Bridgeport Manual to CNC conversion...

[Lee Roberts]

Looking lovely Dave, looks so much nicer cleaned up and painted, should turn out to be a nice conversion/restoration.

.Me

[Davek0974]

Got the head on, spindle in and new oil pipes plumbed in and tested.



Also stripped and painted the lower drive housings and scraped out the wax that used to be grease ;)

[lucan07]

Looking good Dave, are you fitting new ballscrews you ordered as you re assemble or are they fairly easy to access/fit without breaking down the whole thing again?

[Davek0974]

Yes, i'm at the stage now where I can't progress until I get the screws. Hopefully they will be here this week before we leave on Thursday for a couple of weeks holiday.

[Davek0974]

Ball-screws arrived today :)

Managed to start fitting the Y axis one but where the oil feed drilling is in the nut, the pipe hits the knee chip guards so it'll last about 5 minutes :(

I have emailed the suppliers as it looks wrong unless i have it fitted wrong of course but there is only one oil drilling.

[Davek0974]

How smart am I :)

Not very it seems!

I ordered a ball-screw kit for a Bridgeport with a 9" x 48" table, however, after trying to fit the Y axis again tonight it turns out I have the extended knee model with a 12" Y travel not 9" like normal

Still, I've only had it 11 years, never noticed.

The suppliers are being good so far and are looking into getting the bigger version swapped out with my one while i am on holiday.

Aaaargh!

Also ordered up another three replacement bearings for the head - the old girl was in a worse condition than i thought.

[Davek0974]

Bigger version screw is on the way :)

Note to remember - measure twice, order once ;)