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EMCO FB-2, F1 & FP Milling Machines
Emco F1, FP1& F1CNC Millers   Early 4-speed Emco Miller  FB2 Photographs
Taiwanese FB2

If you have any model of Emco milling machine and contribute
a set of close-up photographs. the writer would be pleased to hear from you

Handbooks & Additional Data are available. Email for details

Surprisingly, for a company so devoted to its range of amateur and semi-professional machine tools, Emco produced only one small conventional vertical miller, a "Mill/Drill" unit that evolved through three versions. A computer-controlled model was also offered, the F1CNC, a type that found favour in many colleges and schools through Europe. The first miller, introduced during the 1960s, had a 4-speed geared head and was often catalogued in the UK as the "Mentor" - though this was a designation more usually applied to educational versions fitted with armoured electrical cables and safer electrical switchgear. By the 1970s the machine had evolved into the 6-speed geared-head FB-2 and, by the 1980s, was in its final form as the simplified and cheaper-to-manufacture F1 and FP models each with belt-driven heads - the former with a miniature V-belt and the latter with a better-gripping Poly-V drive. The F1 was also available as a CNC machine, intended for industrial training as well as hobby use. Besides being sold as a complete milling machine the 4 and 6-speed heads, together with column and socket unit, were offered as optional-extra on most of the larger Emco lathes including the 7,  8.4,  8.6 and all versions of the 10 and 11. The FB-2 has also been found badged as an "Ajax", a name used by a UK-based import company, originally based near Stockport in Cheshire.
All varieties of the miller, from first to last, had tables 150 mm wide (with 3 full-length T-slots) but that on the 4-speed model was, at 520 mm long, some 110 mm shorter than the other versions and its longitudinal travel (of 350 mm) 30 mm less. However, at  150 mm, the 4-speed model enjoyed 10 mm more cross feed than the other types. While "newer" can often mean "better", in the case of the table's longitudinal stops the reverse was true. The original fitment was a pair of decently-sized, chrome-plated handles that allowed settings to be made without recourse to a spanner, but these were replaced first by square blocks held by socket-headed screws and then, on the 6-speed model, by even simpler and cheaper-to-make buttons. Although these change saved the company a few pence per unit Emco also (at some point) exchanged the table's original and cheap-looking plastic handwheels for what must have been very much more costly and attractive aluminium items with chrome handles, identical in design to the type originally used on the head's fine-feed control. When the F1 was introduced the aluminium wheels were retained, but the handles reverted to plastic. The feed-screws, which ran through nuts that were slotted and adjustable by twin clamping screws (to reduce backlash) were fitted with clearly engraved and zeroing-micrometer dials of a good size. Although not listed for either the 4-speed geared-head or FP models the FB-2 was offered with the option of an expensive (and so now very rare) 3-speed table-feed motor unit that worked through a safety-overload clutch and gave travel rates of 1.3, 2.5 and 6.7 inches (33/65/170 mm) per minute. All years of production were fitted with a useful metal-ruler scale, engraved with inch or metric markings, on both X and Y table movements.
Of particularly neat and compact construction, early heads were produced in two versions: one carried a side plate labelled "Emcomat" and was fitted with a 0.14 h.p. 1-phase motor with the other badged "Maximat" and equipped with a slightly taller and more powerful 0.20 h.p. 1-phase (or 0.35 h.p. 3-phase) motor. All 4-speed heads were lubricated by grease (Emco order 602-005, but which today can be replaced by any good quality, high-temperature lithium-based product) and ran at 350, 640, 780 and 1450 rpm. However, 6-speed unit was lubricated by an oil-bath and enjoyed a very much more useful range of speeds: 120, 280, 370, 1100 and 2000 rpm speed. The final production model, the belt-drive FP1, attempted to compromise with 350, 600, 1100 and 2300 rpm. Most versatile of all was the F1P when fitted with the optional variable-speed motor; as the machine also retained its 4-step belt drive this gave speed ranges on each pulley setting of: 100 to 500 rpm, 200 to 1000 rpm, 400 to 2000 rpm and 800 to 4000 rpm.  When fitted with a 60 rather than 50-cycle motor spindle speeds were generally some 25% faster. To users of older machine tools the finned-body motors all appear to run very hot - but this was merely a result of their volume-to-power ratio and reflected the use of efficient modern insulation materials. Even so, these units do not enjoy a reputation for long-term reliability and replacements are both difficult and expensive to obtain.
Continued below:

