# Buying a new mill



## GaryK (Feb 28, 2013)

This will be a companion piece to my "Buying a new lathe" post.

Like my other post I have yet to take delivery of my new machine. It is currently in route and I should have it around March 5th.

I'll start with what I have been using for the last 20+ years.





It's a Taiwanese round column clone. Nothing different about it compared to all the others except this was made before all the Chinese imports.
The round column is the reason I'm getting rid of it and the reason I never really liked it.

With the round column you lose zero every time you move the head up and down. You couldn't tram the head in either since it was fixed. You would
have to shim the entire column to adjust it. Mine happened to be close enough that I didn't worry about it. I had to re-zero it every time I moved
the head anyway.

Here's a picture of the new one I'll be getting. It's a PM45-M from QUALITY MACHINE TOOLS. Matt the owner is a great guy to deal with.




This one is different than others you see one this site because it has a new feature for the first time starting with this batch of mills.
It has an integrated DRO built into the quill. 

Here is a close up showing it:




Albeit it is a "poor mans" battery powered DRO but it will do the job it's intended to do.

The mill I ordered will have a power feed in the X-axis and a 3 axis DRO which is a standard option. There is one other new item I will 
have on my mill that I have yet to see on any other PM45 mils, and that's a cast iron base. To the best of my knowledge it's only been
available in their CNC machines. I really liked the idea of a cast iron base so I asked for one.

Now with the square dovetailed column I won't have to worry about the head moving all over the place when I move it up or down.

Until next time.

Gary


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## GaryK (Mar 1, 2013)

Now that I have decided on my new mill I wanted to make a few upgrades.

Having moved to my current mill from a full sized Bridgeport I assumed that all my tooling needed to get smaller also.

So as you can see in the photo above I got a 4" vise with e swivel base. A sensible choice for a small mill. Well,
I think I could gone for something a little bigger. It turned out that my mill had as much distance between the spindle and
table as the Bridgeport, about 18". So I could have gone with a bigger vise.

Now that I know a little better I will be upgrading the vise.I was deciding between either a 6" without the swivel base
or a 5" with the swivel. A swivel is not something I use that often but when you need it it helps to have it. Since the 
swivel base on the 5" vise I was looking at is only 1.25 tall I would get that.

Here is the vise I selected a 5" with a swivel base. Information about it is HERE.




Now I looked at a lot of vises and even ordered one and returned it. I was basically looking for one that had an acme screw.
My thinking is that a standard 60° thread will not withstand years of use without wearing out. I figured an acme thread will
outlast me so that is what I looked for. All the inexpensive Chinese vises from Grizzly, Enco, Shars... all have standard threads.
I asked Matt and he said the the Taiwanese Homge vises that he sells does have an acme thread so that was good enough
for me.

Also in line with downsizing I got a 3/8 Albrecht drill chuck. To get to the point I should have stuck with a 1/2" chuck.
So I got a new 1/2" Albrecht chuck on ebay for a steal at $150. With the expense of the Albrecht chuck I was thinking of
getting a  Rohm instead and save some money but I made a offer to the guy on ebay and after 3 attempts he accepted.

Here are the 3/8" and 1/2" side by side.




I mentioned in my previous post that I will be getting a cast iron base for my PM45. Here is what it looks like under their CNC mill.




I really like that it has 4 holes in bottom of the base rather than the 2 in the steel version. It would give me the option of
putting it on leveling feet if I wanted to.

Gary


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## stevecmo (Mar 1, 2013)

Hi Gary,

It looks like you are getting a really nice mill with all goodies.  Very nice!

I have been casually looking for a new 5" vise for my Rockwell mill so yours caught my eye.  I went to the Quality Machine Tools link in your first post but I don't find that vise - only a 4", 6" and 8".  Is this something you and Matt just worked out, or am I looking in the wrong place?

Thanks in advance.

Steve


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## GaryK (Mar 1, 2013)

stevecmo said:


> Hi Gary,
> 
> It looks like you are getting a really nice mill with all goodies.  Very nice!
> 
> ...



