As most are probably aware, I like older, manual type machines. I have a soft spot for European machines likely brought on by the rarity of them in my native Australia. I had been on the hunt for about 10 years for a small milling machine and initially was looking at the little Emco FB-2:
Emco FB-2 info
This was mainly brought on by the fact I had an Emco Maximat V-10 which I was very impressed with. Upon surfing the Norwegian equivelent of ebay, I came a cross an elderly gent selling a bigger lathe. I rang him but unfortunately he had sold the lathe by that stage. Jokingly I said, "what a shame you don't have a little milling machine". He replied, "funny you should say that, I forgot to include one in my add...". The rest as they say, is history.
The Jungner VF-600 Milling machine
When I first purchased this machine, it was covered in sawdust and hardened oil. It had suffered it's share of careless operators, marring the table and cutting grooves into it's surface. I was not able to test the machine, but when rotating the motor by hand and going through the gears, I couldn't feel any damage. I took a gamble with it I know, but given the price and pile of extras I got, I didn't want to let it slip through my fingers.
Transportation home was difficult the first time. I had to dissassemble the 550 kg beast and load it into the car and onto the trailer piece by piece. It was a big job. When re-assembling it, I noticed the insulation on the wires was tacky and had the consistency of chewing gum. Not good. When I got it all re-assembled, it threw the breaker every time I tried to turn it on. At that point renovations started and I didn't have time to touch it for a further 2 1/2 years.
Moving to Hvittingfoss
Thank God for good friends.
Details
As you can see, for a 3/4 HP motor, the machine is very heavily built and extremely rigid.
It has been designed with t-slots that accomodate stops. This is a very nice feature and helps avoid mistakes while milling.
This machine was designed as both a mill and a drill. It has a geared down-feed that allows for very heavy drilling. It also has both a handwheel, and a down-feed lever as found on a drill press. The head can also be engaged with a gear drive reduction allowing extra torque and reduced speeds for jobs where the belt drive would slip.The head also has the t-slot stops to ensure you don't bore to far.
The head can be tilted, raised and lowered via these hand cranks.
The controls for the machine are relatively simple, consisting of 2 switches on the front panel. These control forward and reverse of the spindle, and left to right of the table.
The table feed mechanism is a flange mounted motor with a small gearbox. The feed speeds seem adequate for a range of finishes.
Quality
I love European machines because they seem to be built with a sense of pride rarely found in Far-East machines. This machine, although used still has minimal back-lash, and shows no rusting on the chrome parts. The dials are of a very generous size and are extremely easy to use and adjust
Even the motor is European made.
A refurb project?
It has been a long time in the making, but I finally have the machine up and running. Initially I was going to strip it, repaint it and repair the table. I don't know if I will do that now. I think I just want to use something before I take it to bits and try make it better. Despite the age, this old girl is still silky smooth and I really can't wait to use it.
The instruction manual
I have had the instruction manual translated from Swedish to English. I will upload it as soon as I have time to put the pictures with the text. Apparently, it appears that Jungner first wrote the manual in Cantonese, then translated it to Swedish, then to Dutch, then to German, Japanese, and then back to Swedish. My Swedish friend who translated it for me said that if a dictionary could vomit, it would probably be easier reading than the manual was.
Stay safe.
