Identifying Senior Milling Machine

[Tristan LuscombeParticipant @tristanluscombe46103]

Hello folks,

I have recently started working as the technician at a secondary school DT department and I'm trying to get all the machines up to speed (so to speak) as many of them are very elderly and have not been used for many years.

One such machine is the milling machine. The department head is keen to get it back in to use but I know very little about it and to be honest it's many years since I used a milling machine and the ones I used were very different.

I know it's a Senior, the serial number is M.I. 1789 and hopefully I'll be able to attach a couple of photos here. Does anyone know about these machines or know a good resource they can point me at?

Many thanks!

[Tristan LuscombeParticipant @tristanluscombe46103]

[Tristan LuscombeParticipant @tristanluscombe46103]

[Simon Williams 3Participant @simonwilliams3]

Welcome to the forum, and you might like to have a look at Tony Griffith's definitive web catalogue of these machines (and many others). Follow the Lathes.co.uk link to the page for the Senior M1.

As for how to use it, the series by Jason in Model Engineering is a good start, hopefully he'll be along shortly with some advice.

Have you searched the department cupboards, you need a collet chuck (e.g. Clarkson Autolock) to hold an end mill in the spindle of the vertical head, also a work holding vice. Hopefully they are to be found?

This machine is actually a horizontal milling machine with a bolt on vertical head, so you can use it as a horizontal machine as well. So (in another cupboard) you can find the overarm and outrigger support bracket, also a milling cutter arbour and some spacers, and maybe a few milling cutters as well.

Hope this helps

Best rgds Simon

[Tristan LuscombeParticipant @tristanluscombe46103]

Thanks Simon, I'll definitely follow that link! Unfortunately I haven't been able to find any documentation on the Senior at all, but we do have lots of 'bits' that are definitely related to it, collets, end mills and so on – but to be honest there are bits all over the department so it's going to take a very long time to work out what we do and don't have and what is functional.

I think this is where an original manual would come in useful, identifying which random pieces of metal are meant to be used with it and which are just 'things' that the department has acquired over the last 60 years!

Thanks again!

Tristan.

[Kiwi BlokeParticipant @kiwibloke62605]

Welcome, you've come to the right place – and passed the intelligence test that is getting pictures to display in posts!

The machine is indeed a Tom Senior M1, and looks to be in unusually good condition. They are simple, good machines, and sought-after, especially with the right-angled vertical head. Tom Senior was taken over by Denford. The machines have been out of production for at least 30 years (give or take), and spares are few and far between. Denford have put up drawings, etc. at **LINK** Go to 'Machines', then 'Senior'.

It looks like there's a collet chuck in the vertical spindle, almost certainly for Clarkson-type screwed-shank cutters.

Given what we hear about health and safety worries, I'm a bit surprised that you intend to use such a 'dangerous' machine within a mile of children. If I were you, I'd try to get the school to condemn it on safety grounds, offer a few hundred quid, and whip it off to your own workshop! However, if you can get the little blighters' heads out of their 'phones, and teach them how to do something useful with their hands, all power to you!

You'll get a (fairly) sensible answer to any question here, so ask away!

[Kiwi BlokeParticipant @kiwibloke62605]

Tristan, just seen your post. Senior manuals were pretty useless. Post pix – we'll tell you what's what.

[Stuart Smith 5Participant @stuartsmith5]

Tristan

Just looking at the Denford site mentioned by Kiwi Bloke, I found this post with a manual attached.

**LINK**

Stuart

[Tristan LuscombeParticipant @tristanluscombe46103]

Wow, this is fantastic stuff, thanks guys! I had a feeling this would be the right place to ask!

If the department decides to get rid of it I'll definitely risk the wife's wrath and take it home

Time is my enemy as I need about 30 hours a day every day to get everything that needs doing done, but hopefully once I've established myself in the department I'll have the opportunity to get all the lathe stuff (oh boy, is that another story!) together, all the milling machine stuff together and work out exactly what we've got here.

Thanks again, guys, I can't begin to tell you how much I appreciate your input!

