Abene miller

As I mentioned some time in the past, I wound up with an Abene miller. The shop finally released it to me, and since I couldnt get it over the mountain and home, I put it in a friends machine shop. Last night, I powered it up and fiddled with it a bit. They promised to "lose" some tooling in my direction, so I was uable to cut anything with it.

They also said they thought there were some accessories that went with it, but were getting ready to move, to a new location, and were unable to find whatever it was, hopefully the over arm support..Crom..please...

Anyone have a manual for an early Abene? Operation I can figure out..but something with some maint data would be great.

Mine apparently is a later model VHF-2B, but has a 40 taper spindle.

The original coolant pump appears to be missing and they stuck a sump pump in the hole in the base casting/Reservior

The have mounted a group of control boxes, mostly the old Squre D two button /stop/start boxes for feed motor, spindle motor and coolant. The button for feed motor is not staying in, so needs to be replaced if I can find one.

The original spindle control mounted just in front of the work light is gone, nicely covered and a standard drum switch mounted on the side fo the control casting. A bit unhandy..but usable. The feed forward/reverse switch is going to fail before long, but is usable for now.

Looking at the later Abenes with a control box mounted under the table, I may well fab something similar, as this arraingment is better than the older way. I have a Larios horizontal mill that has a similar problem..precluding placing it in a corner because the controls are in a bad place.

The table feed drum has markings from 15 1/2 down to 1/2

Are those inches per minute?, Centimeters per minute? The feed wheel dials appear to be in standard, though Ive not put an indicator on it. It was originally sold by Givens Machinery...as were many imports, so I would assume its in standard rather than metric reading.

Im really looking forwards to making chps on this, as my Gorton MasterMill doesnt have a tilting head, or any power feeds.

The .UK site indicates all the abenes have power feed on 3 axis..but I assume this one only has table travel power feed? I cant figure out how to engage anything else, if there is, as there are not enough controls.

Lead screw for right and left has about .04 backlash, and in and out has about .03, which isnt surprising considering its age and use in a production shop. Something I can live with as a quick inspection didnt show any split nuts etc to allow some adjustment of backlash? Is there any?

Bullseye sightglass on spindle head is broken, so if filled above base of sightglass hole, will leak out. Fortunately this is about at the low end of oil level, so its not terribly important at this moment.

Where can I get a new sightglass, when I get the hole dimensions? Obviously it doesnt need to be Abene OEM equipment..

Anyone know if Abene still supports this machine?

Any hints etc would be greatly appreciated

Gunner

Political Correctness is a doctrine fostered by a delusional, illogical liberal minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.

Reply to
Gunner Asch
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Reply to
John R. Carroll

Mine's a mid model VHF-3 so not much help here

So did mine but I finally did away with it and use a separate pump reservoir. The base is just to hard to clean out when the coolant goes bad.

Mine has the master switch on the bottom back of the machine. .

It works pretty well.

According to the lathes.uk site those had a 1/4" to 15" per minute feed rates. Slower than mine which is 1" minimum on everything but the up and down which is 5/8".

Looking at the picture on the uk site doesn't show any of the features needed for anything but table feed. I do like the knee lock better than mine.

Mine has a adjustable nut for back lash.

Reply to
Wayne Cook

I replaced all the sight glasses on my Sheldon lathe with units from McMaster-Carr. They had a couple different styles and a bunch of sizes, but I think they were all inch. You might have to make an adaptor ring if the hole is metric.

Jon

Reply to
Jon Elson

you might start by contacting Rolf Nielsen at the Abene company - he is knowlegable and very helpful - I got my manual from him - I think it was 40 euros? might have been a bit more. Also there is a seller on e-bay who was the US distributor who is cleaning out old inventory of Abene stuff.

You will want to change the oil and probably replace the seals. the controls operate a massive set of relays that (on mine) are located inside the base. I run mine on a static inverter (one cap, one relay) that I fit inside the box in the back. My manual won't help you, I have the next size up.

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Reply to
William Noble

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