Select 1/2V that I bought from the original owner

[Mr.510]

I've been looking for a "deal" on a manual mill for a few years and finally got lucky Friday on OfferUp when I found this one owner Select 1/2V in excellent condition for $1300.

I picked it up from a friend of it's owner, who sold it for him and had a skid steer with forks to load it. It was purchased new and put in the corner of a garage where it was rarely used. It seems to be super tight and shows zero wear on anything. The belts are dry rotted and cracking but it runs nice and the spindle is quiet. The quill is a little gummy feeling so I'll lube it up with Marvel Mystery Oil until it loosens up.

I found this forum looking for information about it. In one of the other Select threads someone posted a 1979 machine with a higher serial number than mine so I'm guessing it's older than that. The year was never stamped on this machine's ID plate. It looks like there was a sticker there or something.

 

[Mr.510]

I removed the belt cover and it just barely fit without rotating the head. It was loaded with a skid steer with forks and those things are anything but smooth or controllable with ~1k pounds hanging way out in front of the bucket. After a few tense minutes it was successfully in my box van.

After tying it down with a pair of 2" ratchet straps and the box van's cargo loading winch I set off for the snowy 50 mile drive home. One of my machinist friends happened to text me shortly after I left the seller's and I decided to stop at his house to borrow a set of collets and a boring head so I can make some chips while I wait for my own tooling to arrive. He lives on a pretty steep hill and while I was there picking out which tooling I wanted to borrow a car slid off the road and nearly hit the telephone pole across the street. The road had just iced over and it was too slick to even stand on. I was not going to chance it with this mill in the back so I left my box van there and he drove me home and then picked me up yesterday after his hill had thawed. It was bare and wet the whole way, and 100% worth waiting until the next day!

I stopped at my old warehouse in Tacoma to pick up my cherry picker and then went to the new shop in Lakewood to figure out how to unload the mill by myself. I rigged it with a surplus military helicopter lifting sling under the base with motorcycle tie downs keeping the straps from sliding in from the edges. First thing I had to do was get the old (possibly original?) shipping pallet out from under it to gain some clearance. Hindsight being 20/20 I should have tipped the head before we loaded it. You can see here that the balance point was pretty far off. I had to remind myself that there's always a way to accomplish anything, I just have to take the time to figure out how to do it.

I started looking around for heavy things to balance the mill. It took four big chunks of round stock and two pieces of rail on the table plus a bell shackle, chain, carabiner, and claw hammer on the Y handle to perfectly balance the mill. lol This is one of the jankier looking things I've done but I put the weights on a rubber sheet so they wouldn't slide and with the bungees none of it was going to fall off.

 

[Mr.510]

And it's flying!

I only had to move it four feet. If it had wanted to swing or felt at all sketchy I'd have left it in place and pulled to box van out from under it. Always safest to sling the load in place and move the truck or trailer out from under it. It was rock solid and didn't swing at all. Even with a couple hundred pounds on the table this was probably only 1250 or so and the picker will do 2000 at that boom setting.

I want to give a shout out to the guys that made the Allied cherry pickers Costco sold in the '80s! You guys truly are unknown legends whoever you are. This thing is on it's third jack (mostly from being in the weather at times) but has paid for itself a thousand times over. I really should pretty it up, I probably I owe it that much. I wonder how much it'd cost to satin chrome plate it?

I left it resting on the cherry picker's legs and some wood blocks for now. No point setting it on the floor when I'll just have to pick it up again. Next up is to make some risers to go under it that also function as fork pockets for my pallet jack. Then I need a budget DRO. I was happy to see it's got a Servo power feed on X. I hadn't even noticed it in the ad because I was so excited to find a mill locally that I could actually afford. It works but the stop switch needs to be re-mounted as the bracket is missing. If my back is up to it I'll make those risers tomorrow so I can set this thing down and make some chips!

 

[matthewsx]

Hello and welcome!!!!

Awesome find and great first posts

I almost picked up one of these a while back but timing was off. The one I was looking at matched my lathe and was badged Samson. You definitely hit it with your moving strategy, we move these things with our minds, not our muscles.

Would love to hear more about your shop and the projects you do there, assuming you're a Datsun 510 guy?