Sorry Steve, I overlooked the link. I don't think that Matt has his site updated yet. He sent me the direct link. It's HERE.

It seems like all the Chinese vises use standard threads while Taiwanese vises still use the better acme thread. 

Good luck in your quest.

Gary


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## darkzero (Mar 1, 2013)

Matt's primary site (machinetoolonline.com) does have the Homge vises listed. They're on the accessories page under super high precision vises. Matt's secondary page (precisionmatthews.com) that is online (there's a couple of others) does not have the Homge vises listed. FYI the machinetoolonline.com site is always the most up to date.


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## GaryK (Mar 1, 2013)

darkzero said:


> Matt's primary site (machinetoolonline.com) does have the Homge vises listed. They're on the accessories page under super high precision vises. Matt's secondary page (precisionmatthews.com) that is online (there's a couple of others) does not have the Homge vises listed. FYI the machinetoolonline.com site is always the most up to date.



You know I've look at the site a couple of times and I always stopped looking at the "Milling Machine Vises" and never continued looking after that. It's interesting the tricks that can get played
with your eyes. You are right, it's right there.

I have only looked at his other site once a long time ago. I always use the primary site.

It won't be getting updated anytime soon I don't think since Matt will be in Taiwan for 9 days starting Monday.

Gary


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## stevecmo (Mar 1, 2013)

Thanks for the info guys!


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## darkzero (Mar 1, 2013)

GaryK said:


> It won't be getting updated anytime soon I don't think since Matt will be in Taiwan for 9 days starting Monday.



I doubt it will get updated in a while. The PM site doesn't seem to get updated very much at all. Yup I got my order in today with Matt today & he was quick to ship today  before his trip. Matt is awesome, once again he has taken care of me, in fact today's invoice came out to $0 (sssh). )


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## GaryK (Mar 3, 2013)

There is one other thing that's different about the new mill vs the old one I forgot to mention.

The new one has a gear driven head vs the belt drive. This will make it more likely that I will
change speeds.  I didn't tended to do that too often!

I'll give the belts their credit though. I only had to replace one in over 20 years.

I do know one change that I will really enjoy, and that the x-axis power feed. I got real tired
cranking on that handle all the time!

Gary


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## GaryK (Mar 6, 2013)

Well, the new mill just arrived in the dark at 7:15pm.

I've been sick all day so I will have to wait until tomorrow to unpack it if I'm feeling better.

I'll post pics also.

Gary


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## GaryK (Mar 8, 2013)

Here's a few pics of my new mill.





Here's my cast iron base.






I forgot just how heavy cast iron is. It must weigh close to 200+ pounds.

I couldn't get my hoist over it so I just dragged it off the top. It comes in two pieces so I removed the top (see picture above) section and I thought I was going to bust a gut removing. I probably weighed 40-50 pounds alone






Next time I will get everything put together.

Still feeling a little under the weather.

Gary


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## fretsman (Mar 8, 2013)

Looks great, Gary, and congrats to you. Nothing like  unpacking a new "toy" and get her cleaned and setup.

Have fun and I look forward to more pictures,
Dave


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## jumps4 (Mar 8, 2013)

you are going to love your mill gary
I'd change the oil after about an hours running
and on mine it took a while before the spindle broke in, at first i didnt run it on high speed very long because the lower bearing would get really warm fast
but after repeated warm ups and cool downs running on high it's not a problem anymore
happy chips
steve


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## tc17 (Mar 8, 2013)

i received my new pm45 last week. something very strange. i also got the micrometer on my quill, but i don't have a quill stop. i called and inquired about that earlier this week(figured it was weird that it didn't have 1 since i have a power quill), but the guys there did not know, and matt's out of town till next week.

I got the es12 3 axis dro with the homge vise also. I wish i knew that i could have upgrade to a cast iron base.

i just looked at your mill pics again gary. it seems you do not have the power down feed on the quill. is that correct?

here's a pic of mine.


