Dear all in PM,
I've anticipated for long the moment when I would be able to make this post, so finally here I am: I would like to announce the switch from my little Prvomajska ALG100 to the not-so-little Deckel FP2, first gen, 500mm X!
It's been a while that I've decided to proceed with the upgrade, charmed by the FP2 features (Y power feed, rapids, horizontal quill) and work envelope and encouraged by some of you here. Problem, of course, is that where I leave it's mostly huge horizontal/vertical mills and turret mills. Actually, apart from a dear friend of mine I've never seen a euromill in real life (except mine...). After a lot of search and several failed attempts (constantly overbid, mostly in ebay.de) the right machine at the right price surfaced and I was the right guy! The machine was found in Germany.
Buying a machine this way is a bit nerve-wrecking (done this for the ALG as well). Machine had to be bought unseen and then arrangements should be made (complicated some times) to palletize/package and tranport the machine. Transport from Germany to Greece is the easy part, what is not-so-simple is to arrange for someone to visit the seller, lift the machine, secure it on a pallet, palletize electrical box and tooling and prepare everything for shipping trying to minimize risk for possible damage. Here is where I got extremely lucky, since a, now, dear friend and PM member offerred to help and take care of all this! He reinforced a large pallet (so that machine would not extend beyond the limits of the pallet) and secured the machine on it. Removed table, X hand wheel and secured them together with the electical box and the carbboard containing the tooling on a separate pallet. Here are the two pallets at the parking lot of the seller, waiting to be loaded to the truck to Greece.
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No need to say much, I'll be eternally indepted to my new friend. He took a HUGE weight off my back and helped me get closer to my dream mill, for which I'll be always grateful!
After a 5-day trip, machine arrived to my home-town. Here is a bad picture of it on the truck waiting to be taken home
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Some hours later, ALG left my workshop on the same truck that brought the FP2, here is a rare sight for where I live, two euromills on the same truck!
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And the ALG leaving. Nice mill, you'll be missed...
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Here is the mill in my workshop, after some cleaning.
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Came with some arbors:
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some clamps:
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and some 355/sk40 collets
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Also, amazingly, inside the tooling box I found the overarm support (plus drawbar and one division plate) for the indexing head, that was, indeed, missing from the indexing head I already had! Seems that sometime throughout its life the actual indexing head 'disappeared' probably with a chuck and nobody cared for the overarm. Good news for me.
It's been 3 days since I got her, but could only spend some hours trying to get here in shape. Some rough assesments are:
- This machine also did not escape the ubiquitous grease-treatment...Have a look a the oil window full of white grease
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also escaping from the X dovetail way
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would like to avoid stripping everything down, but now it seems I don't have many alternatives...
- The regular fixed table it came with, has seen better days. A couple of drill marks and huge (ranging over 3-4 t-slots) end-mill mark. It has also been reground. I'll sort the rest of the machine out and decide later what to do with the table
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- Spindle bearings sound nice but I am reluctant (and will avoid) doing much work on the machine before overhauling both of them. Already ordered proper grease from Mr. Singer.
- Spindle 'box, feed 'box and selectors, rapids all working perfectly. I am impressed by the amazing feeling of the rapid lever, such a joy to use.
- Took a light test cut on aluminum, only to find out that the machine was completely loose, at least regarding X gib. This was the case with my ALG as well, which is very strange since both machines seemed to have been used up to the sale date. I really can't see how one could use a mill with such loose ways unless only for drilling....Tightened X gib and things got to normal.
- There is something between taper and dip in the top of X slide of around 0.02 mm throughout X travel. Cleaning and adjusting affects the behavior (yesterday it was a dip, now it is more like a taper) and the magnitude (yesterday it was 0.01 mm). And that is without having checked whether the offset is solely on X or due to rock at the vertical slide as well, which has not, yet, been adjusted. So, I won't say much untill further assessment of the situation, but I think that I'll end up with some wear here and, probably, will have to do something about it.
- Machine is really dirty and oozes out brown cooland rust after practically submerging it in WD 40. Table has also a huge mark of rust/oxidation below where the vice was due to coolant. My friend says that the vice was practically stuck when he tried to remove it from the table. This is the brown rusty sweat:
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- Got some scoring at the Y way, wipers probably went out of service years ago:
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So, that's it for now. Please be prepared for some requests for assistance to, yet another, new FP2 owner! I'll (re)read forum threads again, have bookmarked some threads by Bruce (with whom, I understand we have probably similar background and identical machines) and Ross. I'll certainly come up with many questions, e.g. which of the bearing surfaces are ground and which are scraped finished so that I can directly know if I am looking at a shiny way due to wear of the scraping marks or if it was intended this way!
Nice to join the FP2 company.
