Through a combination of good fortune and a fair bit of work, I have a milling machine which is (by American standards) relatively unusual and (for a home shop) relatively large.
This machine was made by Schwäbische Hüttenwerke GmbH, in Waseralfingen (a town which in 1975 merged with the city of Aalen), in what was then the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany). This company continues today as SHW Werkzeugmaschinen GmbH [roughly translated as "SHW Machine Tool Corp."] in Aalen, Germany. [1] This model was engineered in the late 1950s, and this particular machine was built in 1963 (serial no. 2675).
The original name of this machine, taken from the German-language blueprints in its manual, is "Universal-Fräsmaschine UF-2." That translates to "Universal Milling Machine, [model] UF-2." In its English-language manual it is called a "Universal Toolroom Milling Machine" on the cover, but an "Omniplex Milling Machine" on the English-language erecting and operating drawings. [2] I like this name. A normal milling machine can be a tool of reasonable complexity. This milling machine is a tool of great omniplexity. On a simpler note, Tony Griffiths' "lathes.co.uk" website calls this class of machines "Precision Universal Milling Machines." [3]
So what is it, really? Perhaps an analogy will help. You may recall this passage from the wonderful 1971 Gene Wilder film, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory:
"Willy Wonka: This is the Great Glass Wonkavator.
Grandpa Joe: It's an elevator.
Willy Wonka: No, it's a Wonkavator. An elevator can only go up and down, but the Wonkavator can go sideways and slantways, and longways, and backways...
Charlie Bucket: And frontways?
Willy Wonka: ... and squareways and front ways, and any other ways you can think of."
If a Bridgeport is an elevator, an SHW UF-2 is a Wonkavator.
More technically... Milling machines are usually divided into two separate classes: horizontal and vertical (depending upon the orientation of their spindle). The ubiquitous Bridgeport is a sub-type of the more general class of vertical milling machines. General-purpose machines in both classes tend to have the ability to move the workpiece left-right and in-out. The better class of machine can also move the workpiece up-down (the cheaper "mill-drills" cannot). Typically on vertical mills the spindle ("quill") also feeds up and down. Sometimes you can pivot the head on a vertical mill, but generally, that's about it: X, Y and two Z motions.
Independently, there is also a relatively rare machine called a slotter, which is basically a vertically oriented metalworking shaper.
An SHW UF2 is both a horizontal and a vertical milling machine, with all of the workpiece and quill feed motions of each type. Additionally, the table which holds the workpiece can be tilted left/right and tilted in-out, allowing the workpiece to be presented to the cutter at any angle. Oh, and it also has a built-in slotter.
It weighs 7,000 pounds. The weight capacity of the worktable is 2,200 pounds maximum, with the table closest to the column. If you crank the table all the way away from the column, this decreases to a mere 1,300 pounds. By way of comparison, an entire Bridgeport mill only weighs 1988 pounds. This is not a Bridgeport; not even close.
3 kW (4 HP) main spindle drive. 1.1 kW (1.5 HP) power feeds. 3-phase. Full analog. Not a computer in sight.
Since this is a relatively unusual machine, and since the English-language version of the manual is (unfortunately) incomplete, in order to operate the machine I'm going to have to write the manual myself. [4] The rest of this Notebook is that manual, as I write it (meaning it's still incomplete).
(Also, since this project will involve reconstructing a digital model of the machine at least to the level needed to illustrate a manual, it is also therefore in part a case study in my general attempts at the Reverse Engineering of Big Old Machines.)
Machine Principles
[NOT DONE] The movements of the machine, described in general terms (that is, without detailed operating instructions).
Machine Specifications
Primarily as measured from this particular machine, s/n 2675.
Rigging Notes
The machine weighs 7,000 pounds. You do not move it casually.
Miscellaneous
[NOT DONE]
Differences between this machine and the manual. [hole vs. panel for filling oil reservoir] [Morse Taper tooling vs. NMTB ("ISA")]
Errors in the manual. [dimensional errors in floor plan]
Items missing from this machine. [slotter taper pin, covers for hoisting bar holes, crank(s)]
1. There are presently several mutually independent companies with "SHW" in their names, all of which trace their roots back to the beginnings of ironworking in the region in the middle ages. I believe that the first entity called the Schwäbische Hüttenwerke (Swabian smelters/ironworks) dates from the 1920s.
2. There were other mills with "omni" in their names. Brown & Sharpe made an "No. 0 Omniversal milling machine." This had some of the additional table motions of the SHW UF-2 (tilt left/right, swivel in horizontal plane) and could be fitted with an auxiliary vertical milling head (called by B&S an "Omniversal Milling Head") in several positions. A slotting attachment could also be fitted. But this was basically a different style of machine derived from American horizontal mill practice (vs. the UF-2, which was derived from European practice in machines such as the Deckel FP series). The manual for the Brown & Sharpe Omniversal mill is online on the VintageMachinery.org site at: http://vintagemachinery.org/pubs/detail.aspx?id=7312
There was also an Elliott "Omnimil," which was a sort of a Bridgeport with a horizontal spindle stuck into it. See Tony Griffiths' page on it at: http://www.lathes.co.uk/elliottmillers/page3.html
3. This machine may be unusual today, but it is not a one-off or historically rare kind of machine. It merely dates from a more thoughtful period of machine tool development. Tony Griffith's rather amazing machine tool reference site, www.lathes.co.uk actually identifies an entire category of machines like this - a quite successful category at that. He terms them, generally, "Precision Universal Milling Machines." He traces them back to the Friedrich Deckel FP1 series from the early 1930s. See: www.lathes.co.uk/deckel See also the CircuitousRoot page on Friedrich Deckel Pantographs (which includes a bit on their milling machines as well). The "FP" in the Deckel FP series stood for "Fräsmaschine Patritzen" (i.e., punch milling machine), although in at lest one ad (reprinted on Griffiths' site) they call their FP1 a "Universal Fräsmaschine." Griffiths identifies about thirty different machines/makers historically. The SHW UF2 was among the more substantial of these machines, and its integrated slotter was unusual.
All portions of this document not noted otherwise are Copyright © 2013, 2015 by David M. MacMillan and Rollande Krandall.
Circuitous Root is a Registered Trademark of David M. MacMillan and Rollande Krandall.
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons "Attribution - ShareAlike" license. See http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ for its terms.
Presented originally by Circuitous Root®
Select Resolution: 0 [other resolutions temporarily disabled due to lack of disk space]
