bridgeport rotary table manual factory

I just bought a Bridgeport 12 inch table and am waiting for it to arrive. Shipping weight is 133lbs., including the crating. So, I‘m guessing it’ll be about 120 or 125lbs. We‘ll see soon enough. Either way it’s more than I can comfortably move about. So now I’m researching a reasonable method of moving it to and from the mill. Since, I have only a 42 inch table, I can’t very well just leave it on the mill.

Regarding the required lubricant, it’s my understanding that the same way oil that’s used on the mill can be used on the rotary table. Is that not correct?

Be sure the work holding device is mounted solidly to the table, and the work is held firmly. Spring or vibration in the work can cause thin cutters to jam or shatter!

Hardinge Rotary Products More Accuracy, Speed and Flexibility! The Most Flexible Quick-Change Workholding Concept on the Market… Hardinge’s A2-4 (5C) and A2-5 (16C) spindle nose designs allow quick change between collets, expanding collets, step chucks, 3-jaw chucks and face plates. Common spindle tooling can be shared between the Hardinge Rotary System(s) and a lathe. The gripping is in the spindle, closest to the spindle bearings, unlike surface-mounted adapters used on traditional rotary tables. Multiple workholding options provide alternate gripping solutions for increased precision and...

Table of Contents Hardinge has a large selection of rotary products for all ranges of production. Choose from precision and super-precision systems – single-spindle, multi-spindle and dual-axis configurations… 5C2 Gear-Driven Rotary Indexers GD5C2 single GD5C2-02 dual GD5C2-03 triple GD5C2-04 quad pages 8 - 9 • Accuracy to ±3 Arc-Sec • Repeatability to ±2 Arc-Sec • Rapid positioning speeds • Reliability • Zero backlash systems • Flexibility of workholding tooling 16C2 and 3J2 Gear-Driven Rotary Indexers GD16C2 and GD3J2 single GD16C2-02 and GD3J2-02 dual GD16C2-03 and GD3J2-03 triple pages...

Quality Manufacturing Processes Hardinge"s GD5C2 has more accuracy, more spindle clearance and more thrust & radial load. All rotary products are manufactured in Elmira, New York to strict specifications. Curved front casting and removable handle for increased spindle clearance and better tool access. ±5 arc-sec Repeatability ±25 arc-sec Accuracy .0002" Max. Runout (.005mm TIR) Robust, dual-bearing spindle for heavier radial and axial loads. 50-lb (23kg) part weight and 1000-lb (4448N) tailstock thrust per spindle is not a problem – even on a quad unit with tailstocks! 1 4 6 2 4 5 3 Small...

Productivity Features Hardinge Collet-Ready Spindles provide the most Flexible Rotary Products in the industry! Hardinge rotary systems accept many styles of standard tooling without an adapter, which is unique in the industry. You can purchase a complete system all tooled up and ready to run your parts. Rely on the spindle tooling experts for the accuracy and repeatability to get the job done. Zero-Backlash Direct-Drive Technology Hardinge offers direct-drive technology for flexible, high-speed, SUPER-PRECISION® parts positioning. Features include rapid bidirectional response, zero...

Fourth-Axis Integration GD160LP Rotary Indexer mounted in a Bridgeport® vertical machining center machining six sides of the part. Direct-Drive DD300 Rotary Table Indexer mounted in a Bridgeport® vertical machining center machining an out-of-round, elliptical part. Trunnion tailstock application for the DD100 High-Speed Direct-Drive Rotary Positioner. Spiral milling application on a Bridgeport knee mill using a 5C2 indexer and manual tailstock. 6

Interfacing to a Host Machine True 4th-Axis* via the host machine (gear-driven) Hardinge gear-driven rotary systems may be connected directly to the host machine and its CNC control. Connecting to the machine"s CNC control requires replacing the standard servo motor and cable with a servo motor and cable that is compatible with the host CNC. If the machine is not 4th-axis ready, the machine will need a 4th-axis option and servo amplifier installed. Hardinge has integrated its rotary products with Fanuc, Siemens, Heidenhain, Okuma and Milltronics. Other systems can be supported with the...

