Wanderer milling machine table feed drive

josv · Apr 3, 2023

Recently added a Wanderer milling machine to my belt driven shop/collection.It is clearly patterned after the early Brown & Sharpe models. It has a gearbox in the base, driven by belt from the spindle and driving the X and Y feeds of the table by shaft. All of the Brown & Sharpe machines I have seen (mostly in pictures as they are rather scarce overhere) have the table feed driven directly by belt and stepped pulley. So I wonder is this gear box set up Wanderer's own refinement or have Brown & Sharpe machine also been available like this.
A video of the machine running can be seen here https://roesthof.nl/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/20220221_161225-2.mp4
Thanks, Jos

M.B. Naegle · Apr 3, 2023

I don't think it's special to that mill, but it does hearken to the transition period where mills were becoming gear driven, but still eternally belt powered (Between the 1900's and 1930's). Different manufacturers made improvements at different times. Gearboxes are easier and more efficient that belt drives, but also more expensive to make, so when and where they were introduced depended on who the maker was trying to appeal to and how much they could invest in innovating their machines.

Very nice shop BTW! I like that slotter in the video!

Joe Michaels · Apr 3, 2023

josv:

Thank you for posting the pictures & youtube of the old Wanderer milling machine. I have seen only one (1) Wanderer milling machine here in the USA, and it was a much later and much more modern, heavier geared head milling machine. Your pictures & the youtube raised a couple of interesting points:

-When I first saw the newer Wanderer milling machine a few years back, I had thought the name "Wanderer" was a German last name, maybe the company
owner or similar. I do know that in German 'wanderer' has the same meaning as in English, a person who 'wanders' or travels.

-Seeing your photos, I saw the word "Fahradhfabrik" on the milling machine. "Fahrad" in German = bicycle. The milling machine was built by a bicycle manufacturer,
and the name "Wanderer" would be a very fitting brand name for a bicycle maker. In the days when that old milling machine was built, bicycles were a very
common means of everyday transportation as well as recreation.

-Seeing the address of the Wanderer company, the city of Chemnitz, after WWII, was located in what became "East Germany". That raised another question in my mind about that newer geared-head Wanderer milling machine I'd seen. It had come from an old machine shop down in Brooklyn, NY, bought at an auction when that shop closed. I saw the machine only briefly, had never heard of nor seen a "Wanderer" mill before (or since). I had figured the geared-head Wanderer mill had been built in the 1950's given its design features. Wanderer, as a machine tool builder, may have survived into the 1950's, and maybe was building machines for export to
pump up the East German economy.

Is the line-shaft driven shop a museum or similar ? Seems like someone or some organization put a lot of work (and money) into re-creating a line-shaft and gas-engine driven shop. I can't help but smile at the belt from the engine to the main line shaft. Being outdoors with no roof over that belt, rain could slow down or stop
any shop work.

john.k · Apr 4, 2023

The Wanderer name was bought post WW2 by a Czech named Janacek......he put the two together to make "JAWA"

josv · Apr 4, 2023

Thanks for your replies,
Wanderer is still active, making high end machining centers. The motorcycle division was indeed sold in 1931 to Frantisek Janecek.
Here is a link to the history page of the companies website https://www.wanderer-maschinen.de/wanderer_geschichte/
@joe The shop is part of my personal collection. I just like putting stuff together. Funny that you mention the outside belt, This is probably the belt that has given me the least problems of all. Bought it as DDR (east german) NOS material at a surplus yard, it's a woven fabric core with tough rubber-like cover but different from the usual canvas type (that I hate to use). We have plenty of rain but it never stopped the belt, I think the water just gets thrown off. I have some of the machines (the lathe, slotter and planer) outfitted with a dual drive. Either under mainshaft power or by seperate E-motors. The countershafts E-motor pullies have one-way bearings or sprags built in so the motors don't turn when using the mainshaft. This way I can use one of these machine without starting up the whole system.
Regards, Jos

Joe Michaels · Apr 4, 2023

Josv:

Thank you for your reply. I am enjoying visiting the Wanderer website, and it is quite an interesting history. I had known of the Jawa motorcycles for many years, but never looked into their history. Interesting connection. The Wanderer advertisement you posted is quite a picture in itself. The automobile bears a strong resemblance to a Ford Model A. Having ridden heavy motorcycles (original Triumphs, BMW 'airheads', and Harleys) for over 50 years, I always enjoy learning more about motorcycle history. Of course, the advertisement paints an imaginative picture: anyone who has ridden a motorcycle at any kind of speed knows that the wind (along with road dust and insects) in their eyes is no fun. They also know that the wind will find any opening in clothing or blow thru woven fabrics and chill a rider. Then, we have the lady riding the 'pillion', one hand loosely holding on, one hand waving, all the while riding on a rigid rear frame (no rear suspension) motorcycle. Have to hope the passenger seat ('pillion') is supported on good springs. Advertising artists had quite an imagination and took a lot of 'license' with what they showed.

