# Big Machines



## Mosey (Oct 16, 2011)

While I am unable to work in the shop due to job overload, my fertile (decaying?) mind wonders about all kinds of things. What about big machines? Really big machines!! What are the ones that stick in your memory as impressively large? Like those 60' long lathes shown in the shop manuals. Do you have pictures?
(I'll be back at the machining this Winter) :


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## Jeremy_BP (Oct 16, 2011)

The shop I worked at over the summer had a big ooya mill, probably a 12' x 5' table. Biggest I've ever seen in person, but I've heard of _massive_ mills that would make that look like an X1 in comparison.


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## Jasonb (Oct 16, 2011)

I posted this link a while ago, should stop you working for a while ;D

http://www.shipsnostalgia.com/guides/William_Doxford_and_Sons#The_Manufacturing_Process

J


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## chuck foster (Oct 16, 2011)

excellent pictures   and no safety glasses ??? ???

thanks for sharing

chuck


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## tattoomike68 (Oct 16, 2011)

I ran a lathe like this for a couple years, it would swing 6 feet OD.


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## doc1955 (Oct 16, 2011)

The hydraulic fixtures I have been designing are for machines with 12 foot 2 section a axis cubes. Sorry I can't put any pictures of them up as cameras are not allowed. We do military work and cargo stuff for Boeing and Airbus. They look very close to these.
Chiron long bed mills


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## mgbrv8 (Oct 17, 2011)

I ran a big vertical at a field machine shop I worked at

David


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## Stan (Oct 17, 2011)

One welding book I had said that you could cut 13" of steel with an oxy-acetylene torch at O2 full bottle pressure. The picture of flame cutting the crank webs must be very close to that maximum.


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## rake60 (Oct 17, 2011)

I used to run a big vertical boring mill.
The table was just under 10 feet in diameter and it would swing up to 14 feet easily.

This is a screen shot of me doing a little threading on it.






Actually I had a post on here before about that mill.
It can be seen _*HERE*_

I miss that machine sometimes.

Rick


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## Blogwitch (Oct 17, 2011)

Chester UK will sell you nice compact units for those with a slightly larger shop.

Here are a couple of bandsaws from their range, look out for the operators.

http://www.chestermachinetools.com/Products/Product.aspx?productID=108

Go to large machine tools for lathes that are about 20 ft long, for doing those small precision jobs.


John


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## tattoomike68 (Oct 17, 2011)

rake60  said:
			
		

> I used to run a big vertical boring mill.
> The table was just under 10 feet in diameter and it would swing up to 14 feet easily.
> 
> This is a screen shot of me doing a little threading on it.
> ...



Wow rick that was a big ol girl, I bet it was fun to run. i would miss it too.


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## pete (Oct 17, 2011)

Funny, But requirement wise. We seem to have a limit on machine tool size. Or at least the maximum size that machine tools have to be. I remember looking at a reproduced picture in a late 1980s or early 1990s Model Engineers magazine that showed a picture probably from around 1925-1935. It was a horizontal boring mill with 2 or 3 full size cars parked on the table. The cars looked like a model T Fords or the British equivelent. There were some massive machine tools built during the peak of the steam age, And they were probably at least as large as some of the largest avalible today. Maybe not conventional lathes, But certainly horizontal boring mills and pit type flywheel lathes. I just bought but don't have them yet, An almost complete collection of Model Engineer magazines from 1898 - the mid 1960s. I'm really looking forward to checking out all that older technology. It would be nice to get an authorization from the publishers and current owners of M.E. to post some of the more interesting photos from them on this forum.

Pete


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## steamer (Oct 17, 2011)

I used to work at Heald Machine of grinder fame.  We had a big Ingersol Gantry mill with a floor level table that you could park 4 VW Bettles on and if so desired could then mill the roofs off.  Wish I had a picture of that old girl now...


Dave


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## Tin Falcon (Oct 17, 2011)

that would be one way of making a cutout for a sun roof!!!
Tin


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## ruzzie (Oct 17, 2011)

Some nice machines here for making engines ;D

http://www.shipsnostalgia.com/guides/William_Doxford_and_Sons#The_Manufacturing_Process

Paul


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## stevehuckss396 (Oct 17, 2011)

Hows this for a big milling machine


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## steamer (Oct 18, 2011)

Hey Bubba!
That would be the old girls younger and much bigger brother.....but same idea.

That appears to be a profiler.  Funny the Airforce doesn't use "sheet metal" , they don't trust it.

On their missiles, the panels are carved out of billet....and that appears to be a panel being made in the photo.

No...that's not a typo.....I watched the process myself.  Various managers had various trophy run off pieces hanging in their offices... ;D  Sure went though a lot of stock!

Dave


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## mu38&Bg# (Oct 19, 2011)

These are some fairly large lathes. Watch the video! It's pretty long, but the cuts are tremendous.

http://www.binnsmachinery.com/


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## MachineTom (Oct 19, 2011)

In the early 1980's I visted Republic Aircraft in NY. My Father in-law worked there building the nose cones for A-10's. The wing planks as they called them were each machined out of 3" thick AL in various widths, maybe .060 thick at the thinest, with all sorts of bosses, brackets, beams, milled in. A floor plate about 60 feet long, 20 feet wide, had a gantry with 2 ,maybe 100 hp spindles with mamouth tool changers. At the time it was milling out of a huge chunk of Ti, the landing gear struts. Very impressive.

The single most impressive thing there was the GE gattling gun they carry, 8 barrels about 8 feet long, attached to the magazine which was about 4 foot diameter and 20 feet long. What was so great about it was the entire gun was setup on a stand so you could see what it looked like all together. As I recall it carried 750 rounds, which sounds like alot, but the rate of fire is I believe 1000 rounds per miniute. 45 seconds time to go home. The ammo shells were about a foot long, 35mm bullets, some depleted Uranium, for penertrating armor.


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## ChooChooMike (Oct 20, 2011)

> The ammo shells were about a foot long, 35mm bullets, some depleted Uranium, for penertrating armor.



Google on the A-10 Warthog (tank killer) and it's Gatling gun. A-10 was built AROUND the gun th_confused0052. Sound very similar !

No hiding from those bullets :hDe:

Mike


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## el gringo (Oct 20, 2011)

Thanks for the great video Greg!
Ray M


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## tombstone (Oct 20, 2011)

these guys make some interesting large m/c centres & milling machines
http://www.snkc.co.jp/english/index/index.htm
Ray


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