I need a chunk of steel!!
- Thread starter skeetlee
- Start date
jackie schmidt
New member
Lee, neither me or either of my two brothers have been able to get to our shop. Every freeway or main road has some portion that keeps you from getting from one place to another.
Everybody is in the same boat. The entire area is shut down. Grocery stores are closed because trucks can't resupply.
I feel so fortunate that my house is at a high enough elevation. We have now had 36+ inches of rain in that many hours. And it's raining as I write this. My daughter and family are in my Motor Home now, as they have no electricity, and their house in Baytown flooded. I filled it with Diesel and parked it in front of my house last Thursday.
James Lederer
New member
Those Emco lathes are pretty nice. Austrian made. I'm jealous, I always thought a Super 11 an exceptional chambering lathe. They look like a hobby machine, but were designed as a full toolmakers grade lathe. They should not be confused with an Enco lathe which is the Asian made brand sold by several of the big catalog companies including MSC. They are entirely different machines.
JerrySharrett
Senile Member
The Emco is a great machine but the spindle, being bearings, is not as smooth as the bushing mounted Heavy 10.
Bringing it to Tellico?
.
Wouldn't bushings be cheaper than bearings ?
JerrySharrett
Senile Member
Spindle bushings technology is much older than either ball or roller bearings. But there have not been a bearing pac good enough to replace spindle suspension for precision grinder wheel spindles.
Bearings can run much faster, rpm, than bushings. Bushings run on an oil film and can strip the oil out to bare metal so going very fast bearings are better but for smoothness bushings are better.
The last Monarch 10EE's I sent back for Monarch/Sidney factory rebuilds, a spindle pac was $18,000 each, in 1996. Probably twice that now, BUT, while a 10EE can run 5,000 rpm, a bushing/oil setup, running at 1,200 rpm is still has much less chatter and more vibration free. We put some very sophisticated vibration analysis equipment on these machine tools to check them out.
.
No matter what type of bearing you use there must be some play in the setup to allow for expansion when the bearing and shafts heats up.
It becomes VERY expensive to manufacture extremely precision ball or roller bearings.
The materials costs (vacuum degassing of steel melt was developed to improve bearing manufacture).
Some of the ultimate in bearings are in gyroscopes for navigation and the bearings for MIRV missile buses.
We solved the gyroscope problem by developing ring laser gyroscopes.
Nothing is required to move in them.
Just coils of glass fiber and laser beams split and fed from both ends of the fiber.
You maker them more sensitive by using longer and longer pieces of coiled fiber.
The ability to generate extremely strong magnetic fields allows us to play some games using magnetic levitation of high speed rotors.
Now the shaft can be 'floating' in a magnetic field and not touching anything.
Some operate in very hard (single micron level) vacuums to further reduce losses.
It becomes VERY expensive to manufacture extremely precision ball or roller bearings.
The materials costs (vacuum degassing of steel melt was developed to improve bearing manufacture).
Some of the ultimate in bearings are in gyroscopes for navigation and the bearings for MIRV missile buses.
We solved the gyroscope problem by developing ring laser gyroscopes.
Nothing is required to move in them.
Just coils of glass fiber and laser beams split and fed from both ends of the fiber.
You maker them more sensitive by using longer and longer pieces of coiled fiber.
The ability to generate extremely strong magnetic fields allows us to play some games using magnetic levitation of high speed rotors.
Now the shaft can be 'floating' in a magnetic field and not touching anything.
Some operate in very hard (single micron level) vacuums to further reduce losses.
James,
I bought my Emco from a retired doctor who used it to build parts for scale, replica ships of the 1600-1700 hundreds era. It's one of the red ones that he bought new about 20 years ago, and it has no wear to speak of. From zero on the dial, I can crank .500 in on the cross slide, and crank back out .500, and I'm within a half-thou of zero...without taking the backlash out. I did this several times because I didn't believe it. And then I put an indicator on it to verify what I was seeing. Same result. And I'm pretty sure it doesn't have ball screws. I'll have to check.
From the outboard end of the spindle, to the end of the chuck jaws measured within 1/8" or so of what my Heavy 10 measured, so doing short barrels won't be a problem. IIRC, run-out at the spindle nose was around .0001. And under power, it makes the sweetest humming sound. The only thing I don't like is that the cross slide dial reads radial. I'd prefer diametric, but the previous owner made a bazillion attachments for indicators that I can use, or, if I get really lazy, I'll call DRO Pro's. Due to my wife's retirement and archery season, I haven't been able to set it up and make chips yet, but when I do, I'll give you guys a report.
Jerry,
I'm not sure where we're gonna end up, but I can assure you, wherever it is, the Emco is coming with me.
Justin