5C2 Rotary Indexers The 5C2 Rotary System is based on a long history of Hardinge 5C spindle and manual indexer designs. Over 60 years of GD5C2 GD5C2-02 GD5C2-03 GD5C2-04 Hardinge-engineered and proven mechanical elements guarantee an accurate, repeatable, reliable and flexible product. SERVO CONTROL / PROGRAMMING Servo Model Standard Servo Storage - Number of programs/steps up to 50/1000 RS-232 Interface YES Text Display multiple lines Infrared Upload/Download Baud Rate Capacity YES up to 56K SPINDLE Runout Maximum (TIR) Standard Features • Curved front casting and removable handle for...

16C2 and 3J2 Rotary Indexers 16C2 and 3J2 Rotary Table Indexers Hardinge"s world-renowned collet-ready A2-5 spindle is the heart of the system. The same accuracy, precision and reliability built into the Hardinge lathe extends to a large capacity rotary indexer. A variety of standard 16C or 3J spindle tooling will mount directly in or on the spindle without the use of an adapter. Common spindle tooling can now be shared between a rotary unit and a lathe. SERVO CONTROL / PROGRAMMING Servo Model Enhanced Servo Storage - Number of programs/steps RS-232 Interface YES Text Display multiple lines...

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Once upon a time in Bridgeport, Connecticut, there lived a man named Rudolph Bannow who conceived the now classic Bridgeport Mill.  The design was done in 1936 and the knee mills went on sale in 1938.  They became famous as the standard for manual milling machines, and that fame continues to this day.

MSC will sell you a knee mill made by Hardinge-Bridgeport for the low price of just over $20,000.  I don’t know how many are still being sold at that price point given you can buy a decent clone for circa $5000.

And for comparison, I’ve also shown a “Bed Mill”.  The main difference is that with a knee mill, the table moves up and down in Z, whereas with a Bed Mill it is the spindle that moves up and down.

When you consider that the need for the kinds of flexibility offered by the Bridgeport Mill doesn’t come along all that often, while Rigidity can affect almost every machining operation, you can see the writing on the wall.

BTW, the ability to swivel and extend on a ram the milling head is the definition of a Turret Mill.  Bridgeport Mills are not just Knee Mills, they are Turret Mills as well.

There’s one other issue for CNC applications.  Knee Mills have two methods of travel in Z: their quill and cranking the table up and down.  This is problematic because both are needed.  Cranking the table up and down has the most range, but it is the slowest–that table is big and heavy.  The quill has limited range, and while automating its motion in CNC is the simplest and most common, the lack of travel can be annoying.

All-in-all, if you plan to use a manual mill as a basis for a CNC Retrofit, a Bed Mill is likely to be a better candidate than a Knee Mill.  Even so, back in the days before VMC’s took over and made them dinosaurs, there were many CNC Knee Mills available from Bridgeport as well as companies like Tree.

I did a bunch of poking around and I often ask shops I visit about the old Bridgeports I see sitting in the toolroom.  Do you still use your Bridgeport Mill?  What for?

They’re still quite popular, and many machinists have a hard time imaging not having a Bridgeport Mill sitting ready to go in some corner of the shop.

Almost any machinist can run a Bridgeport Mill.  They’re in all the schools.  The brand has a loyal following.  In general, when a machinist hears “Bridgeport Mill” they think good things.  They realize these mills have their limits, but that’s not the point.  They also have their uses and they have served well over the years.

If you drop into a vocational program at a school, you’re almost always going to see at least one Bridgeport (yup, my son ran one in school, LOL) so the new generation that’s coming up through the ranks are automatically read to go on Bridgeports for the foreseeable future.

