My first hobbers
- Thread starter Garwood
- Start date
Pmtool
Member
You have been getting some deals in my neighborhood lately... I recognize that parking lot. Ha. Have they been sitting for a while? I did not even realize there was still shop in that building.
I have been in your neighborhood a lot lately!
The owner was real vague. Couldn't get any info from him about the machines- like he didn't know anything or didn't want to say. He did tell me they have been importing Chinese sprockets, milling the centers and stamping thier name in them as made in USA. I got the impression the hobbers were there as some kind of "Look at all this sprocket making equipment- of coarse we make the sprockets here" lol.
Hobbing chain sprockets was obsolete when they bought the business decades ago lol.
The owner was real vague. Couldn't get any info from him about the machines- like he didn't know anything or didn't want to say. He did tell me they have been importing Chinese sprockets, milling the centers and stamping thier name in them as made in USA. I got the impression the hobbers were there as some kind of "Look at all this sprocket making equipment- of coarse we make the sprockets here" lol.
Hobbing chain sprockets was obsolete when they bought the business decades ago lol.
Mud
Well-known member
How are they done now? I see stamped sprockets, they can't all have dies made, can they?
Nice rig!
After spending a couple hours figuring out how the DB works and if it makes sense to give it a home I cracked the Overton books...
Spent the last 3 hours reading the multi hundred page manual for the Overton. I've never taken hallucinogenic drugs, but I've heard they profoundly expand your mind. I suspect reading the manual for this Overton has got to be a similar experience for some people.
I think I may have fucked up and bought the most complex electro-hydro-mechanical device ever conceived.
This thing does everything. I mean everything. It doesn't need CNC. It has it baked right in there. Everything you could imagine. It does it.
It does axial feed, radial feed, tangential feed, or get this, it does diagonal feed- You can cut a spur or helical with simultaneous axial and tangential feed using the entire cutting length of the hob. You can do it in one cut, two cuts or even 3 cuts. When it's not cutting it's got rapids. It doesn't just rapid retract and back to start, no, it can rapid between gear faces if your stacked blanks have a gap between them. If you're too lazy to work out the math for diagonal feed, but still want to implement hob shift it will automatically apply an incremental tangential hob shift after every batch of parts is finished.
Everything is pressure lubricated. To facilitate climb hobbing- Every. Single. Gear. In this thing is hobbed on a taper and mounted in eccentrics and the details of achieving zero backlash are described in excruciating detail. Every special tool you need to work on this thing has a print to make it from scratch. Everything that moves or spins in this machine has ground reference surfaces protected by sleeves or collars so you can check runout. The hob column has an adjustment mechanism for tramming to the work spindle. The manual has a chart giving recommendations for how many tenths to tip the column for how hard your material is and how far from the work table the hob will be.
Gears are neat. As a machine nerd- Gear machines are neater!
Spent the last 3 hours reading the multi hundred page manual for the Overton. I've never taken hallucinogenic drugs, but I've heard they profoundly expand your mind. I suspect reading the manual for this Overton has got to be a similar experience for some people.
I think I may have fucked up and bought the most complex electro-hydro-mechanical device ever conceived.
This thing does everything. I mean everything. It doesn't need CNC. It has it baked right in there. Everything you could imagine. It does it.
It does axial feed, radial feed, tangential feed, or get this, it does diagonal feed- You can cut a spur or helical with simultaneous axial and tangential feed using the entire cutting length of the hob. You can do it in one cut, two cuts or even 3 cuts. When it's not cutting it's got rapids. It doesn't just rapid retract and back to start, no, it can rapid between gear faces if your stacked blanks have a gap between them. If you're too lazy to work out the math for diagonal feed, but still want to implement hob shift it will automatically apply an incremental tangential hob shift after every batch of parts is finished.
Everything is pressure lubricated. To facilitate climb hobbing- Every. Single. Gear. In this thing is hobbed on a taper and mounted in eccentrics and the details of achieving zero backlash are described in excruciating detail. Every special tool you need to work on this thing has a print to make it from scratch. Everything that moves or spins in this machine has ground reference surfaces protected by sleeves or collars so you can check runout. The hob column has an adjustment mechanism for tramming to the work spindle. The manual has a chart giving recommendations for how many tenths to tip the column for how hard your material is and how far from the work table the hob will be.
Gears are neat. As a machine nerd- Gear machines are neater!
The big Makino 5 axis mills I did a bunch of work on had tapered gears in the rotary axes so backlash could be minimized. 1200:1 on the A axis and 600:1 on B. Plus the A was a trunnion and driven on both sides so dual 1200:1 gear trains to set up. Quite the job. Never did a full on reset but even a partial was a job.
No wonder they were $1.6 million and a one year lead time last time I had one quoted.
No wonder they were $1.6 million and a one year lead time last time I had one quoted.
Last edited:
Mud
Well-known member
Wow, would love to see that Overton.
Pmtool
Member
These machines right before CNC took over are always impressive, at least when they work.
These made motorcycle sprockets correct? I remember someone telling me about this company and how they could not believe that these did not just do everything on a CNC mill. I never connected the dots that it was right there.
One of those places where someone set it up to run in the 80's or whenever and they never changed a thing with evolving technology. I have worked at a few places like that....
These made motorcycle sprockets correct? I remember someone telling me about this company and how they could not believe that these did not just do everything on a CNC mill. I never connected the dots that it was right there.
One of those places where someone set it up to run in the 80's or whenever and they never changed a thing with evolving technology. I have worked at a few places like that....
I think I got all the companies paperwork for
motorcycle sprocket specs and fitment and hobber setup notes. The papers are all dated 1986.
I don't think they changed a thing since then.
They were making sprockets in the 70s. Maybe before that. Late 70s I recall seeing the name as sponsors to some of the motocross riders and flat track riders in the area.
I was told by original owners the sprocket business originally started in 1973. I think they sold it to present owner in early 90's, but heard a few different dates so not sure.
Gear stuff is neat. Sometimes it takes me awhile to learn things and I learn stuff in such backwards ways compared to others, suddenly something fills in a blank and it all makes sense.
I feel like buying hobbers is a turning point for me. It's like the logical next step for the way my mind works. It just fits.
Now that I understand what I can do with what I have I'm going to sell the David Brown hobber. I want to get a Fellows 10-4. A Fellows and the Overton will make anything I need to make.
I feel like buying hobbers is a turning point for me. It's like the logical next step for the way my mind works. It just fits.
Now that I understand what I can do with what I have I'm going to sell the David Brown hobber. I want to get a Fellows 10-4. A Fellows and the Overton will make anything I need to make.
Barbter
Well-known member
Oh this sounds sweet!
If there was ever a solar blast that fried all computers, it's good ol true mechanical genius like this that will still be running.
Tell me - it is powered by steam?
Barbter
Well-known member
Talon UK were still hobbing their teeth.
They'd be stacked, so there were many at a time
Barbter
Well-known member
Am i correct to assume y'all talking about the company whose name is 2 letters...?