Over the last couple of weeks I have been keeping an eye on fleabay for a boring and facing head.
I bid on one but lost it when my max bid was beaten, but a couple of days later, one almost exactly the same came up, so I put in the same bid as before, and to my surprise, later that evening when I checked, no one else had bid on it and I got it for the opening bid of 10 squid plus 11 squid postage. It was delivered by courier a couple of days later. These things cost many hundreds of pounds when new, I just can't believe my luck.
This is the tool, and must weigh well over 10 lbs (5kgs).
The on the run adjusting key was missing, but I can make one of those in no time, and it adjusts perfectly with just a screwdriver in the key hole.
It can take boring bars from about 1/4" right up to 3/4" and it has a fitting screw hole where you can bolt your own made up fittings to, so basically you can bore enormous holes if the need arises.
I have been really struggling the last couple of days to remove the spindle adaptor off it, and even left it overnight with puller pressure on it to see if that would release it. No joy.
So really fed up, this morning, I decided to use a bit of heat, still with the puller pressure applied, and within about five seconds of pointing my plumbers torch at it, the thing fell apart. The reason, the original mandrel was a 3MT. I hate those things, purely because they grip and lock up so tight.
So sometime soon, that 3MT will be ground down to a parallel shank and shortened a bit, so that it can fit into a spindle collet.
I'm getting my tooling prepared for when I start the R & B engine.
Bogs
