I'm missing the key to move the jaws, so will have to make something.
Friday, 18 September 2015
Thursday, 17 September 2015
Hommel Universal Multi-purpose Machine Tool UWG 3
Some people have Myords, or other quality machines. All I could afford were Chinese machines, mostly quite good but not for boasting purposes. I was lucky enough to get my Hommel about eighteen months ago with most - but not all - of it's vast number of accessories, and a pretty complete set of manuals (in German, but with an English translation of the main one) which actually make sense (unlike some far-Eastern translations) and some pamphlets on how to machine exotic things like cams and spirals. If anyone is interested, I'm prepared to exchange scanned copies of what I have. The price was reasonable - the equivalent of a Chinese hobby lathe like my BV20BL - and its value as scrap iron probably comes close to what I paid. The table and column are massive.
The machine itself, while lightly coated in rust where it was exposed for a few decades in someones garage, is in very good - lightly used - condition and cleaned up nicely. It seems to have been made in about 1963, and the gibs on all the slides are in perfect (unbroken) condition. They're apparently machined as part of the slides, and can crack, rendering them unrepairable and useless.
Most of the cutters and tools are missing, but replaceable, and fortunately the major bits (not always replaceable) seem to be there. You can get modern equivalents, or actually make some replacements if you don't have the real thing.
As an example I have a full set of the Hommel thin piece collets and pipe collets, but am missing the expander and compressor parts of these sets. It should be possible to make replacements - if anyone has detailed photos or dimensions, it'd help - a lot,
I'm unaware of any other Hommel owners in South Africa, but if anyone is interested, please get in touch.
Above is the Hommel in simple milling machine configuration. It's a Meccano set of a machine tool - there are so many different set ups you need a once glossy 160 page manual of detailed and quite clear photos, diagrams and tables to remind you what goes where. One down side of the configurability is that you've got to set up your tables in such a way that your traverses get your work pieces to the cutters/drills/etc. If one set up doesn't work, there's others that'll achieve the same effect. You just need to think about what you want to do and page through the manual for ideas - more like an encyclopedia or recipe book, actually.
I was doing some fly-cutting on a block of hardenable tool steel. The machine vise is a real precision item, with the jaws perfectly parallel at all times - unlike most vices I've seen the closest jaw is the fixed one.
The home made three phase converter that came with it sitting on a pile of insulating bricks. I had to modify it to be able to reverse the motors. This was a fairly simple fix using a double pole double throw switch. The on and off buttons are quite a way from the machine, so it's not ideal if there's an emergency. I'm not sure how to drive two motors simultaneously using this converter.
One of the two motors. The collection was missing a fair number of the pulleys, so I had to manufacture replacements. Someone on the Hommel forums was kind enough to give me the dimensions of what he had.
I used the Hommel to make the keyway slots in the blanks for its own pulleys, but had to machine the blanks in my BV20BL lathe. Above is the Hommel in keyway shaping mode, using the rotary table on the milling table. as a vertical cylindrical vice. I made individual pulleys from slices of aluminium disk, lined up the slots and Loctited the combinations together. 22mm hole, 5mm keyway.
You'll notice the head is a vertical (or horizontal) slide, that can be tilted in any direction It can also be accurately rotated round the column. Or, rather, the column can be very rigidly rotated on the bed.
There's lots (and lots) of accessories:
A complete set of change gears, from 39 to 200 teeth, including 127. They're 0.8 module, with a 22mm hole, and 5mm key slot. These can be used to set up self acting drives for the various tables, as well as for cutting Metric, Whitworth and Module threads (whatever those are), including coarse, left hand, right hand, tapered and cylindrical.
Some of the chucks - two self centering 4 jaw, and two 3 jaw (the larger one is on the rotary table). The small ones are 85mm, the large are 110mm.
There's also a 175mm independent 4 jaw faceplate/chuck assembly, and a small 80mm "Forkardt" precision chuck which jams and that I'm so far unsuccessfully trying to unjam.
And an angle plate tailored for the rotary table
A drawer full of odds and ends, including some supplementary tools that I bought from CTC Tools in Hong Kong. The Hommel uses an NT 30 taper, so it's possible to replace missing bits - I've bought a keyless drill chuck, an NT 30 ER32 collett adapter, and an NT 30 adapter for my boring head, which means I can use these on my BV20BL lathe (MT2/MT3) and my mill (MT3).
In there is a 0.5 module gear cutter mounted on an arbour, ready for me to try again to cut a gear that got screwed up when I was called for supper.
