lubricates the coolant pumps.

Being I see no oil filters I am assuming none of these systems are actually being pumped or circulated and probably operate in a splash style delivery system.

I did extract a small amount to look at it and by the feel test it is medium to light weight, like a 10 weight motor oil. The smell test was not nice, smells terrible, sort of a cross between rotten meat and moldy wood. it is yellowish in color and is still pretty transparent.
Click to expand...
Simply from your description of what the oil lubricates, and ignoring the oil requirement placard completely, I would suggest something like AW32 hydraulic oil. I did not see anything in your description that made me think "high speed" or "tight passages." I also do not expect "extreme pressure" on gears and such. I looked a bit online for a manual as well, no joy. I think you need to make the call, Robert...
 
I was under the impression that SAE oil weight was determined by the cSt value @ 100ºC. The oil is defined by that viscosity even though it isn't used at that temperature on the assumption that straight weight oils all behave in a similar fashion regarding their temperature related viscosity characteristics. ISO oil weight is the viscosity in centistokes (cSt) @ 40ºC. An ISO 100 oil is equivalent to an SAE 30 wt. oil.
 
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