Your mention of the drive belt still transmitting power in the rain is interesting as well. I was reminded of the history of one of the US machine tool builders, possibly Giddings and Lewis. Their first shop was in rural Wisconsin in the 19th century. The shop also built sawmill machinery, so there were a few buildings with the different departments. One building had the power source (waterwheel or maybe a steam engine) and power was transmitted to the other buildings to drive machinery in them. The means of power transmission was rope drives. Endless hemp rope, long spliced, running over pulleys with multiple grooves. A 'jockey pulley' with a weight maintained tension in the drive rope. The rope drive ran between the buildings, exposed to the weather. Early records of this firm note that work slowed down or stopped in the shops when the exposed rope drives got wet. Slippage of the rope drives occurred and reduce the amount of power the rope drive could transmit.

I was fortunate in that I am old enough to have worked in machine shops which still had some of the original overhead line shafting to drive the machine tools. I went to Brooklyn Technical High School, 1964-68. In those years there were still some of the machine shop classrooms that had not been modernized. These had the 1924 overhead line shafts driving the machine tools. The students nick-named those shop classrooms "belt jungles". Our teacher had come out of industry rather than simply going to a teachers' college. The result was they taught us a lot more than teachers with no real industrial experience could have. We learned how to produce accurate work on old, worn machine tools. We also learned how flat belting worked. Our teachers would sometimes 'walk a belt' up or down the step cone pulleys, hitting the edge of their hand against a moving belt's edge (and pulling away when the lacing hooks came by). We kids were warned not to do this with our hands, but learned to 'walk a belt' using a wrench or hammer handle. I volunteer and do engineering for a working museum in NY State called Hanford Mills. There are lots of line shafts and flat belts in that mill. Whenever I hear the music of the belts and pulleys fanning the air, it takes me back to when I was a kid. I am glad you not only preserved old machine tools, but created an entire old-time shop around them. Please post more about your work and your shop as I am sure many of us here will enjoy learning about it all.

plannerpower · Apr 4, 2023

I wondered initially if the Wanderer milling machine was related to the Wanderer car and Jos' second post confirms that it certainly is. Thanks for the link; a great read.

Wanderer was one of the four firms represented by the four rings of the original Auto Union badge; the others were Audi, Horch & DKW;

I have a deep interest in Grand Prix cars, particularly those of the "Golden Age", the period of about fifteen years before WW2; although Audi have forsaken their own traditional badge, of which there were several versions;

for a stylised version of the Auto Union badge;

I still call the modern cars "Auto Unions" rather than "Audis" in memory of these remarkable cars;

and their equally-remarkable drivers.

M.B. Naegle · Apr 4, 2023

Joe Michaels said:
... Our teachers would sometimes 'walk a belt' up or down the step cone pulleys, hitting the edge of their hand against a moving belt's edge (and pulling away when the lacing hooks came by). We kids were warned not to do this with our hands, but learned to 'walk a belt' using a wrench or hammer handle. I volunteer and do engineering for a working museum in NY State called Hanford Mills. There are lots of line shafts and flat belts in that mill. Whenever I hear the music of the belts and pulleys fanning the air, it takes me back to when I was a kid. I am glad you not only preserved old machine tools, but created an entire old-time shop around them. Please post more about your work and your shop as I am sure many of us here will enjoy learning about it all.

One of my handbooks has the same explanation of "walking a belt" up and down cones with some illustrations of a gentleman in a vest and bow-tie (shows it's age) showing the proper technique. I think the image of guiding your lathe into the right speed with your hands was part of the draw to getting my own over-head driven lathe. It wasn't enough to have an old lathe, or one with a short belt and jackshaft mounted a short distance above or behind the machine. I want one with a belt long enough to live speed change with my bare hands. Now that I've got the lathe, I just need to get the structure over it to start my own jungle.