Any Portmac Mill owners?

[Pete.Participant @pete-2]

I came across this little milling machine for a reasonable price this week, it looked like it was all there, even had the original vice still with it, not knowing when I bought it, that it was quite an unusual little machine, with very little information about it online, I figured if anywhere, this is the place most likely someone might have owned one of these and could maybe tell me more about it, yes I've read the entry on lathes.co.uk.

[Pete.Participant @pete-2]

[Pete.Participant @pete-2]

Also if anyone can recommend a period correct on/off switch that would be helpful, it's the only thing missing.

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Can't help with the switch or the machine itself but I thought people might be interested to know that the maker (Broadway Engineering) is still trading at the same address.

Their premises in Knapp Lane are on the site of Deep Pit Colliery, which in 1880's was surrounded by large clay pits. It must have been an impressive industrial landscape of the smokestack kind with tramways and railway lines galore. Likely used for low-value brick making, later on a cement works appeared. The area had some high value activity particularly the nearby Atlas Locomotive Works and later on light engineering. Sometime before WW2 most of the clay-pits were filled and the slag-heap removed. The area shows little sign of heavy industry today.

Broadway's building at Knapps Lane is nondescript. However their website is interesting in that it lists their machining capabilities: 21 CNC lathes, 5 5-axis CNC milling machines, 19 4-axis machines, 20 3-axis machines plus precision grinders. No manual machines at all. I suspect the value of the business done greatly exceeds that of the original coal-mine and its surrounds, even though the modern firm employs far fewer people.

I wouldn't recommend ringing them up to ask about the Portmac; they do aerospace now.

Dave

[Pete.Participant @pete-2]

Thank you for the reply, that's very interesting that the company is still in business, I'll definitely send them an email at some point to quiz them on it.

[not done it yetParticipant @notdoneityet]

Fit a modern on/off NVR switch would be my advice. It can be remote from the machine, if you are so worried about the aesthetics, with a simple break push for stopping it.

[Pete.Participant @pete-2]

Posted by not done it yet on 31/03/2019 15:21:53:

Fit a modern on/off NVR switch would be my advice. It can be remote from the machine, if you are so worried about the aesthetics, with a simple break push for stopping it.

I took delivery of this today, I was going to keep it completely original, but I'll follow your advice, and put a modern NVR on/off switch after I've rebuilt and repainted it, red is not a great colour in my opinion, on a side note, this machine is an incredibly well built little thing, the table is fully hand scraped, looks like it's had the vice on there 99% of its life, apart from a couple of marks, it's immaculate.

[Author]

Posts