[Nigel McBurney 1Participant @nigelmcburney1]

Please remember that horizontal milling machines are regarded as very dangerous,and always have been .For very many years well before Health and safety became a pain in the backside, power presses , grinding machines and horizontal milling machines were subject to the factory acts,and even companies that turned a blind eye to safety always made sure horizontal mills had their guards in place. There was no safety concerns with vertical milling machines,when a Factory inspector came round to a factory he expected to see guards on drilling machine chucks but never made any comment on vertical mills.If a roller type milling cutter is working and an operator catches his fingers in the cutter it does not let go and will result in serious injury, If you do use it in a school environment I would suggest that the horizontal arbour and the cast arbour support are locked away and not used,just use the vertical attachment. Unlike nowadays when people see a risk if you sharpen a pencil with a knife,machines and processes listed on the Factory Acts were there because there were very many real accidents not risks. One of the very early mandatory guards in the early 1900s was that back gears had to be guarded to stop lots of operators loosing their fingers in the gears.

[Bill Davies 2Participant @billdavies2]

Hi, Tristan. I was a school technician until recently; not a D&T technician (Physics), but I am time-served mechanical engineering. I don't think the 'kids' are allowed to use such machines now, and you may find the teachers reticent to use them. They might have had training but will have had none of the experience that you might possess. I'm not making a dig at anyone; different jobs.

Whilst teaching at an FE college, years ago, a student was milling vee blocks (haven't we all…) with a half-angle cutter, was cleaning swarf witha piece of 1/4 inch plate, against instruction (we provided brushes). Inevitably, the plate caught, was pulled through the cutter, knocking the teeth off the cutter and bending the arbour. The teeth were punched through the 1/4 inch plate.

The lad was shaking, so after a while when he had settled down, we set the machine up again so he could get his confidence back. Takeway lesson: geared machines have low speed, but (surprisingly) high torque. Not a Senior, probably a Victoria or similar mill.

The machines had the criss-cross guards, but where there's a will… , so H&S are doubtless right.

Bill

[Bill Davies 2Participant @billdavies2]

And to depress you, and cause consternation among the rest of us, see page 58 of the following H&S guidance, summarising a couple of hundred of their publications:

HSG129

Note: these apply to industrial settings. Your HoD can advise you, but you should take a look at the CLEAPPS website, which provides information on science and technology in schools. You will need to get a current password.

CLEAPPS

Bill

[Dave HalfordParticipant @davehalford22513]

This is not Tristan's idea, whim or fancy. The Department Head has asked him to, so something must have changed or be changing in the curriculum recently unless a night school is planned, which would mean adult use.

[Bill Davies 2Participant @billdavies2]

A good point, Dave. A similar machine languishes at my former employment. I would hope it is used again.

I was responding to Nigel's comments. Machines, especially relatively slow-moving ones, can surprise users in the harm they can cause.

I don't see the school curriculum moving against its long-term trend of more simulation and automation versus practical usage. Those older manually operated machines are gradually disappearing, and I see more CAD and CNC/3D printing replacing them, as in industry, all of which I understand.

Bill

[Brian HParticipant @brianh50089]

Hello Tristan and welcome to this wonderful forum. That a very nice looking machine and should be very useful.

You could also try "groups io": **LINK**

Down the left hand side of the opening page is a list of topics, 'Files' is a good one with lots of info. You can also ask questions as you can on this site.

All the best with recommissioning etc.

Brian

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

I doubt the school intends letting children near this mill. After taking early redundancy from BT a friend worked as a school technician for about 5 years. His job was to support teaching staff with materials and the simple tools that the kids used in supervised sessions, and, behind the scenes. to make stuff for experiments and demonstrations.

For example, for one lesson he band-sawed plastic into suitably sized blocks for the kids to convert into keyholders with hand tools. The kids also used software to define what they wanted engraved on their masterpiece, but they didn't get to use the CNC engraver: the school technician did that in a private workshop.

Do we have a teacher on the forum? I think there's much to be said for the approach taken. Children seem to be being taught about materials and design rather than traditional hand-processes. Materials cover textiles, plastics, and ceramics as well as wood and metal, and design is more focused on CAD/CAM. They also cover electronics. Schools seem to have shifted to teaching engineering principles rather than workshop skills.

This is probably closer to what industry wants. The need for manual skills has reduced because manufacturing is heavily automated, and manual skills are probably cheaper abroad. Globalisation means designs can be turned into products almost anywhere in the world.

I suggest what's required of schools has changed since I was a boy: there are far fewer basic engineering jobs in the UK now, even though British industry is as profitable as it ever was. The way industry works has changed and so has what's wanted of employees. Demand for designers and qualified engineers remains strong in the UK, and I think schools are trying to support that.

