Rockwell Rusnok Frankenmill

[ericspaw]

Just purchased this Frankenmill. Rockwell base and a Rusnok ST head. I am a little concerned about how rigid it will be with kluged mounting. Flat plate welded to the Rusnok mounting post. I guess the Rusnok St was made to be mounted on a horizontal mill as a convertible head. It came with the vise , a set of milling collets and holders. Also had a DC variable speeder motor. Barely made it into my workshop space, but moved it with the head off and a set of roller jacks.

A couple of easy questions.

On the Rockwell base, was the head mount made to be taken off? It looks like there is a keyway on the top to align the head to the top of the base.

Should I tear this thing down or try it out before doing anything.

Thanks
Eric

 

[FOMOGO]

Interesting coupling there. I would make sure everything is well lubricated, check the spindle for TIR, noise, and temp build up. Check that the spindle is square to the table on X & Y, maybe tram the table, and run it and see how she goes. Maybe it was all done right, maybe not, but shouldn't take long to find out. I'm somewhat leery of just tearing things completely apart anymore, due to my propensity for being easily distracted by the next new thing. and then waiting months or years. to get it functional again. Cheers, Mike