This is not a "boring" head (it's a Narex facing and boring head)

[Bjorn_B]

Finally! I Finally got my hands on a facing and boring head! Found this Narex on a Facebook group for used tooling. It seem svery well taken care of and came with a fitting ISO30 mount for my small mill. 

20211007_171835 by Bjorn Bursell, on Flickr

Nice felt lined box with some extra parts and reducers to take smaller boring bars (I believe it is 16mm for this otherwise)

20211007_171854 by Bjorn Bursell, on Flickr

The head is of the first model that Narex ever produced (debut in 1963) and is no longer in production (replaced by the much copied Vhu36 I believe), it differs in the quick-feed setting from later models as is it done with the stop ring with zero feed setting and the autofeed clutch "in". Somewhat the same idea that the smaller Wolphauter heads use? The "made in Czechoslovakia" engraving dates this to 1993 vintage or earlier (I don't know when the Vhu32 went out of production)

20211011_193119 by Bjorn Bursell, on Flickr

Boring Cotter blanks, the mill has a self feed on the quill, 0,05 or 0,1mm /rev.

20211011_200708 by Bjorn Bursell, on Flickr

Very satisfacting to hit the bore hole diameter at 25.41mm that I aimed for for the cotter blanks I made for the up and coming Quorn build. This has allways been a very dodgy affair with the Chinese (Criterion copy) boring head I have used up to now.

[RReid]

Definitely not boring; in fact exciting! That looks like a very nicely made tool.

[Kim]

Beautiful tool!  There's nothing like the feel of using quality tools!

Kim

[TonyM]

They are part of Festool Germany now but their old factory is just down the road from me. They make really good quality tooling but prices are not for the fainthearted.

[Jo]

Nice find  I had to replace the 20mm mount on my Auto head with a 30 int as I couldn't find any.

Interesting to see your adapter sleeves  I normally just make a sleeve that goes into the 16mm hole but yours have a knurled end and one has a hole for the clamping screw to go through rather than a slit 

Jo

[Bjorn_B]

Nice find  I had to replace the 20mm mount on my Auto head with a 30 int as I couldn't find any.

Interesting to see your adapter sleeves  I normally just make a sleeve that goes into the 16mm hole but yours have a knurled end and one has a hole for the clamping screw to go through rather than a slit 

Jo

Thanks Jo!

I believe the sleeves to be original Narex items, bit different, yes.

/Björn

[Bjorn_B]

They are part of Festool Germany now but their old factory is just down the road from me. They make really good quality tooling but prices are not for the fainthearted.

I saw what a new Vhu36 goes for and nearly had a heart seizure. Got this for about 400Eur 

[bent]

  Gasp, me too.  I guess I will be happy with my cheap Chinese boring head for now...

[Overbuilt and Overkill]

I bought one of the Vhu-36 full kits some years ago and yes it hurt to buy. While the storage case for mine is ok, it's definitely a cheapened version without the full felt lining that yours has Bjorn. And 400 Eros was a real steal as you already know. The condition of the felt in that box and the heads lack of general shop wear clearly shows it wasn't used very much. However I hadn't run across any mention Narex once made a Vhu-32 model before your post. If you ever need another shank with a different taper for yours since they work just as well in a lathe with the work bolted to the cross slide. I'd suggest you should be sitting down. Simple MT 2,3,4 shanks are listed at $460, $485 and $560 respectively at today's prices in the MSC catalog. And unfortunately Narex shanks seem to be a proprietary item that I've never seen any other manufacturer offering copies of. If your older head does have the same attachment method as mine, it's imo far superior than Criterion and the off shore copies threaded connection use on the more simple boring only heads.

[jadge]

Nice looking head. 

I've got a slightly larger Wohlhaupter boring and facing head on an ISO40 taper. It's a joy to use now that I've fixed the issue with the coarse/fine feed interaction. There were some parts missing that locked the coarse feed. Fortunately they were easy to make, plus a commercial spring. On my head the coarse feed is 0.24" per rev and the fine feed is 0.016" per rev. That makes it easy to sneak up on dimensions. I've only used the facing facility a couple of times. There are 12 buttons that can be pushed in to select various feedrates. My specific head isn't made any more, but new ones are well into the thousands of pounds.

I'm on the lookout for a similar Gamet boring and facing head to replace the el cheapo boring head I currently use on the Bridgeport.

Andrew

[Zephyrin]

This boring head is a beautiful piece of equipment !
the construction of a boring and facing head was described in Model Engineer many years ago, in 1989, along 14 issues  from 16/07/1989 to 16/12/1990.
holding a knurled ring allows to a ratchet wheel to turn the feed screw for facing...a very clever design, It looked very attractive to make...

After much deliberation with myself, I didn't built it at the end...
Hence I still do the boring and facing the front face of a cylinder on the lathe.

[Twizseven]

I know this is an old post but.

Does anyone know where I can obtain Narex vhu-36 spares within the UK.  I managed to pick one up from a factory that had closed down in Birmingham.  They advertised it as having a MT3 taper but it was R8 which is what I wanted.  I paid £50 for it, in the box with various accessories.  I am missing the pair of stops (and associated screws and backplates) and the extension arm.
Thanks,
Colin

[Jo]

An R8 Mount is easy enough to turn up yourself using a commercial blank (I am assuming they do R8 blanks like they do INTs and Morse blanks). You will find it has a register on the top and mounts with some cap screws so it is easy to swop over the mounts.

You won't like the price of the original Narex ones  Ask Rotogrip about spares for boring heads they did the Vertex copies.

Jo

[Jasonb]

MSC do them but they are not cheap

https://www.mscdirect.co.uk/VHU-16020A/SEARCH:CATEGORY/product.html