Oerlikon UB2

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gregcon

gregcon

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Here's my latest tool ...an Oerlikon UB2 radial dress press. This is a Swiss-made drill press which has the unusual ability to drill in a 360 degree swivel in both the head and the column....very handy for angle drilling or getting at tough spots. It has 3 power feed speeds and speeds from 30 RPM to 3070 RPM. When people scoff at Chinese-made junk, this is the sort of tool that gives them the right to do so. The quality and precision is light years ahead.

It was in the shop of a friend who closed his place after 5 decades...the place was so big and packed full of stuff I never even knew he had it after 27 years of walking around in there. It came with all threes drawers packed full of drill bit and reamers and end mills and setup tooling.

I'm gonna clean it up and put it to work!


oerlikon on hook.jpg
 
Yep....it is the 5th 3 phase piece of equipment in my shop....lathe, 2 mills, bandsaw, and now this. It is the only 480 volt one, though.
 
very interesting. I've always wanted a radial drill press, almost pulled the trigger on a cute little Carlton about 10yrs ago.
When was your drill built?
 
AWESOME!!!! You remind me of me. I have mostly old cool machinery, and I prefer it too. I try to dance them up the best I can without going too far. I'm always looking for another pc. Getting hard to find here in NE Mo.
 
I don't know when it was built. I'm guessing the 50's or 60's. Gotta do more research. These are fairly uncommon in the USA but I think they sold quite few in Europe and places like India.
 
Another unusual feature is this drill press is rated for milling and boring service as well. That basically means the spindle is strong enough, and accurate enough. If you try milling with a normal drill press, the performance is poor and something usually breaks. They sold an XY table for this purpose, though I don't have one.

This press is rated for drilling steel up to 1" diameter - that's using a twist style drill bit. In cast iron, it's rated at 1-1/4". To give you a reference, the famous Bridgeport mill is rated for 5/8" in steel.
 
gregcon said:
Another unusual feature is this drill press is rated for milling and boring service as well. That basically means the spindle is strong enough, and accurate enough. If you try milling with a normal drill press, the performance is poor and something usually breaks. They sold an XY table for this purpose, though I don't have one.

This press is rated for drilling steel up to 1" diameter - that's using a twist style drill bit. In cast iron, it's rated at 1-1/4". To give you a reference, the famous Bridgeport mill is rated for 5/8" in steel.
Click to expand...
In a machine shop where i once worked, we had a horizontal drill, which looked kinda like yours, only 2 or 3 times bigger.
The name, "Oerlikon", I wonder if it is in anyway related to the AA guns US Navy ships used in ww2.
 
oerlikon 20mm.jpg
Yes, Oerlikon made a lot of big guns. They were (are?) a big industrial company that made lots of stuff.
 
That’s a cool find and it will do some work for sure. Nice score. Anything else in the shop you couldn’t live without???
 
Oh, there were all kinds of treasures but the real issue is one of space.....they had a lot of stuff I couldn't fit in my garage even if it was empty to start with...and it ain't!

Like a lovely Chicago, Dreis & Krump press brake, 12' x 65 ton....it sold for a whopping $4500 and is headed down to Mexico. That's about 25 cents a pound. Over the years that brake bent a ton of metal for me, including the gas tank in my Valiant.

This was all at auction a couple weeks ago...they sold everything. What was funny is the big stuff went dirt cheap and the crap went for big dollars. There were people buying common 4'x8' sheets of regular steel for twice what they could buy it for new at a steel supply place. A pallet of old broken casters for $300. And welders? Guys were paying new prices for 20 year old welders. It's a strange world.
 
Yeah but these are Miller welders that 20 years ago were in the infancy of the digital age. A Syncrowave 350 of 20 years ago will last forever in terms of the power side, but the control side? You'll become well acquainted with the local repair guy. I'd rather have a new one that has Revision 12 of the software.
 
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