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## darkzero (Mar 8, 2013)

tc17 said:


> i received my new pm45 last week. something very strange. i also got the micrometer on my quill, but i don't have a quill stop. i called and inquired about that earlier this week(figured it was weird that it didn't have 1 since i have a power quill), but the guys there did not know, and matt's out of town till next week.
> 
> I got the es12 3 axis dro with the homge vise also. I wish i knew that i could have upgrade to a cast iron base.
> 
> ...



Nice! My ES-12 should be arriving today. I'v been waiting for them to come in.


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## tc17 (Mar 8, 2013)

darkzero, does that mean your going to do something custom to mount the z-axis to the quill? i know it's going to be something good. I really like all the custom things you're doing with your mill and lathe.


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## Splat (Mar 8, 2013)

That's a nice mill. I've heard nothing bad about PM branded mills. When I was looking for my first mill I would have went with one of theirs but Matt couldn't give me an ETA on them. Good luck and many happy years with your mills guys.


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## GaryK (Mar 8, 2013)

I did have a hard time getting the mill off the pallet since I didn't have the room for my hoist to straddle the pallet. I went ahead and lifted the mill at an angle and as the weight in the pallet decreased I could slide it closer to the lift point. I got it so light that only one corner was touching and pivoted it on the corner and it was air born.

Lifting it high enough to get on the base was no problem. Very anti-climatic. Then I had to move the old one.

Here that are side by side. I don't like that that handle in the front is 5" lower than my old one. The heads on both are at their lowest.




Here it is in it's final resting place. For those with a 45 clone I can verify that the power feed will fit. I tested it for fit on my 20+ year old mill.



This is the Homge 5" vise. I'm very happy with it. I will discuss that at a later time.






I bought a length of 2x4 x 3/16 wall steel tubing. I will be raising the mill with it and some leveling feet to bring it back to the same height as my old one. I'll show that next time. Hey, It's what I'm used to!

Matt sent me an e-mail telling me that the guy how put the oil in the head filled it to the top on a bunch of mills, and mine was one of them, so I will have to drain some of the oil out.

If I was feeling better I would be cutting chips already. Feeling better though.

Gary


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## Ray C (Mar 8, 2013)

Good luck with the new machine!  Looks mighty fine...  -And hurry-up and make a leveling platform that gives you the 5" height...  Heaven forbid your muscle memory kicks in and you grab a handful of spindle instead of wheel.  :whistle:


Ray


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## Dan (Mar 8, 2013)

Nice!


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## darkzero (Mar 8, 2013)

tc17 said:


> darkzero, does that mean your going to do something custom to mount the z-axis to the quill? i know it's going to be something good. I really like all the custom things you're doing with your mill and lathe.



Got my ES-12 today! I have some ideas but I need to open up the ES-12 first to verify if I can even add an extra axis to it assuming that's what the "U" can be used for. I just got it mounted up & need to go through the manual. I don't want to eliminate the column Z readout in exchange for the quill Z readout. If it's not possible I'll stick to my setup now.




GaryK said:


> Here that are side by side. I don't like that that handle in the front is 5" lower than my old one. The heads on both are at their lowest.



Looking good! Base looks beefy! Love the side by side pic. I guess the Taiwanese are taller than the Chinese? I'm Chinese but made in America and without the riser it was too short for me.
:rofl:


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## GaryK (Mar 9, 2013)

Got my risers under it today. Since I have the cast iron stand I went with 2 unwelded pieces. The steel stand has only one hole on each side basically making you weld a stand together.

I raised it a total of 5 1/2".

Now a puzzle. See if can tell what is different in this picture to ones in previous posts.






I looks a whole lot bigger with the head raised. There is one thing I am going to work on and that a way to raise the head without either bending over from the front or standing on the side. I will be making something to fix that soon. The ratio of 1/8" travel per revolution is kind of low also.



And here are my dynamic duo together.



To answer my puzzle, it's the handles. I used the steel ones from my old mill. One reason is that they are not plastic but the main reason is that they are smaller in diameter. This means that the handles on my 3 spoke vise handles won't hit them.

Gary


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## GaryK (Mar 10, 2013)

I made my first chips today. I drilled a cross hole in a tramming jig.  




It took a long time to get it done. The closest I could get it was .0005". With a bridgeport it's easy with the bolt to rotate the head. I just had a rubber mallet. Kind of like Fred Flintstone.




