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Dah Lih DL-VHR-GIF mill - a journey of discovery

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Joco:
I have a new toy .. err .. tool ... yes TOOL.  I've been having fun with the BF20 but that is now in bits under going a CNC conversion and I wanted something that was a bit chunkier, a bit more solid, manual and yet not OTT.  So after a rash moment by SWMBO where the magical words "yes you can get another mill" were uttered I pounced.  Thanks to some excellent snooping by a good mate Bruce I have become the owner of what seems to be referred to as a "Small/Medium Knee Mill".  A Dah Lih DL-VHR-GIF. Compared to a BridgePort its definately smaller but for my workshop I think will work well.  It does have a few nice features: 6 speed power feed on X axis along with rapid, one shot oiler, horizontal and vertical milling spindles, and flood coolant.  This is an old mill but seems to be in reasonable condition with the previous owner getting the table reground and the completely redoing the bearings in the spindle.

I have some light restoration work to do with surface rust removal, some new paint and a few handles and the like to be replaced/fixed.  The biggest challenge will dealing with THREE motors in it all 3-phase.  I think I will end up with a stack of VFDs on the wall or hidden in the machine somewhere.

Anyway the beginning of a jouurney as I learn this vernerable old tool.

b.lindsey:
Congrats on the new mill Joco. Looks to be a solid machine and should offer the greater rigidity you want. A little paint, polish and TLC and she'll be good for another 50 years!!

Bill

Kim:
Looks like a pretty substantial mill!

Does it use R8 collets?  Or something else?  And did you get it with lots of extra tooling?

How fun!  A new toy!
Kim

Joco:
Another pic of stuff that came with the mill.   There are a selection of holders here for face mills, end mill, jacobs chuck, ER40 and ER of size to be determined.

There are two distinct styles of taper fortunately both styles are a 7/24 taper.
I have
- NT30 (or more correctly NMTB #30) tapers which I suspect is what the defaut is for this machine
- BT30 tapers (the ones on the right). Given these need an extra spacer on the drawbar that implies that while they fit they are not the style intended for this machine.

The other little joy from last night was the discovery of a 3rd motor tucked away in the back of the beast. In hindsight I should have expected it.  This motor is what drives the horizontal arbor. So another complication to the electronics.  I could certainly replace it with a single phase motor and maybe that is the better option. However at the moment I feel reluctant to walk away from the original 3 phase motor.






CHeers,
J.

Joco:
Had a close look at the horizontal arbor this evening and its clearly a BT30 taper and that arbor is absolutely original to the mill so BT30 is the originally intended taper.  :-)

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