obsolete Tru-Cent'r center drilling machine

[eeinpa]

Howdy! My employer has a portable center drilling machine which was called the "Tru-Cent'r DRILL" and made by Materials Research Lab of Glenwood, IL (associated with University of IL?). Please see attached picture. We found this item very useful for center drilling the ends of railroad axles. Unfortunately, the device wasn't very heavily built, and years of use have left it in pretty rough shape. My boss asked me to look around for a replacement.

While I found patent info on several devices, all I found that exists now is an even lighter duty design (I can't find that darn website now!) which just used a handheld electric drill motor. Our Tru-Centr used a Milwaukee magnetic drill motor, much more robust (and still not durable enough!).

I also found articles on a tradeshow display by Tool Pro International, which no longer seems to exist.

Can anyone recommend a company which offers a product like this? It's pretty useful; it's hard to believe nobody offers a solid product with this function.

Thanks!

 

[MikeHalloran]

Sometimes the first production run saturates the market, and kills it. It happened for jetways, for highway toll coin acceptors, and apparently for portable center drills.

You can still get Milwaukee mag drill motors, in several capacities. I'd buy one and refurbish what you've got, maybe with a new scroll chuck.

I'd also add a lightweight steel tube frame, a miniature of what you see on household generators, to make it easier to handle and slightly less susceptible to abuse.



Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[unclesyd]

We had the same problem with a fixed vertical mounted center finder. We had to take the approach suggested by MikeHalloran, rebuild it in house.

Another approach would be to contact Milwaukee to see if they can give you some information about this company/product.

Still another approach would be to contact someone like Climax. They keep abreast of portable tools and have done quite a bit of work on restoring locomotives.
Their portable lathe (old journal squirrel} is used to refurbish bearing journals on axles and journals on drivers.

http://www.cpmt.com/index.php

 

[SincoTC]

Try these people, I recalled seeing it a few weeks ago on ThomasNet.
Rabbit Tool U.S.A., Inc. - Rock Island, IL.
Manufacturer of patented air or electric powered portable center drilling machines for bar stock with stock capacities ranging from 3/4 to 36 in. diameter. Cycle times as low as one minute...

Hope it helps.

Trevor Clarke. (R & D) Scientific Instruments.Somerset. UK

SW2007x64 SP3.0 Pentium P4 3.6Ghz, 4Gb Ram ATI FireGL V7100 Driver: 8.323.0.0
SW2007x32 SP4.0 Pentium P4 3.6Ghz, 2Gb Ram NVIDIA Quadro FX 500 Driver: 6.14.10.7756

 

[eeinpa]

Thanks for the feedback!

Mike: Good idea on the cradle if we do upgrade our unit. Unfortunately it really is pretty beat, and for various reasons our rebuilding it is not highly practical (our machinery runs to the large end of the spectrum). But I did suggest a friend who could probably do a nice job of it.

Syd: Thanks for the amusing suggestion of Climax, due to their work on locomotives. I'm not sure if you know that "Climax" (Corry, PA) was a builder of geared steam locomotives. The area I live in was once overrun with their products. Anyway, the Climax you mentioned is certainly an interesting company, and I will contact them for suggestions.

Trevor: Thanks, Rabbit Tool is the company I alluded to in my first post; I had lost their name. Unfortunately, their machine does not appear nearly robust enough to endure the 'tender touch' of the gorillas who populate our shop!

I think a rebuilding and enhancement of what we have is probably most practical after all. Thanks to all!