Some spare parts

[Pete O]

(12-11-2016, 11:07 PM)Dr Stan Wrote: Something to ponder.  Visiting a mold shop I came across an interesting mill conversion.  They had married a Bridgeport head with a fairly sizeable (5 or 6ft bed on the X axis) horizontal mill.  This way they had a large working envelope and the features of a BP.

I think the adapter hung from the dovetail on the front of the ram with a hole that cleared the horizontal spindle.  Mostly it was used with the ram retracted as much as possible, but then the ability to extend the ram also created more versatility.  Head removal was also straight forward to return the mill to horizontal configuration.

Would be a great thing. I do keep my eyes out for a used bridgeport head, generally they seem to fetch nearly as much folding stuff as a complete machine. I think I mentioned earlier, I've kept the spare overarm so I can experiment with mounting such a head if ever one comes my way.