Futurmill
Posted: Tue 24 Jun , 2014 15:55 pm
There is no section nor (as yet) any posts regarding the Denford "Futurmill" - nor is there much information out there on the web. So for completness, I thought I'd add some notes.
A thread on the Practical Machinist forum contained these comments:
There used to be a company called " Futurmill " that specialised in this sort of work. They were based in Brighouse in West Yorks and they used to convert planers into plano-mills. I dealt with them a lot in the past but I'm out of touch now.
"Futurmill" converted the whole shooting match, fitting DC drives to the cross axis and table long travel (clutched so you could still use the planing side if need be ), power clamping to the saddles, new pendants, and of course fitting their patented "Futurmill" variable speed milling head. This was about 20 to 30 horse power infinitely variable through a " Vickers" planetary two speed gear box, 2 hp won't take you very far unless your putting the holes in dolls eye's.
There was another company than did the same sort of thing based in Bolton called "Hydraquip" I think. They were OK but they weren't as good as "Futurmill" though. and
The quality of the all the "Futurmill" milling heads was first class, especially the later ones. I worked on one that was a DC infinitely variable over two speed ranges, it'd go from say 4 or5 revs right up to over a 1000 if my memory serves me well, plenty of umph even at low revs. Power RPT and feed rise and fall on the quill of about 8". Only real draw back was the lack of a power draw bar for the tooling.
I believe they were produced from mid 1960's ending around 1976 (there are no more drawing mod notes after that date!).
A few pictures I found on a machinery sales site - here fitted to a Butler planer..
Andy
A thread on the Practical Machinist forum contained these comments:
There used to be a company called " Futurmill " that specialised in this sort of work. They were based in Brighouse in West Yorks and they used to convert planers into plano-mills. I dealt with them a lot in the past but I'm out of touch now.
"Futurmill" converted the whole shooting match, fitting DC drives to the cross axis and table long travel (clutched so you could still use the planing side if need be ), power clamping to the saddles, new pendants, and of course fitting their patented "Futurmill" variable speed milling head. This was about 20 to 30 horse power infinitely variable through a " Vickers" planetary two speed gear box, 2 hp won't take you very far unless your putting the holes in dolls eye's.
There was another company than did the same sort of thing based in Bolton called "Hydraquip" I think. They were OK but they weren't as good as "Futurmill" though. and
The quality of the all the "Futurmill" milling heads was first class, especially the later ones. I worked on one that was a DC infinitely variable over two speed ranges, it'd go from say 4 or5 revs right up to over a 1000 if my memory serves me well, plenty of umph even at low revs. Power RPT and feed rise and fall on the quill of about 8". Only real draw back was the lack of a power draw bar for the tooling.
I believe they were produced from mid 1960's ending around 1976 (there are no more drawing mod notes after that date!).
A few pictures I found on a machinery sales site - here fitted to a Butler planer..
Andy