For most machinists, walking up to a Bridgeport Mill to drill a hole or trim a little off a part is quick and easy.  They can’t imagine spending time to program a CNC machine to do that sort of work.  Plus, the CNC machines sitting on the main part of the Shop Floor are expensive beasts.  They need to be kept busy generating barrels and barrels of chips on high paying jobs.  No time to help out a machinist needing a quick hole for a simple bracket.

In the same vein as the “Fast and Simple” argument, it’s often easy to perform some simple second ops on a part run with a properly set up Bridgeport.  Tapping holes by power tapping on the Bridgeport is a great example.

Toolrooms are the place where the Bridgeport Mill’s flexibility and small footprint really shine.  In the Toolroom, we’re making fixtures and perhaps a few quick prototypes or bits of tooling.  You can throw together a simple plate fixture with a bunch of Mitee Bite clamps or similar very quickly on a Bridgie.

First thing’s first–if you’re just looking for quick access to CNC cutting speeds, the best place to look is at our G-Wizard Feeds and Speeds Calculator. Our free 30-day trial will get you calculating your feeds and speeds right away. If what you’re looking for is to learn more about CNC cutting speeds, check out our free Feeds and Speeds Cookbook. There’s a wealth of great information there. If you have a little extra time, and you’re curious about the differences between manual cutting speeds and CNC cutting speeds, keep reading. What I want to talk about here, are two things:

First, why are cutting speeds so important for CNC, and second, how come they’re so much harder to calculate for CNC than they were for manual machines?

Once upon a time, we had little or no automation. At best, there were hydraulic tracer machines and screw machines. That’s not to say they couldn’t do quite a lot, but they certainly were not as ubiquitous as CNC has become in today’s machine shops. Instead, we had machines like the iconic Bridgeport Milling Machine. Let’s start by taking a look at the good old Bridgeport, copies of which are still being manufactured today.

The heart of any machine tool is its spindle, and for the Bridgeport, the pinnacle of spindle evolution was the 2JS head. That head used a back gear and a variable sheave belt system to achieve reasonably flat distribution of its 2 HP all the way from 50 to 3750 rpm. Its taper was the common-as-cats R8. Not too shabby:

In terms of axes, the machinist could move them one at a time–no coordinated motion was really possible without a rotary table, and even then, coordinated motion was limited to circles. The slick interpolated moves of a modern CNC were hardly even a gleam in the imagination. This was just how these machines worked and nobody worried about it too much.

And then along came CNC. For reference, let’s consider the smallest Haas CNC mill. I’m not sure this is the most common CNC the way the Bridgeport was the most common manual mill, but it is a fairly common CNC that perhaps most importantly is similar in size and capacity. Here is one that was featured in our Home Shop Hall of Fame:

Given that you’ve only got 2 HP, 3750 rpm, and maybe 18 inches per minute of feedrate, plus the fact that many would say the limits of the R8 taper are an endmill of about 3/4″ maximum diameter, what’s the best strategy for removing material with your Bridgeport?

Modern CNC’s often use fancy toolpath strategies such as constant tool engagement angle paths and they take advantage of geometric effects like radial chip thinning to move extremely quickly while exerting as little force as possible on the machine and working to maintain the life of the tool. There’s no point in any of that with the Bridgeport. You can’t turn the handwheel fast enough to feed a radial chip thinned path, and you can’t turn two handwheels at once to go around a corner without dwelling, let alone manage the complicated curlicues that a constant tool engagement path makes.

Comparison of the same pocket done with HSM and conventional toolpaths in GibbsCAMas shown by the GWE CNC Simulator. Neither one could really be done on a manual machine…

So, instead of having all this fancy digital sophistication, the answer for manual machinists was to load the biggest cutter they could and bury it. Here’s how the cutting speeds and conditions differ:

I’ll add one last consideration–with manual machining, not only are things not happening nearly as quickly as they do with CNC, but the machinist is getting instant feedback from the handwheel about how “happy” the cut is.

