New tools

[Gasser1952]

Hey guys I am still trying to find info on my new to me lathe that I can now identify as a herless ssb-16BUK. I also just picked up a busy bee B096 milling machine! I am looking for service info on either machine. Any help is appreciated

[macona]

They are a Taiwanese import lathe, looks like to Australia maybe? Enco here in the US had a similar model as probably all around the world under different names. Probably good enough for most people.

[Fasttrack]

Yep - Herless seems to be an Australian re-branding of a Shun Shin product (Taiwanese). Interestingly, it looks like the brand is supported by various companies in New Zealand and Australia. For instance, I found this company that stocks spare parts for Shun Shin lathes: https://www.chevpac.co.nz/catalogue/..._SPA_S115_c813

You might reach out to them for a manual... Alternatively, if you post more specific questions here, you'll likely get all the help you need as far as maintenance and repair are concerned. Most of these import lathes, regardless of branding, are the same design.

[brian Rupnow]

Go to www.busybeetools.com to get info on the mill.

[mattthegamer463]

The B096 looks like a common Rong Fu RF-25 rebadge, plenty of rebranded versions and info out there.

[Gasser1952]

Thank you for the input. I am new to the machine world as I am an automotive mechanic. I build hot rods and race cars on the side and these machines will be valuable to me as I will be able to manufacture my own parts,brackets etc. What modifications do you guys recommend for the round column mill? Any recommendations on tooling? Thank you in advance

[Gasser1952]

Also here are some pictures of the mill. Mounted on my work bench right now but may build a separate stand for it. The shop is a work in progress

[BCRider]

Gasser, my first mill/drill was one of those. Mine had an MT3 taper in the quill. Same for yours?

One thing. Don't be tempted to do more than pinch the drawbar lightly if your machine is MT3. The taper will lock solidly and you'll need to beat on the draw bar viciously to knock it free. And that ain't nice for the spindle bearings at all. I'm pretty sure that I only ever tightened the draw bar to around 0.2 to 0.3 N-m of torque. Like literally one finger on the wrench at around 15cm and not trying to crack any joints sort of torque.

As far as performance goes I found that this smaller size machine performed like a champ. It surprised me at the cuts it would take in a lot of cases. I milled out slots for 12mm square tooling in tool holders for my lathe with it. And in what I felt was a surprisingly low number of around 6 to 8 passes to reach final size of about 12x14mm.

I did find that the graduated travel of the quill, which is your only graduated and correctly controlled vertical feed, was a little "slippery" or something. But the bottom line was that turning the graduated wheel did not always move the quill the promised amount. To get around that I removed the fairly annoying drilling depth stop and replaced it with a piece of 1/2" (12mm) ground drill rod (silver steel in colloquial British terms). To that I added a movable block which mounted a 25mm travel dial gauge to use for doing measured vertical movements. This meant having to move it on occasion but it wasn't too hard to work with. And a lot better than the "fuzzy" travel given by the index on the vertical motion wheel.