John

 

[Mr.510]

Would love to hear more about your shop and the projects you do there, assuming you're a Datsun 510 guy?

John

Yes, I'm a life-long Datsun 510 nut. My father was a factory-backed road racer and Datsun/Nissan parts manager in the '70 and '80s so it's kind of in my blood. I mostly build my own product line of Datsun/Nissan high performance parts. Not having a mill and lathe in-house has really made prototyping difficult. I'm moving into a larger shop right now, when I get everything in place and running maybe I'll add a 'shop tour' showing all my tools and stuff to my intro thread or something.

 

[matthewsx]

Nice, my first car was a 260z second was a
Datsun 1200.

Used to race a 1978 Honda Civic that the local dealer built to go after 510’s in the ‘80s. Never quite got there but when it rained I could drive around them with impunity.

Crazy how expensive they’ve gotten, would love to see your parts, website?

John

 

[Mr.510]

Nice, my first car was a 260z second was a
Datsun 1200.

Used to race a 1978 Honda Civic that the local dealer built to go after 510’s in the ‘80s. Never quite got there but when it rained I could drive around them with impunity.

Crazy how expensive they’ve gotten, would love to see your parts, website?

John

My first car was a '71 Datsun 1200 sedan. If you read my intro thread it's the car I nearly died in. I was rear ended while stopped, by an Accord going 50mph. The roll cage saved my life but also compression fractured my skull and contributed to my spinal injuries. The first cop on scene took one look at my car and asked where the driver's body was.

I haven't had a website for many years but I want to put up a Squarespace or similar easy online store in the coming months. I've been selling my stuff on facebook and eBay in recent years but I'm pretty sick of both.

 

[Mr.510]

I just ordered a set of 25 R8 collets, a hold-down clamp set, a parallel set, and what's probably the world's crappiest 5" milling vise. For $78.99 shipped I can't imagine a Vevor Super Lock is any good! It should work for the simple low precision stuff I need to do right now. Since this machine has limited Y travel I might cut the drain flange off the back of the vise and will probably clamp it down (rather than using it's slots) so it doesn't limit Y travel. A lot of people here recommend 4" vises for these machines but none that I found opens to 4" with standard jaws. I have a bunch of 4" steel tube rems I need to be able to mill slots and pockets in, so I bought a 5". Worst case it'll be a great vise to throw on my welding bench to be ruined!

 

[matthewsx]

My first car was a '71 Datsun 1200 sedan. If you read my intro thread it's the car I nearly died in. I was rear ended while stopped, by an Accord going 50mph. The roll cage saved my life but also compression fractured my skull and contributed to my spinal injuries. The first cop on scene took one look at my car and asked where the driver's body was.

I haven't had a website for many years but I want to put up a Squarespace or similar easy online store in the coming months. I've been selling my stuff on facebook and eBay in recent years but I'm pretty sick of both.

I hadn't read your intro until last night and all I can say is your contributions here will be very welcome. I have a little background in racing, both as a driver and as a kart shop owner but I've spent most of my career in AV and IT, only now venturing into production engineering.

I think lots of folks looking for specialty items are happy to interact directly with the owner and websites are a good tool for getting your products out there without all the competition from China. Also, advertising on enthusiast websites worked well for me in the kart business.

I'll keep my eye open for that good deal on a bigger mill for you.

John

 

[Mr.510]

Time for risers with fork pockets! Yesterday I dug out a couple 4 x 5 x 3/16" wall steel tube rems that just happened to be 36-1/2" long. They'd been outside in my scrap pile at one time and were quite rusty so I put a twisted wire cup brush on my 4-1/2" angle grinder and knocked the worst of the rust off.

Then I grabbed a notepad, tape measure, and transfer punches and made a sketch. Pro Tip: When measuring between two holes stick a transfer punch in one of them, hook your tape measure on it, and measure to the near edge of the other hole. I put the risers as far under the machine as possible (while still looking 'right') to reduce the leverage against the mounting ears should it get set down hard with a forklift or run into something.

Laid them out with a scribe and drilled the mounting holes 9/16" and the corner holes on the pockets 1/2". Tidy inside corners are always the hardest part with torch cutting so I usually drill them and then connect the dots.