I have a few other things I plan on doing to it before I get to some real work. I'll keep you posted.

Gary


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## GaryK (Mar 11, 2013)

I did a couple of small things today. You can see them both in the picture below.




After trying unsuccessfully to buy some t-slot covers in 14mm, I decided that I would just cover up the entire table. Found some corrugated material that's made from plastic to use. Being plastic it will clean up real nice and not absorb liquids. Just held in place with some masking tape so it's quick and easy to remove if I needed to.

This will just help crap from falling in the slots, plus give me a quick place to write things down so they are always at hand. Dry erase markers are easy to wipe away

The second thing is I added an additional 12" arm to the DRO mounting arm. Best seen in this picture.




This is a fantastic addition. First it allows me to position it so I can see it while adjusting the height of the head.
Secondly it moves it closer to the front of the machine so I can easily reach it without bending over the table.

Getting real close to actually making something!

Gary


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## GaryK (Mar 14, 2013)

As promised here is the information on the vise.




First my search centered around a vise with an acme screw. It would be a lot more heavy duty and a show of quality. I looked at Shars, Enco and Grizzly. The all had regular 60° thread screws.

I talked to Matt at QMT and he said that the Homge vises had acme screws. To tell you the truth I still haven't see the acme screw. It's completely covered up with no exposure to chips at all.
Matt has been honest with me so far, so I will take his word for it.

Here are some pictures of the screw:



These pictures are with the vise completly open and closed. Even the end of the screw has a cap on it.

The next series of pictures were taken with a dedicated marco zoom lens hence the lack of depth of field.
They show where the jaws meet. The first pic you can barely see the line where they meet. The second and third picture show the vise slightly open and then even more so.
When closed you can't even feel that are two separate jaws.






All in all a very well made and precise vise. Well with the money in my book.

Gary


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## Ray C (Mar 14, 2013)

Gary,

Is that a 5 or 6"?

Ray


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## GaryK (Mar 14, 2013)

Sorry, I forgot to mention it's a 5".

Gary


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## GaryK (Mar 15, 2013)

I got my new knobs installed today for tightening the X, Y and head stock.

I took a different tact than darkzero who also replaced his. I used THESE which I bought for $0.82 each and a 50mm bolt from Lowes.
I already had some M8 nuts but they are cheap also.





The bolt heads press into the knobs, but not good enough for me so I added a nut to keep everything in place for good.
Here they are installed:













Gary


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## darkzero (Mar 15, 2013)

They look good. Do they work good & how do you like them so far?


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## greenhornet-1 (Mar 15, 2013)

That's a very nice looking mill. Iv'e ben looking at some used bridgeports and people think they are made of gold!! I might have to look at one of these instead.


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## GaryK (Mar 16, 2013)

darkzero said:


> They look good. Do they work good & how do you like them so far?



I used them all day yesterday and they work pretty good. No fumbling for that lever.

I may get a couple of 3 prongs knobs for the y-axis though. That I think would probably be more comfortable.

Gary


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## GaryK (Mar 17, 2013)

I made another little thing I will be needing today.  A stop for my vise.

Not much but heavy duty!












Gary


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## HangLoose (Mar 17, 2013)

Excellent thread! Thanks for the pics and insight, I have been eye balling the PM45 and this is building up my confidence to go ahead and pull the trigger


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## GaryK (Mar 23, 2013)

I found one thing annoying so far. No big deal really, just annoying.

When looking at the speed chart on the front of the mill it has the speed settings for 50 and 60 hertz.

I don't know about you, but I will never use 50 Hz. So I just removed the distraction with a little masking tape. 

Problem solved:




Gary


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## GaryK (Mar 24, 2013)

Another thing I though was kind of stupid for them to do when they assembled the mill is to install one part upside down.
It's the clamping ring you see here at the bottom of the spindle column. In this picture it's right side up.

I assume they did it to give themselves a bigger bearing surface for the lower DRO mount. So I drilled and tapped a hole in the other side.
What is did was to make it harder to set the spindle depth with the knob you see at the bottom. With it upside down only
a small part of it protruded from the step in the clamp. Now it's fully exposed and a lot easier to use.