There's no dividing head - you have to dial up the angles on the rotary table - easy enough to get accurate to less than 0.1 of a degree if you've printed yourself a spreadsheet of the angle increments for the number of teeth you want. But it's trivially easy to mess up if you get distracted seeing there's no stop - you have to dial up to the next angle.
A fine selection of NT 30 arbours and not quite enough hardened spacer rings (where can you buy reasonably priced metric spares?) so I've made some unhardened ones.
More odds and ends, mostly to set up gear trains.
And more...
A speed reduction gearbox for a drive train.
A "stabilizing support", currently in use as a door stopper.
.
A side view of the Hommel.
The machine itself, while lightly coated in rust where it was exposed for a few decades in someones garage, is in very good - lightly used - condition and cleaned up nicely. It seems to have been made in about 1963, and the gibs on all the slides are in perfect (unbroken) condition. They're apparently machined as part of the slides, and can crack, rendering them unrepairable and useless.
Most of the cutters and tools are missing, but replaceable, and fortunately the major bits (not always replaceable) seem to be there. You can get modern equivalents, or actually make some replacements if you don't have the real thing.
As an example I have a full set of the Hommel thin piece collets and pipe collets, but am missing the expander and compressor parts of these sets. It should be possible to make replacements - if anyone has detailed photos or dimensions, it'd help - a lot,
I'm unaware of any other Hommel owners in South Africa, but if anyone is interested, please get in touch.
Above is the Hommel in simple milling machine configuration. It's a Meccano set of a machine tool - there are so many different set ups you need a once glossy 160 page manual of detailed and quite clear photos, diagrams and tables to remind you what goes where. One down side of the configurability is that you've got to set up your tables in such a way that your traverses get your work pieces to the cutters/drills/etc. If one set up doesn't work, there's others that'll achieve the same effect. You just need to think about what you want to do and page through the manual for ideas - more like an encyclopedia or recipe book, actually.
I was doing some fly-cutting on a block of hardenable tool steel. The machine vise is a real precision item, with the jaws perfectly parallel at all times - unlike most vices I've seen the closest jaw is the fixed one.
The home made three phase converter that came with it sitting on a pile of insulating bricks. I had to modify it to be able to reverse the motors. This was a fairly simple fix using a double pole double throw switch. The on and off buttons are quite a way from the machine, so it's not ideal if there's an emergency. I'm not sure how to drive two motors simultaneously using this converter.
One of the two motors. The collection was missing a fair number of the pulleys, so I had to manufacture replacements. Someone on the Hommel forums was kind enough to give me the dimensions of what he had.
I used the Hommel to make the keyway slots in the blanks for its own pulleys, but had to machine the blanks in my BV20BL lathe. Above is the Hommel in keyway shaping mode, using the rotary table on the milling table. as a vertical cylindrical vice. I made individual pulleys from slices of aluminium disk, lined up the slots and Loctited the combinations together. 22mm hole, 5mm keyway.
You'll notice the head is a vertical (or horizontal) slide, that can be tilted in any direction It can also be accurately rotated round the column. Or, rather, the column can be very rigidly rotated on the bed.
There's lots (and lots) of accessories:
Some of the chucks - two self centering 4 jaw, and two 3 jaw (the larger one is on the rotary table). The small ones are 85mm, the large are 110mm.
There's also a 175mm independent 4 jaw faceplate/chuck assembly, and a small 80mm "Forkardt" precision chuck which jams and that I'm so far unsuccessfully trying to unjam.
And an angle plate tailored for the rotary table
A drawer full of odds and ends, including some supplementary tools that I bought from CTC Tools in Hong Kong. The Hommel uses an NT 30 taper, so it's possible to replace missing bits - I've bought a keyless drill chuck, an NT 30 ER32 collett adapter, and an NT 30 adapter for my boring head, which means I can use these on my BV20BL lathe (MT2/MT3) and my mill (MT3).
In there is a 0.5 module gear cutter mounted on an arbour, ready for me to try again to cut a gear that got screwed up when I was called for supper.
There's no dividing head - you have to dial up the angles on the rotary table - easy enough to get accurate to less than 0.1 of a degree if you've printed yourself a spreadsheet of the angle increments for the number of teeth you want. But it's trivially easy to mess up if you get distracted seeing there's no stop - you have to dial up to the next angle.
A fine selection of NT 30 arbours and not quite enough hardened spacer rings (where can you buy reasonably priced metric spares?) so I've made some unhardened ones.
More odds and ends, mostly to set up gear trains.
And more...
A speed reduction gearbox for a drive train.
A "stabilizing support", currently in use as a door stopper.
A side view of the Hommel.
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