Kearney & Trecker Milwaukee Model K No 3 follow me home.(pics)

[outlawspeeder]

I'll start off with that I only paid 320 dollars sight un seen.

I always wanted a horizontal mill. One of the local actions had Kearney & Trecker Milwaukee Model K listed as a No2 Looking at the photos it looked to be in good shape meaning it wasn't rust covered and it wasn't stored outside. I put a bid for if it was crap I could get my money back in scrap. I won the auction. The next day I went to pick it up and that is when I found out what I bought was in fact a No 3 and about 2000 to 3000 more pounds of iron.

This is where it gets fun.. I was expecting a 4000# machine. So I waited my turn for the fork lift just to find out that the fork lift was a 5000 lb rig. Of course they tried to lift if....hahaha The back wheels left the ground with three of us on back and it only lifted one side of the mill.

The next day I showed up with 6 pieces of "C" channel, a 2 ton chain fall, and a lot of sweat.

So what I got was a 10HP, 3 over arm support, 2 50CAT shafts 1" and 1.25, some cutters, and a vise that looks like a toy on that big machine. One handle is broken off, and one handle is missing the bolt that keeps it in place.

It is a war baby, was made in 1943 and is a war finish machine. It has a 10HP motor and weighs in 7800 pounds.

The question I have is how am I going to power it. I have 220 single phase in the shop. I am thinking a VFD but I don't need the variable part.



The 3 inch channel had 3/8 shorts and it slide on them easily




Yes the trailer's tail end is on the ground and yes the tires need air. I added a lot of air to the tire before I got going.



War finish an No 3 Plain. It looks to be the original paint



The pulley has a chip but with four other belts I don't think it will be a problem not using one belt. The insides are painted red and very clean.




These came with three over arm supports. One with the two bolt holes for the front brace this one and one with a small hole as a mid support.

[754]

Wow great score.. glad you got room for it and were able to move it.

[outlawspeeder]

This three hours to pull this up onto the trailer. I did take my time and got a hand from one young guy that took over after I had it up on the flat of the trailer.



I have to clean these and replace the sight gauge lens. Steven Summers used a Pringles lid.





I have since oiled the hell out this. I had to haul it home in a light rain. I hit it with two cans of WD40 but it wasn't enough.





This last pic is the arm to move the table up and down. It is missing the detent that holds it in place. If you know what, how this is suppose to be let me know.

[outlawspeeder]

Wow great score.. glad you got room for it and were able to move it.

Still not sure about the room.

[The Metal Butcher]

Woohoo! Subbed. That is an awesome machine and looks to be in very good shape. Hopefully you have the room, that certainly is a big boy.

[Franz©]

FIRST please review and improve your unloading procedures. Something that heavy coming off the back of a trailer is going to hurt you if the trailer tail isn't blocked up and the ramps aren't blocked at least at the midpoint. You got lucky.

Second that's a cute little guy from the company that made the MilwaukeeMatic I put on a 12 foot cube of concrete sitting on bedrock in Rochester in 65. That block was isolated from the rest of the floor, and the machine still moved the building when it chose to. It ran from the same paper tape Friden MemoryWriter typewriters employed and a Memorywriter could be used to program it.

"war finish" has little relevance to paint. Primarily it means only surfaces needing grinding for the machine to produce got finished, and the rat of the machine didn't get ground beyond what was needed to remove flash and sprue residue. Deming convinced Japanese heavy machine makers to continue the "war finish" concept into the 60s at least. Toshiba injection molding machinery was a fine example of the concept.

[outlawspeeder]

The unloading was easy. Two chain fails and a overhead "I" beam. I lifted it off the trailer and pulled the trailer out. The loading was suppose be provided and was not. Due to being in a room with a low ceiling, the crane did not have enough room to set up. That is way I did chain falls. But thanks for your concern for my safety.

Little guy? Ok, do I have to bolt this down? Does it need its own concrete pad?

War finish. I think it is awesome that the machine is a survivor. My understanding of the paint, it was one coat of primer and one top coat to save time to get them into the war effort. Finishing of the inside casting shows what you are talking about. There are a lot of sharp edges inside. But my thinking is this was built in a middle of a war that my Grandfather and Great Grandfather fought in, one in Europe and one in Japan. I checked the dates at http://wiki.vintagemachinery.org/Kea...ecker-Co.ashx? to get its date. I am still tracking down the past owners, looking for the head or any other parts.