You might have noticed that I have the clamp as far down as it will go. This means I needed to add an spacer under the DRO mount.
I will show you why I did that at a later time. It's for something I will be adding to the machine.





This created another problem. The combination of flipping the clamp and and moving it down, now means that the threaded stop rod
is too short to give me the full travel of the spindle. It was actually too short to start with, not allowing you to use the indicator correctly.
You can see in this picture that the stop indicator is about 3/4" from the top. If I move it up any farther it unscrews off the stop rod.
This means that I will need to either make a longer stop rod or just add an extension piece at the bottom where it's not threaded.
The latter will be the simple way so I will do that.

I have a few more additions that will be adding to the mill and hopefully everything will be complete, making it an even more functional machine.

Gary


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## GaryK (Apr 5, 2013)

Last post I told you the problem with the stop rod being too short after I flipped the clamping collar (for the lack of a better term) and lowered it.

In my last Enco order I got a piece of 12mm threaded rod.

I used it today to make a longer one like the one in the picture here:




With it installed I now have full travel and use of the depth stop. Actually there is even more range than it came with.
Here you can see the shorter one next to the new one installed.




Now there are just two more improvements I will be making to the mill so stay tuned.

Gary


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## Walt (Apr 28, 2013)

GaryK said:


> I did have a hard time getting the mill off the pallet since I didn't have the room for my hoist to straddle the pallet. I went ahead and lifted the mill at an angle and as the weight in the pallet decreased I could slide it closer to the lift point. I got it so light that only one corner was touching and pivoted it on the corner and it was air born.
> 
> Lifting it high enough to get on the base was no problem. Very anti-climatic. Then I had to move the old one.
> 
> Gary



Hi Gary,

I'm evaluating whether this mill will fit in my basement. The ceiling in my shop is the main floor of the house. The floor joists above are 7'5" from the concrete floor of the shop, and the joists are another 7" or so.

I'm reasonably certain that the assembled machine isn't too tall, but I'm going to have to hoist it high enough to get it on top of the base. I checked on the Quality Machine shop and they don't have a height for the assembled machine. Could you spare me a moment of your time and measure that?

I'm thinking that a wooden gantry with 4x4" columns, doubled 2"x8" header (need to check this) and secured to the overhead floor joists should be adequate to support a winch, but there's only so much vertical space to work with.

Walt


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## GaryK (Apr 28, 2013)

Hello Walt,

It's 68" total. This is with a cast iron base so I'm not sure if the steel base is the same. I can't see it being more than an inch or so different.

When the head is up all the way the motor stick above the 68".

Hope this helps,

Gary


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## darkzero (Apr 28, 2013)

GaryK said:


> Hello Walt,
> 
> It's 68" total. This is with a cast iron base so I'm not sure if the steel base is the same. I can't see it being more than an inch or so different.
> 
> ...



I took measurements for someone else previously and mine (with the steel base) is 68" also. Mine is 74.5 to the top of the column & my riser is adding 6.5". With the head raised to the top I get about 89" to the top of the motor so without the base it's 82.5"


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## itsme_Bernie (Apr 28, 2013)

Gary-

I don't have this machine, but still find myself reading the whole thread 
So thanks for being one of those folks who bother to helpfully share so much on here.  Not too many machinists around, so we gotta help each other.

I am thrilled for you with your purchases recently!  I was looking at a mill like yours once, but went another direction.  I look forward to your updates.

And I have to say, damn nice vice!!  I can't believe the tolerance on those jaws!!  I have only heard great things about Matt, being a pretty straight up guy.  


Bernie


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## GaryK (May 4, 2013)

I thought that I would post this video here as well. It will consolidate all my mill posts into one. 

This video demonstrates the Z-axis handle I move to the front of the PM45. 

[video=youtube;OcfJtyQAsjU]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=OcfJtyQAsjU[/video]

For those interesting in the full post you can find it HERE.

The drawings and a parts list can be found HERE.

