Hi Guys,
Just a bit of trivia. Yes Tree did build a tracer, in fact several models. The first I saw was in 1962 or 63. It was a 2UVR or 2UVRC , can't remember which.
X axis had a cylinder mounted just in front of the table ,fastended to the saddle
and a bracket that replaced end plate at one end of the table attached to the cylinder rod. The lead screw had a set of half-nuts (like a lathe threading lead screw) that disengaged to use the hydraulics. The Y axis was the ram fitted with a gib and a center push cylinder (we could actually increase the stroke by
say starting with the saddle back and then moving to the front and going on- cylinder stroke plus saddle stroke) to run larger parts,
The Z was a cylinder under the knee (still had the screw also for moving the knee. True-Trace B360 control (3D manual pencil type valve). Later we had the first 2VGC tracer built. This had a side push cylinder for Y (off to one side of the ram) this did not work well at all - too much fish-tail in the ram. Jim Tree came out to the coast to see what went wrong and then took the ram and turret back to Racine to change it to center push. This meant the cylinder had to stick out the back of the ram but it did work well. Also manual 3D. Later we had two 2VGC machines with Man-U-Trace valves (Auto seeking like a Hydra-Tel) also worked as a manual 3D machine. You could get these machines with the valve on the right or the left. Tree also built these tracers with a Gettys control. The Gettys was electric instead of hydraulic. I don't know much about these machines as we never had one. These were all true Tree built machines. We still have one of the 2VGC machines minus the hydraulics as it is worth much more as a standard machine than as a tracer, CNC made them obsolete . Actually we swapped the 2VGC ram and turret with a 2UVRC so we have a full 2VGC and a 2UVRC with no power feeds. I guess I have run on long enough so I'll say so long for now. Thanks for reading this,
Gary  |