The original Emco 4-speed milling machines

Continued:
While the 4-speed head used paddle-type speed-change levers located by tiny, fiddly-to-engage pins (as also found on Emco lathes of the time) the 6-speed version had much larger, more easily-gripped plastic handles fitted with spring-loaded indexing. The belt-drive models were, of course, a lot slower to change speed: the belt-guard plate on the side of the head first had to be removed, the motor unclamped and swivelled to slacken the belt, the belt shifted to its new position and tensioned, the motor clamp retightened and finally the guard-plate replaced.
All models had a head that swivelled through 360-degrees (with a vernier scale for precise setting), a No. 2 Morse taper socket and a quill under the control of a quick-action, spring-return lever working through a rack-and-pinion drive. The quill (together with the bolt head for the draw bar) protruded though the top surface of the head and, while protected by a flimsy plastic cover on the 6-speed models, was left exposed on the 4-speed version.  The head had a fine-feed drive, but only at 90-degrees to the table and by winding the head up and down the column; hence, with feeds along the axis of the quill limited to rapid-action the machine's capacity to handle very sensitive angled jobs was restricted to setting them up in an angled vice, or similar. Although resetting the head's vertical position on the column took much twirling of the control handle it was (unlike the competing Taiwanese mill/drills) guided by a gib block and so stayed in perfect aligned throughout its travel. If the head needed to be rotated around the vertical axis of the column the latter could be unclamped from its housing by two socket-headed screws and, guided by a ring of degree markings, swung to whatever position was desired. While quill travel on the geared-head models was 40 mm, on the belt-drive types this was increased to 50 mm. The 4-speed head had a throat of 145 mm, the necessarily deeper 6-speed version had 163 mm of clearance and the belt-drive units - which required an even greater spacing between their pulleys - 195 mm.  Although the latter figure gave the belt heads a capacity advantage over the geared type (and was a useful feature in so compact a machine) the extra leverage it imposed between cutter and column meant that rates of metal removal could not be as heavy. Both the spindle and "head-to-column" were locked by simple clamp bolts fitted, on the 4-speed model, with ordinary nuts but on other versions by a type of propriety lever that could be indexed round to the most convenient operating position.
The Emco miller was always an expensive proposition with a basic FB-2 costing, in 1992, over £2500. By the time a stand and chip tray, table-motor unit, vice and collet-chuck were added this rose to over £4200, a figure then well beyond the pocket of all but the wealthiest amateur and one that explains the attractions of the cruder, less versatile but tough Mill-Drill machines from the far-east that commonly sold for between £650 and £1200. Almost exact copies of the FB-2 were also made in Taiwan and marketed under various brand names e.g. Poseidon in the U.S.A. and Warco in the U.K. These copies appear to have been a soundly engineered proposition and the few examples encountered by the writer all worked quietly and with commendable precision..

It's not really that big. A 6-speed FB2 being operated by the smallest chap they could find in the sales department.

Gear cutting on the FB2 using the Emco dividing head.

The clear markings and simple controls on the head of an FB2. Note the improvements over the 4-speed model: easier-to-grip speed-change levers, adjustable-for-position spindle and column clamp handles and a 2-lever drill-feed handle. The end of the quill where it protruded through the top surface of the head was also protected--but only by an easily-knocked-off plastic cover.

FB2 general-arrangement drawings