The Boxford 260VMC as you probably never seen it before!

[Jonathan]

This is probably a bit far fetched, but I wonder if it would be possible to machine a thread on one of the cheap ballnuts from china? The grade of steel is clearly hard, but it does file so it may be possible to machine.

[i2i]

you could machine out the ballnut mounting plate to take a standard flanged nut, and put up with the slight loss of axis movement.

[Ricardoco]

you could machine out the ballnut mounting plate to take a standard flanged nut, and put up with the slight loss of axis movement.

Hi i2i, if i cannot get some of those threaded ball nuts thats what i will do its not like you would lose much using a conventional nut ...

[i2i]

you'd loose the thickness of the flange. The guy i got the set off for my 260 can't get the same nuts anymore, and even those were remachined to fit the threaded mounts.

I've just helped someone put a 14 x 5mm ground screw on a 240 lathe x axis and it worked well.

[i2i]

that's the way i went for my 260.

[Woodfish]

Hi Laurent, I'm rebuilding a 260VMC, the electronics were replaced by Mach 3, but has been as its my first rebuild any other photos you have of it 'naked' would be of great help. Information on these things is as rare as rabbit horns and any that would help keep me from making mistakes would be most welcomed.
PS I have just rebuilt all three ballscrews, Scott Sayers from GMS Ball Ltd ([email protected], 01903 264601) was really helpfiul and extremely knowledgable.

[rnr107]

Hi Laurent, I'm rebuilding a 260VMC, the electronics were replaced by Mach 3, but has been as its my first rebuild any other photos you have of it 'naked' would be of great help. Information on these things is as rare as rabbit horns and any that would help keep me from making mistakes would be most welcomed.
PS I have just rebuilt all three ballscrews, Scott Sayers from GMS Ball Ltd ([email protected], 01903 264601) was really helpfiul and extremely knowledgable.

Hi Scott,
Sorry for the delay... A bit busy these days. :-)
I sold this machine a while ago... But I may have some pictures or maybe I can answer some of your questions ?
What do you need? What's not working ?

RNR

[Woodfish]

Really sorry for the tardy response, the end of last year and the start of this have been taken up with moving. For my retirement present I purchased a really nice 260VMC from a college in Essex. Following the retrofit of new electronics last year my winter project was to strip everything mechanical out and replace/rebuild all wearing parts.

I was getting on fine until my workshop was broken into. The Boxford (and others) were vandalised and all my neatly labelled takeaway boxes containing parts were just opened and thrown on the floor by some moron who nicked only my £20 digicam and a £30 laptop.

Unfortunately, these contained all of my stripping videos and photos. My memory is'nt as good as it was, so I'm just in need of photos or videos of the mechanical components to see which way things reassemble, as I seem to spend a lot of time doing things twice.

The words Boxford and information are rarely heard in the same sentence so anything would be appreciated, hours trawling various sites have given me little to help.
Regards
Woody

[rnr107]

Really sorry for the tardy response, the end of last year and the start of this have been taken up with moving. For my retirement present I purchased a really nice 260VMC from a college in Essex. Following the retrofit of new electronics last year my winter project was to strip everything mechanical out and replace/rebuild all wearing parts.

I was getting on fine until my workshop was broken into. The Boxford (and others) were vandalised and all my neatly labelled takeaway boxes containing parts were just opened and thrown on the floor by some moron who nicked only my £20 digicam and a £30 laptop.

Unfortunately, these contained all of my stripping videos and photos. My memory is'nt as good as it was, so I'm just in need of photos or videos of the mechanical components to see which way things reassemble, as I seem to spend a lot of time doing things twice.

The words Boxford and information are rarely heard in the same sentence so anything would be appreciated, hours trawling various sites have given me little to help.
Regards
Woody

Hi mate,
Sorry to hear about your troubles... We do have morons in this world unfortunately.... :-(
Have you got an email address where I could send Photographs I have? (PM me, don't post your email address here it will be deleted)

RNR

[trenchardb]

Hi Laurent,

I'm also rebuilding a VMC260, and I was wondering if you can remember if there is a way to remove the "rotating" spindle head from the Z axis slide? There appears to be a pivot in the centre of the spindle casting that allows it to rotate once you take out the 4 large bolts, but I don't seem to be able to separate the two from the central pivot? Do I need to remove the whole assembly including the slide to get to it, or is there some other way to remove it?

Any suggestions would be very gratefully appreciated!

Ben.