Vague Cinci mill question

Nov 21, 2004 8 Replies

Vague advertisement, vague question...



There's a mill in range which is described as a Cincinnati horizontal/vertical. Manual mill that's being shifted due to CNC replacement, supposed to be in good shape, price seems reasonable.



Without having any idea what model it might be, precisely (until Monday, anyway), my vague question is whether a Cincinnati with a vertical head (sounds like it might be an optional head on a horizontal mill, but I'm not sure of that) is likely to be a good bet - ie, it's not a Bridgeport, and everybody loves a Bridgeport - is that likely to mean it's not versatile, or tooling is hard to come by, or...



I already talked myself out of a huge, ancient, purely horizontal mill at a bargain basement price.


I think they're all big. What is reasonable? It should be nearly free, judging by the market around NY, anyway.

The horizontal spindles usually use just a couple of pretty standard tapers. Can't be too sure what the vertical spindle is. It could be a Bridgeport head mounted to the support arms, but I think Cinci did actually make some combo machines that were in the same size range as a Bridgeport. (They, of course, also made some absolutely gargantuan machines, too.)

Jon

I have a Cincinnati 205-15 which is a horizontal/vertical machine. It appears about 25% larger than a bridgeport but is in the 5500lb range. Of course all power feed knee, and the same vertical head as the toolmasters. If you decide not to buy this machine let me know, where is it located? Personally I would like to have another Cincinnati such as a Toolmaster mill but would consider another universal mill as well.

tim

Some Cincinnati mills have the #50 taper horizontal spindle with a powered overarm that's also a 50 taper. With the motor and gears inside with manual gear shifting. Head only moves left or right. Turn the head 90 degrees and slide on the bearing support for the arbor. See this on Ebay as an example.

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this seems to be the part you are most interested in

with the following disclaimers

1 I am sorta a hobby-ist 2 I could be accused of being less trhan 100% objective

IMHO _most_ knoweldgeable persons would consider the Cincinnati to be far superior to a Bridgeport

HTH Dale

- is that likely to mean

The seller says that it's #50 taper. I first guessed that this was only the horizontal taper, since that seems to be the usual taper for horizontal mills, but have since gone looking (and read the replys here) and found that many versions of Cincinnati H/V do use a 50 taper in the vertical head.

So I went looking (in MSCs catalog) for "things that fit a 50 taper" and found many, many different prefixes on a 50 taper. CAT V 50, NMTB 50, BT

50, and possibly an ISO 50. My education in machining was primarily as a Lab Tech, using the tooling that was associated with the tools we had, so I'm damned if I know what the differences between all these 50 tapers are. The argument that they are all the same seems questionable since various things were offered in two or more of these prefixes.

I can see that buying any 50 taper toolholders at retail will quickly exceed the price of the mill, and it's not coming with much tooling (the disadvantage of working job shops .vs. dead people as tool suppliers - the dead people's relatives often want "all that stuff" out of the basement as a throw-in).

I saw a lot of 200 50 taper toolholders sell for $50. They are definitely obtainable!

The cat 50 has one keyway that's not full depth. It will fit the Cincinnati if you remove one drive key, or make one drive key shorter to fit the different keyway.

Richard W.

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