Anyone fancy a larger UK made milling machine?

[John HaineParticipant @johnhaine32865]

**LINK**

[John HaineParticipant @johnhaine32865]

[Thor 🇳🇴Participant @thor]

Nice, but I don't have an industrial estate.

Thor

[David George 1Participant @davidgeorge1]

50 meters by 2 meters by 2meters is quite a size of material blank. Good job the bed dosnt move.

David

[Speedy Builder5Participant @speedybuilder5]

Yes, we used to make small stuff like that, but then we went more industrial. CINCINNATTI MACHINE TOOLS (Birmingham UK). You knew it was a larger machine when the operator's seat ran on powered rails both up and down and along the machine. In the states, they made a machining centre where the body of a tank went in one end, and came out the other with the turret ring, drive shaft bearings, gun emplacements etc etc were all machined by several boring and milling heads. I seem to remember the total marine time was in the order of a few hours before the next body rolled in.
BobH

[HopperParticipant @hopper]

One of them and you could machine a new workshop shed out of solid billet. Very handy.

[CirclipParticipant @circlip]

Plano miller at BREL's York Carriage works (RIP) for machining DMU deck/base plate was quite a lump.

Regards Ian.

[MWParticipant @mw27036]

They'd need a new postcode to fit it all in.

Michael W

[Colin HeseltineParticipant @colinheseltine48622]

BobH,

When were you at Cincinnatti? My dad worked there from age of 16 till he retired in around 1982/3.

We used to have a Cincinnatti Vertical No.2 milling machine at home.

Colin

[Ex contributorParticipant @mgnbuk]

I'm not sure that the "UK made" bit is true anymore – pretty certain they announced in the trade press that they were not going to be building their own machines here anymore & were going to be concentrating on the agencies a couple of years ago.

Nigel B

[MikeParticipant @mike89748]

Big boys' toys – and I want one! Seriously, do they normally machine steel dry, or is the coolant turned off so that we can bee what's happening on the videos? When I saw machines not quite this big in the Mandelli factory in Piacenza in the late 1980s, they were capable of such work rates that it was refrigerated before re-use.

[Ex contributorParticipant @mgnbuk]

Seriously, do they normally machine steel dry,

Yes. IIRC one of the reasons being that the inserts need to be kept at a fairly constant temperature, so coolant needs to be a very strong flood. This is not always possible & is difficult to both guard & collect. Intermittent application of coolant to hot inserts can lead to failure due to thermal shock. Again IIRC, the idea is that most of the heat goes into the swarf, but I have regularly come across operators keeping a pair of welding gloves to hand to change tools, as the tool bodies can get hot enough to burn you. Insert drills, though, need high pressure through-tool coolant to blow the chips out of the hole – that really does go everywhere !.

the Mandelli factory in Piacenza in the late 1980s, they were capable of such work rates that it was refrigerated before re-use.

That may have been to keep the workpiece cool to maintain tolerances. I have seen some machines that use temperature controlled coolant circulated through the machine to keep the machine structure cool for that reason – including through hollow ballscrews via rotating unions. As Mandelli were manufacturers of quality boring machines, I would expect that they took dimensional accuracy of parts seriously.

Nigel B

[MikeParticipant @mike89748]

Thanks, Nigel – much appreciated. My late sister was the technical translator for Mandelli in the era, and I was invited to visit the factory several times before the company got into trouble.

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