Till next time,
Best regards,
Thanos
I've anticipated for long the moment when I would be able to make this post, so finally here I am: I would like to announce the switch from my little Prvomajska ALG100 to the not-so-little Deckel FP2, first gen, 500mm X!
It's been a while that I've decided to proceed with the upgrade, charmed by the FP2 features (Y power feed, rapids, horizontal quill) and work envelope and encouraged by some of you here. Problem, of course, is that where I leave it's mostly huge horizontal/vertical mills and turret mills. Actually, apart from a dear friend of mine I've never seen a euromill in real life (except mine...). After a lot of search and several failed attempts (constantly overbid, mostly in ebay.de) the right machine at the right price surfaced and I was the right guy! The machine was found in Germany.
Buying a machine this way is a bit nerve-wrecking (done this for the ALG as well). Machine had to be bought unseen and then arrangements should be made (complicated some times) to palletize/package and tranport the machine. Transport from Germany to Greece is the easy part, what is not-so-simple is to arrange for someone to visit the seller, lift the machine, secure it on a pallet, palletize electrical box and tooling and prepare everything for shipping trying to minimize risk for possible damage. Here is where I got extremely lucky, since a, now, dear friend and PM member offerred to help and take care of all this! He reinforced a large pallet (so that machine would not extend beyond the limits of the pallet) and secured the machine on it. Removed table, X hand wheel and secured them together with the electical box and the carbboard containing the tooling on a separate pallet. Here are the two pallets at the parking lot of the seller, waiting to be loaded to the truck to Greece.
No need to say much, I'll be eternally indepted to my new friend. He took a HUGE weight off my back and helped me get closer to my dream mill, for which I'll be always grateful!
After a 5-day trip, machine arrived to my home-town. Here is a bad picture of it on the truck waiting to be taken home
Some hours later, ALG left my workshop on the same truck that brought the FP2, here is a rare sight for where I live, two euromills on the same truck!
And the ALG leaving. Nice mill, you'll be missed...
Here is the mill in my workshop, after some cleaning.
Came with some arbors:
some clamps:
and some 355/sk40 collets
Also, amazingly, inside the tooling box I found the overarm support (plus drawbar and one division plate) for the indexing head, that was, indeed, missing from the indexing head I already had! Seems that sometime throughout its life the actual indexing head 'disappeared' probably with a chuck and nobody cared for the overarm. Good news for me.
It's been 3 days since I got her, but could only spend some hours trying to get here in shape. Some rough assesments are:
- This machine also did not escape the ubiquitous grease-treatment...Have a look a the oil window full of white grease
also escaping from the X dovetail way
would like to avoid stripping everything down, but now it seems I don't have many alternatives...
- The regular fixed table it came with, has seen better days. A couple of drill marks and huge (ranging over 3-4 t-slots) end-mill mark. It has also been reground. I'll sort the rest of the machine out and decide later what to do with the table
- Spindle bearings sound nice but I am reluctant (and will avoid) doing much work on the machine before overhauling both of them. Already ordered proper grease from Mr. Singer.
- Spindle 'box, feed 'box and selectors, rapids all working perfectly. I am impressed by the amazing feeling of the rapid lever, such a joy to use.
- Took a light test cut on aluminum, only to find out that the machine was completely loose, at least regarding X gib. This was the case with my ALG as well, which is very strange since both machines seemed to have been used up to the sale date. I really can't see how one could use a mill with such loose ways unless only for drilling....Tightened X gib and things got to normal.
- There is something between taper and dip in the top of X slide of around 0.02 mm throughout X travel. Cleaning and adjusting affects the behavior (yesterday it was a dip, now it is more like a taper) and the magnitude (yesterday it was 0.01 mm). And that is without having checked whether the offset is solely on X or due to rock at the vertical slide as well, which has not, yet, been adjusted. So, I won't say much untill further assessment of the situation, but I think that I'll end up with some wear here and, probably, will have to do something about it.
- Machine is really dirty and oozes out brown cooland rust after practically submerging it in WD 40. Table has also a huge mark of rust/oxidation below where the vice was due to coolant. My friend says that the vice was practically stuck when he tried to remove it from the table. This is the brown rusty sweat:
- Got some scoring at the Y way, wipers probably went out of service years ago:
So, that's it for now. Please be prepared for some requests for assistance to, yet another, new FP2 owner! I'll (re)read forum threads again, have bookmarked some threads by Bruce (with whom, I understand we have probably similar background and identical machines) and Ross. I'll certainly come up with many questions, e.g. which of the bearing surfaces are ground and which are scraped finished so that I can directly know if I am looking at a shiny way due to wear of the scraping marks or if it was intended this way!
Nice to join the FP2 company.
Till next time,
Best regards,
Thanos