How well schools are doing is another question. My friend was red-hot on electronics and telecommunications, but although good with hand tools he had no idea how to work the Denford Orac in his workshop. No-one in the school understood it. Same problem at my school in the sixties when they started teaching us computing. Very unfair to expect a teacher born before WW1 to be up to speed on developments in Data Processing… Later on schools found it so difficult to find anyone able to teach programming the BBC Micro that the government switched to teaching spreadsheets and word processing instead. Not wrong, but the country has been short of programmers ever since…

Dave

[Dave HalfordParticipant @davehalford22513]

Maybe you don't Bill, but see this add , 4th bullet under responsibilities. Yes, it's 4 years old, but a surprising content.

[Stuart Smith 5Participant @stuartsmith5]

Dave

That advert is for an independent school, so presumably they can choose to carry on with practical courses if they want/ have the funds for. I think they have links with the car industry as well.

I went to a Grammar school in the late 1960s which had woodwork and metalwork workshops. They were later closed and are now used as classrooms.

Stuart

[Tristan LuscombeParticipant @tristanluscombe46103]

Hello everyone. Thanks for taking the time to get involved in my question, I really appreciate everyone's input, there is no substitute for the weath and variety of experience available on forums like this!

To address a couple of the comments, there is no expectation that the students would be using the milling machine, I don't care what the department think is going to happen, as technician I simply wouldn't allow it. I very much doubt any of the teachers would use it either, so it would be a case of me fabricating project components and so on as required. What the kids are allowed to use is heavily restricted, we have small bandsaws and drill presses that they can use under close supervision, but that's about it in terms of machinery – they're not even allowed to use chisels unless a member of staff is standing over them!

The comment about materials and design is spot on, the emphasis is very much on that these days, which makes sense given the limited access we can afford to give the kids to actual tools.

Bill, it's nice to hear from a fellow technician. I did workshop training at college and then on placements for Ford, I was an engineer for many years after that before drifting into IT and all that sort of thing – so I do have practical workshop experience, but I certainly wouldn't call it recent! 😀

I welcome any and all comments and look forward to getting to know everyone on the forum a bit better.

Thanks all!

[Chris HembryParticipant @chrishembry84309]

Hi Tristan,

Welcome to the DT Technician club!

I was in a similar position to you a few years back, and am now in the pleasing situation where all the machines are up and running. I was fortunate in that I learnt my initial skills at the same school, on the same machines nearly 40 years ago.

We have three Seniors, an identical M1, a LV and a M1 Horizontal. All fully guarded and available to the upper school to use.

As has been said, DT is now much more about teaching the processes available by demonstration rather than the old hands-on approach. Am not convinced it does the kids any favours whether they go into industry or not, but contact time or budget just does not permit anything else.

Have sent you a pm with school email if you need any info.

Regards, Chris

[Oily RagParticipant @oilyrag]

Tristan,

Here is a direct link to the downloadable Denford website for archived Tom Senior Milling Machines:-

<http://www.denfordata.com/bb/download/file.php?id=1008&gt;

Best of luck with the project – it is good to see kids getting to look at (even at arms length) a bit of machinery.

Martin

[Tristan LuscombeParticipant @tristanluscombe46103]

Hi Chris and Oily, thanks for joining in the discussion, and thanks for that link!

I'm with you on that, Chris, I think the kids should be allowed to play with all the hand tools and certainly have demonstrations of the machinery at the very least, but the school is (understandably) terrified of the potential litigation/publicity of parents enraged that their little poppet went home with a plaster on their finger because they weren't paying attention in class and decided to hold a chisel by the wrong end. They will miss out on a lot – but that decision is above my pay grade.

[Tristan LuscombeParticipant @tristanluscombe46103]

Just as an update to everyone who very kindly offered advice. It has taken the better part of a year but I finally got some time to get to grips with this machine over the Easter holiday. I have found it is very reluctant to cut even the most shallow cut in mild steel. The powerfeed gearbox had been allowed to run completely bone dry so I refilled it and sometimes it works, but normally it doesn't when I engage it.

I wonder if these problems might be solved with new belts throughout or whether they are indicative of a deeper problem? I really want to replace the belts as a matter of course, does anyone have any recommendations for suitable belts? Do they even still make those weird multilink belts anymore?

Thanks again to everyone for your help so far

[OldironParticipant @oldiron]

Hi Tristan. Multilink belting is still readily available. Link belt. Many people still use it to replace belts on new and used machines.

regards

[Tristan LuscombeParticipant @tristanluscombe46103]

Thank you! It seems odd to me that before I encountered this old M1 I had never even seen this style of belt before!

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