Those factors, in a nutshell, radically simplify cutting speeds for manual machining. With no fancy toolpaths, an inability to feed very quickly, and a need to make shallow but wide cuts, we eliminate a whole host of complications. For this kind of machining, the basic equations we’re all so familiar with work just fine. In fact, you can basically tune it up by ear pretty easily once you know what a good cut sounds like.

– If the chipload goes too low, your tool will begin to “rub”, and tool life falls off quickly. The likelihood of rubbing while manually machining is much less. At 3000 rpm and a 3 IPM feedrate, you’ve still got room to go 3-5x slower before you’re into true rubbing territory. HSS tooling is sharper than carbide, making it even harder to get the tool to rub.

My expectation is that the Bridgeport Mill has a bright future for years to come.  At least the clones do, not sure what the market for $20K plus Bridgie’s looks like.

Cheap?  Well, the knee mill is probably $5K to $20K depending on which one you buy.  Tooling for these two will be similar, though with a CNC some kinds of tooling are not needed (like a rotary table).  To get the advantages and make a reasonable comparison, I’d say the Tormach 1100M “Starter” Package at circa $14K is the right comparison.

So the Tormach carries a premium to many knee mills (especially that crusty old one you’ve been dragging around for years), it isn’t that big.  BTW, think of your Tormach CNC Mill as a Manual Mill that has Power Feeds and DRO’s on all axes.

Remember, we’re assuming the Bridgeport Mill wins on fast and simple because most machinists already know how to use it.  But, there are a couple secret weapons that will put a CNC Mill like the Tormach way ahead of the Bridgeport Mill.

First, consider Conversational Programming.  It’s built right into the Tormach’s Path Pilot controller and makes all sorts of operations super easy.  In the end, you answer a few questions from a Wizard and the machine jumps in and just does it.  And boy, it’ll do things that require a lot more effort on a Bridgeport Mill.  It’ll do them faster, and it’ll do them right and accurately the first time every time.

Second, with a small amount of learning, you can run any CNC mill just like a manual mill that has power feeds and DRO’s on all axes.  All that’s needed are a few g-codes and knowing how to type them in for manual execution.  Don’t worry, it’s super easy and we have a great article and cheat sheet to make it even easier.

Get anyone who will use the machine to be able to run the Conversational Programming and MDI and they’ll be leaving Bridgeport Mill operators in the dust.  All it takes is an afternoon to get the hang of it.

I will tell you I sold first my manual mill then my drill press too because my Tormach was so easy to just walk up to and drill a hole or whatever that they were gathering dust.  True story!

People use them for all kinds of crazy second ops.  Normal machining is obvious and easy.  More specialized uses are also common.  For example, applying glue, paint, or special coatings is easy to do.  Try using your Bridgeport Mill to assist with that.

I have to award one win to the Bridgeport though.  For sheer flexibility given its tilting head and ability to hang parts off the side of the table, it beats a machine like a Tormach.  But geez, when was the last time you really needed to do that?  And how many people do you know with Bridgeports that would let you borrow some time if push came to shove?

The ubiquitous Bridgeport Mill will be with us for a long long time yet.  They’re very handy to have around.  But they are not the undisputed challengers for their niche. Canny buyers should be looking at whether the latest crop of inexpensive small CNC Mills wouldn’t be a better bet for their needs.  Or, for the best equipped shops with the space and money, maybe you want both?

Our facility has up-to-date lathes with turning capacities of 72-inch diameter and center-to-center distances of 320 inches. Our manual lathes are fully equipped with DRO (digital readout) systems.

WWMW utilizes CNC and manual horizontal boring mills, CNC vertical machining centers, and universal mills. Our boring mills have large table capacity up to 25,000 pounds, and our manual mills are fully equipped with DRO (digital readout) systems. For projects such as motor bases, gear boxes, platens or just large weldments, WWMW has the machine to fit your needs.

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