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Managed to assemble the apron today. It was a lot more work than I had thought, but got there in the end.
I used Loctite 5922 to seal the apron to the carriage (looks and smells just like hermatite but is black instead of red), seems to work well; no oil leaks so far :)
I have yet to find or make a core-plug to cover the carriage gear, but I have a novell idea based on the fact the hole is 1 1/8" - If it works, it'll raise a smile or two...
Cleaned and mounted the cross slide and compound slides yesterday & today.
Made a new cover for the coolant sump (the old one was missing) and primed a few parts for spraying tommorrow (if I get the time)
Sprayed, assembled and fitted the Coolant pump (had to make a new filter from some purf sheet) .
Sprayed and fitted the sump cover. The orignal one fitted to HLV's had a cover for the drain. I'm not sure if I'll bother with one, the holes in the drain are ~1/8" - I doubt I'll lose anything that small.
The spare Bijur oil metering unit arrived today from Central Surplus in the US. They turned out to be the wrong type but I was able to remove the little steel collar to replace the one I broke on my units.
With the metering unit repaired I could replace the Oiler distribution block. This was badly corroded by coolant, so I milled it flat on all sides.
I made a new knob for the oil pump from a cupboard door handle (I may make a better one later).
Hopefully, tomorrow I'll have another go at spraying the tail stock and control box.
I am amazed at the speed this is all happenning at, do you have nothing else to do? :beer:
Things are a little quiet on the jobs front (only a couple of PA amps to fix :(), so I might as well use my time to increase the value of my assets.Quote:
Originally Posted by Robin Hewitt
Plus, it's stuck right in the middle of my workshop which is stopping work on the drill/mill cnc conversion.
And, I have a motorcycle parked in the conservatory which is generating a certain amount of "haven't you done that yet" pressure.
I had much the same problem with an injection moulder, I could move it with a pallet truck but I couldn't shift it sideways to tuck it up against the wall and under some shelving.Quote:
Originally Posted by BillTodd
Ended up putting it on castors, Draper do fixed wheel castors rated 250kg apiece and you can get them at around £7.50 each if you shop around.
May not be best suited to a lathe, it could end up chasing you around the workshop if you went off centre, but as a temporary measure while fixing it up perhaps?
OTOH if it did chase you I'd want to see the video :D
I'm going to have to do something similar; I found while rebuilding that access to the rear of the bed is essential, and almost impossible from the from front. I definiatly need to be able to roll it away from the wall easily.Quote:
Ended up putting it on castors
I painted the control box and and (for the third time) the tail stock and power feed box. This time the paint looks OK :)
I had time to test the DRO (having mounted the Cross slide scale) and much to my disappointment found a fault - It was counting to 0.0004" then displaying 'Error'. A quick email to Richard at Axis returned some basic ohm-meter test routines.
After finding a small amount of corrosion in the scale-end connector I worked my up the lead to the 'water-proof' quick connect. It was solid with corrosion (see picture) I had to pick at it with a needle just to get the connector apart. The coolant has eaten the copper from the braided screen and a couple of the wires, leaving empty plastic sleeves ! I stripped back the cable to find it in the same condition, all but a inch or two from the scale end.
I bodged the connector back together soldering the last two inches of cable to the pins of the plug. Now the scale is working again.
Richard says Axis have spares, I am steeling my self for the price.
Tomorrow, I'll reassemble the tail-stock and collect closer.
Lovely day today, almost Spring like...:p
Assembled and fitted the collet closer.
Assembled and fitted the tailstock - Now I know why the power feed box is so massive; The tailstock is so heavy I had to rest it on the power feed box to be able to align it with the bed ('cos there's no way I could lift it at arm's length)
I don't like the handle on the tail stock it's not a Hardinge wheel (it looks someone knocked it up in an afternoon). I doubt I'll get a proper replacement anytime soon' so I've been looking at the Myford spares that RDG are selling. I think the largest one will do the job with only a small amount of re-jigging - It'll look a lot better then the current one.
http://www.rdgtools.co.uk/acatalog/11971.jpg
Repainted the DRO mount. It looked heavy in matt black so I thought i'd try silver instead (it's OK I suppose )
Tomorrow I'll have a go at mounting the carriage DRO scale on the front of the bed.