Excellent Cast Iron Repair Service!!

I am currently restoring 2 Boss Boring machines (typically timberframing beam boring/drill machines), and 2 Millers Falls Boring machines. The components of both machines are cast iron and are susceptible to breakage when dropped or are tipped over on a hard surface like concrete. Being over a hundred years old, most of these boring machines have been dropped and have some form of damage. I found a great company to repair my cast iron parts and before and after photos are shown below. The company is:
Crow Custom Cast Welding in Hudson, Wi.
http://www.castmetalwelding.com/
Buck the owner is friendly and knowledgeable. They clean the parts completely and then preheat them in an oven, as I understand. They create a graphite back block that mates to your part, do their welding, and then reheat in an oven and do a cooling process. His skill also shows through in his shaping of the weldment to recreate the original features of your part. I think they can do any machining needed too. I was very happy with the work they did on my parts, and it was only a few weeks and transit time.


Top corner of cast iron Boss boring machine broken by past owner. Typical issue caused by dropping machine on hard surface. Previous owner then drilled new holes lower down and moved the cross support, drilling through part of the Eagles wings in the process. Broken off area was rebuilt with weld material and non original holes were filled and Eagles wings reformed correctly.



Cracks around bore at "C" location (caused by me during disassembly of cross shaft) welded and ground.



Another top corner broken from a fall. Weld material built up and area correctly reformed. Original broken piece was not used.



Cast iron Millers Falls Boring machine carriage had previously been broken and welded. Weldment was sloppy and covered the "M" in "Mass." but now correctly repaired, now showing no evidence of damage or welding. "Ma" in Mass. was reshaped and now looks original again.

Very nice jobs, indeed....

That's cool Brad. I just got my Boss working last night. It's in really great condition, with the exception of the gears. I'll probably have to build up some of the teeth and re-shape them as they are binding once in a while.

Brad,

Looks really good!

So how much do you have into these machines?...Purchase prices, repair and restoration costs?

Does the guy in Hidson also bore out the spindle arbor/bushing assembly?

Thanks,
Rooster

Hey Brad,
They did good work on your machines, and they have an informative website. They can be very useful for me. Thanks for taking the time to post your pics and for sharing this resource w all of us too.
Steve

Craig, Original purchase price for each machine(2 Bosses and 2 Millers Falls) were $150, $100, $150, and $250 respectively(if I remember right), not including shipping which was about $25 per machine. All were purchased within the last year on Craigslist and ebay. Yes, I'm a scrounger always keeping an eye out for a deal. Each machine has it's own problems that need to be addressed. The cast iron repairs were actually broken down by cost for each repair. That is what the letters are next to the repair, to keep track of the cost of each repair. Each repair letter cost from $25 to $100. In addition, one Boss has a main drive gear that needs replaced. It's barely use-able and this is a 3 function and complicated gear to make. For this machine, it might have been better to pay more money for a better machine. One Millers Falls machine has worn/damaged gears that need replaced, which I'm preparing to get a quote on. The upright and angled support rods on one MF need to be replaced/new ones made due to excessive pitting rust. Both Millers falls wood bases need to be replaced and I bought new reproduction ones from Jim Rogers, $85 and $90 respectively not including $10 shipping each. I will also have some new cross shafts and chucks made for some of the machines which show excessive play, and machine the carriages for replaceable oil impregnated bronze bushings. In the end of the day, I may have as much as much as a good machine costs($650??) in the MF machines. But the benefit is removing all the play from the bearing points, and having good machines that will work well, plus look very nice cosmetically. The other benefit may be having new gears for MF to offer to others.