Boxford 260 VMC rebuild

[mike-f]

The first thing to do was strip down and see what needed doing. The bed ways and head come off pretty easy and most of the rust was on the surface only, The ball screws seemed OK but felt very gritty, so needed striping and cleaning at the least. The milling head is removed by removing the stepper motor and ball screw attachment bracket, the hole lot then lifts off. The actual milling head on the 260 can be rotated to turn the machine into a horizontal machine, with the head being pivoted. Once the slides had been removed the slideways looked pretty good with the original scraping still looking good. The base of the Y axis is bolted and glued to the cabinet and requires quite a bit of force to remove once the bolts are removed. The column is held to the Y axis with M8 screws from the underside, forming a very substantial and heavy assembly! Pictures below.

Attachment 32601
Attachment 32600
Above Z axis drive belt and pulleys
Attachment 32602
Above the Y axis removed showing the ball screw and nut

Attachment 32603
Above the spindle pivot for, which retains the head to the Z axis for rotation to horizontal position.


Above the spindle removed from the head, the bearings are are just deep grove ball races so these will be upgraded to angular contact bearing of the same size.


The vertical column and y axis base removed from the cabinet


Above the stripped out cabinet, waiting for a decision on what to do to it!