Feeler FTL 618

[pfincham]

I've now assembled the saddle drive. All bearings replaced and trhe clutches reassmbled. It all seems to have gone back together smoothly so after a trial run I've sealed it with gasket sealer.

So for a test I assmbled and fitted the saddle handwheel assembly. This again turned out to be a performance. Because the hand wheel is dual metric/imperial there is a 32 tooth idler gear that drives the metric dial at a different speed than the imperial dial, quite clever really. The idler sits on a 5mm dowel pin and both were so worn that they no longer worked. I sourced a new gear from Hardinge, not bad for 32 bucks (1 buck per tooth) along with the dowel, now wouldn't you guess is, the new dowel is 3/16 where the old one was 5mm. I guess at some point there was an upgrade and they still stock the old size. So the five mintue job of knocking out the old pin changed to soucing new pins, grinding to size and reaming out the centre of the new gear. It fits fine now.

Having assembled everything I find that manually driving the saddle is not a clean smooth operation. I'm hoping that this is because both clutches are engaged. I have to finish the clutch controls to find out and that may not get done before I go on hols.

Bill, if your out there is it likely that the clutches are making the drive feel tight??

[BillTodd]

It's coming on nicely :)

Bill, if your out there is it likely that the clutches are making the drive feel tight??

Do you have the covers and levers in place? If not you'll be feeling the cross-slide gears spinning as you move the carriage. [one nice Hardinge feature is the ability to cut a perfect 30' taper by engaging both cross-feed and carriage feed at the same time]

I can only just feel the clutch drag on the cross slide if I wind the handle fast. Otherwise, the clutches are free.

The clutches should be adjusted to "...engage and disengage when the ball lever is between 10' and 20' above horizontal."

[pfincham]

It's coming on nicely :)



Do you have the covers and levers in place? If not you'll be feeling the cross-slide gears spinning as you move the carriage. [one nice Hardinge feature is the ability to cut a perfect 30' taper by engaging both cross-feed and carriage feed at the same time]

I can only just feel the clutch drag on the cross slide if I wind the handle fast. Otherwise, the clutches are free.

The clutches should be adjusted to "...engage and disengage when the ball lever is between 10' and 20' above horizontal."

The clutch covers and levers are not yet in place. I need to strip them for repainting and cleaning. So I guess they are both fully engaged while I am winding the carriage hand wheel. I nearly panicked when I first wound the handle before I guessed at the clutch. I better get on with the covers and adjustment so I can be happy all is well.
One of the clutch spindles looks like it might have seized at one time, but I've decided to leave that and see if it causes a problem. If I'm not carefull I'll rebuild every part and I'm not sure that it's necessary on a machine with a low duty cycle.
Thanks for that Bill