Chorvid 19- painting the Kearney & Trecker

worntorn

VIP MEMBER
Joined
Dec 22, 2006
Messages
7,953
I've been wanting to do this since it arrived here a few years ago. The factory colour was a putrid green. The mill was purchased new in 1977 by GMs Delphi division. In the 90s Delphi repainted it to an equally putrid cream colour, just wrong for machine tools.
2 .5 days cleaning and 1.5 days painting. 2 coats of hammertone finish by Tremclad. I mixed their dark Charcoal grey with their silver 50/50 to get this grey.





 
Last edited:
I recall doing a tour of local Vincent owners shops prior to purchasing the Rapide in 2003.
After visiting with 3 Vincent owners my tongue in cheek question was
" Does ownership of a Vincent automatically require purchase of a Milling machine and lathe?"

At the time I had neither machine in the shop.
17 years later there are 3 Vincents, two lathes, the mill, an 80 ton hydraulic press, 2 Tig welders, a wire feed welder and all kinds of tooling added to the mix.
 
Hi
Looks real good, want a job cleaning and painting machine tools, come down under boss has just bought 5 grinders a mill, shaper and they start from 500kg and the biggest to 10, Tonne., age from early 50's to newest 2003?
Started on the smallest grinder last Friday, 1970s Repco Power ASG Cylinder head grinder took all day to get the cast iron shavings out, with an air chisel.
Most of the machines have been painted a couple of times and some have hardly any paint left.
Asked boss if he was starting a machine tool museum he wasn't amused.

Burgs
 
I worked in the maintenance workshop at a TEC College (TAFE) for 31 years before taking a redundancy, man do I miss working with them big mills and lathes, the mill and lathe I have in my workshop are toys compared to what I use to play with, over the 31 years at the college we done a lot of work on my Norton in those years when things needed machining, the last job done there was machining the circlip mount deeper when the outer mount broke on my rear sprocket/brake drum while a new one was ordered and waiting for it to arrive, I replaced to circlip with one 2 sizes bigger, well I still have the new sprocket/brake drum under my bench and the old one I repaired is still on the bike after 7 years, it was only a 10 minute machine job to repair on the lathe.
I was a TA to the maintenance fitters so it was me doing most of the machining jobs as well maintaining all the machines, 100 lathes and 10 milling machines as well all machines the college had, I learned a lot from my tradesmen work mates and done more jobs for mates than college work, even the head man of the college brought in jobs for us to fix or repair, we were one big family, and being GOVT. run and every change of GOVT. we always seen big changes in how the college ran and the last 10 years working there it was all about making money, that when the place started to fall apart and go down hill from bad decisions and less money spent on maintenance.

Ashley
 
Burgs said:
Hi
Looks real good, want a job cleaning and painting machine tools, come down under boss has just bought 5 grinders a mill, shaper and they start from 500kg and the biggest to 10, Tonne., age from early 50's to newest 2003?
Started on the smallest grinder last Friday, 1970s Repco Power ASG Cylinder head grinder took all day to get the cast iron shavings out, with an air chisel.
Most of the machines have been painted a couple of times and some have hardly any paint left.
Asked boss if he was starting a machine tool museum he wasn't amused.

Burgs
Click to expand...


This one showed 14,500 lbs on the Crane scale when we lifted it off the lowbed that brought it across the continent.
To me it's a bit space age compared to the little old mill I used in highschool. That one was all gears, this mill is all hydraulic. Speed and feed changes are on dials. Feed speeds can be changed on the fly.
The Vertical quill type head, which must weigh half a ton or so, is on a vertical carriage way, part of the optional Vertical head parking unit. The head is lifted out of the way by the parking unit hydraulics when switching the horizontal mill use. I guess GM had lots of money in 77 when they ordered this mill.

Glen
 
Hi Ash and Glen
Ash the TAFES are stuffed from what I see now compared to 25 years ago, apprentices can get a ticket from outside training by just ticking the right box on the computer, helped a mature age apprentice yesterday by simply saying to him read the question and think about what the question is asking, don't just keep ticking the boxes until you get it right, he did this and thought that was great! :oops:

Glen I had a better look at your photos and that is a pretty tricky machine, I used to have a big Cincinnati mill about the same size maybe a bit bigger, with quite a lot of attachments, gear cutting, driven rotary table, over arm, heron style head for multiple angles, only thing was you needed to be real good at math to make it work, unfortunately that was left to me, then the young guys would take over.
That machine worked well beyond its design limits.

Burgs
 
I have seen two Vincent owners garages where neither mill nor lathe was visible. They had them in other places.
I had both a mill and a lathe before getting my Vincent. But she runs well and don't need parts fabricated.
The Nortons are a different story.
 
As told by old people who worked for Norton.
When they closed Bracebridge Street and moved some machinery to Plumstead. No one there could make parts with correct tolerances. So they scrapped these machines. The workers at Bracebridge street had decades of experience in making parts on worn machines.. Things like wood pieces between chuck and bed to make spindle run true.
 
Mike40M said:
As told by old people who worked for Norton.
When they closed Bracebridge Street and moved some machinery to Plumstead. No one there could make parts with correct tolerances. So they scrapped these machines. The workers at Bracebridge street had decades of experience in making parts on worn machines.. Things like wood pieces between chuck and bed to make spindle run true.
Click to expand...
Great to know that improvisation started right there on the factory floor!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top