Looking for advice:

I am looking for recommendations on a VFD. There are so many out there. Do I just get one rated for HP10? The motor size is 10HP. I don't need the speed control of the VFD, just the 3 phase. Is there a VFD that is cheaper that is just a power converter. This machine also has a clutch, will this cause issues with a VFD? I have a Phase-A-Matic on my Bridgeport and not happy with it under heavy loads.

[nickel-city-fab]

Wow nice score! I think its a good idea to go a bit oversize on the VFD just because of inrush current when starting up. But the clutch should make the VFD's job easier because the load doesn't come on suddenly. 10 HP is gonna be something like 50 amps on a normal house 220 line.

[Fasttrack]

Looking for advice:

I am looking for recommendations on a VFD. There are so many out there. Do I just get one rated for HP10? The motor size is 10HP. I don't need the speed control of the VFD, just the 3 phase. Is there a VFD that is cheaper that is just a power converter. This machine also has a clutch, will this cause issues with a VFD? I have a Phase-A-Matic on my Bridgeport and not happy with it under heavy loads.

Awesome score. Can't beat it for that kind of money and you did well getting it loaded and unloaded. For what it's worth, whenever I got to pick up a machine (even if loading is theoretically taken care of) I bring a bunch of wood blocking, my electric winch, a steel plate for skidding up the ramps, and some jacks. You just never know! I also welded some trailer jacks to the rear of my trailer so I can swing them down and jack up the rear end when dragging on heavy machinery.

Regarding a VFD, why not use an RPC if you don't need the variable speed? When using a VFD as a phase converter, it needs to be rated at 2x the horsepower rating of your motor. So you need to be looking for a 20 horsepower VFD, which I expect is quite expensive. An RPC is probably cheaper. That said, if you are always going to baby the machine and never draw the FLA, then maybe you could run it on a smaller, cheaper VFD. You would just need to protect the VFD with appropriately sized fuses. That's not the approach I would take but.... I suppose you could make something work if you were desperate to use a smaller VFD.

There are also static phase converters, which are cheap. I would not recommend those. They are essentially just capacitors that allow a 3-phase motor to start spinning. Once the motor is spinning, it will run on single phase but you get about 2/3 the nameplate power.

If you're on a tight budget, keep an eye out at auctions for a surplus electric motor around 10 hp. Also keep your eye out at junkyards and the like for a motor with a bent shaft, torn keyway, something like that. 10 hp motors are cheap enough that they don't always get repaired when they have that kind of damage - they still spin just fine but aren't capable of driving pulley / sprocket / gear anymore. Those are great candidates for a home made rotary phase converter. I build a 10 hp RPC for about $200, buying capacitors, contactors, and an enclosure from SurplusCenter.com.

[ncjeeper]

Nice piece of iron you got.

[mattthemuppet]

holy cowbells, that's a fun auction "accident" to have! That thing should massively increase metal removal rate (or "stock to scrap" rate) in your shop.

[Doozer]

Nice purchase. You manhood just got 1" longer, all the time.

-Doozer

[BCRider]

It's going to be a really fun adventure living with this beast.

If I were to get something that big I'm pretty sure I would not have room for anything else in the shop... And that's if the floor was able to prevent it sinking to the core of the planet....

[Joel]

I just used a static converter on my Cincinnati 2MH. It was cheap and got me up and running quickly. With so much power available, the loss was not a problem.
Otherwise, look for a good deal on a surplus motor you can use for an RPC as previously suggested.
You can really chew off material with such a beast. You need the right cutters though.

Added - No, you almost surely do not need to bolt it down.

[Fasttrack]

So what I got was a 10HP, 3 over arm support, 2 50CAT shafts 1" and 1.25, some cutters, and a vise that looks like a toy on that big machine. One handle is broken off, and one handle is missing the bolt that keeps it in place.

By the way, how are you doing for CAT 50 tooling? Is this your first machine with a CAT 50 taper? You're in the Saint Louis area, right? I may be passing through there in a couple of months and I might have a few minor things to donate to the cause. I love to see these old beasts being used!