Gary


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## GaryK (May 6, 2013)

I thought I would give you guys a heads up. The seals have started to leak on my PM45 and Matt sent me some replacements.

I will be going through the process this evening on replacing them, so look for it soon!

Gary


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## woodrowm (May 7, 2013)

Good morning - I will be looking forward for that post as my PM-45 has started to leak also. At first it was leaking at the bottom of the face plate but tighten up the screws took care of that now it's leaking around the spindle.

Thanks,
Woodrow


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## GaryK (May 7, 2013)

Here's what I did to replace the spindle seals on my PM45-M.

The first thing you need to do is to unplug your machine and THEN remove the electrical cover.

There are 4 screws you need to remove that are connected to the top cover of the mill.
See the picture below.





Once that is done you will need to remove the 4 screws from the flange of the motor.
I had to use a ball end allen wrench to do this since the motor fins were in the way. Yours may be different.
Once they are removed you need to lift the motor straight up. You may have to bang on the motor with your hand
to break it loose. Once you get it off you are rewarded with this view.

Note the key for the shaft stayed in the hole and not the motor shaft on mine.
Don't leave the motor balanced on the top of the column like in the photo. I did that just for the photo. It's VERY
easy to knock it off!




Next you remove the 6 screws holding the cover on. They are all the same length to don't worry about
keeping track of which screw went in which hole.

There are dowels used to align the cover so you will need to lift it more or less straight up. I used a couple pieces
of bar stock that fit into the bolt holes. I put them in opposite corners and pushed the ends toward the center while lifting.
It takes a little wiggling and work but it does come off.

This is what the underside of the cover plate looks like.




And this is what it looks like inside with some semi transparent oil.

The seals are pressed in at the point where the spline protrudes. The only time oil can even get to the seals
is when the head is rotated or when it's splashed while running.




Here are the seals I received from Matt. The picture on the right shows a comparison between the new and old.
As you can see from the old seal I had to destroy it to remove it. I used a sharp chisel and hammer at two points
around the seal to cut it. This created enough room for me to give a pair of needle noses pliers enough grip to remove them.
There is another one under the first, so I did the same thing twice.





Here's a closeup where you can see my new seals in place




While I was at it I siphoned out all the oil to replace it. I didn't find any metal chips or sand in there.
The shiny parts that look like metal filings are just where the casting was showing through the paint.




Then I filled it back up with some DTE medium oil and closed it up. I just used the reverse of the procedure I used to take it apart.
I did have one difficulty replacing the cover and that was getting the long shaft with the gear to line up. What I did was to once
again use a piece of round stock that just fit into the hole. This gave me the leverage I needed to line up and rotate the shaft to
position it properly.




While I had it empty I removed the drain plug to see if I could identify the threads but to no avail.
I used a SAE and metric set of thread gauges but nothing matched. It's close to a 1/4" NPT.
I could actually start a 1/4" NPT fitting in the hole so I'm sure you could run a NPT tap in there
to open the hole.

The access it easy enough for the plug so I'm not going to worry about it. 

All in all it took me about 1 1/2 hours. With this information you can probably do it faster.

I hope this helps someone.

Gary


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## Ray C (May 7, 2013)

Hey Gary thanks...  My seals are still holding up but, can give us a part number for them?


Ray


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## alan camby (May 7, 2013)

Ray, looks like a part # of 692399 on the box for the seal.


Gary,
How does the top cover seal? RTV?

This seal might seal all the time if the head was rotated to the side, so would the cover.

Without knowing anything, I would wonder if the leak could be coming from that seal bracket that is held down with 3 phillips screws. If it has RTV (looks that way in the picture) It might not have filled all the voids. Just a idea if the leak comes back.

The Threads for the Drain might be 1/4" BSPT if NPT sorta fits. BSPT is the same standard as JIS pipe BTW. BSPT is 19 threads per inch while NPT is 18tpi for the 1/4" size. The threads are also cut at a 55 degree angle instead of the US standard of 60 degrees


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## GaryK (May 8, 2013)

alan camby said:


> Gary,
> How does the top cover seal? RTV?
> 
> This seal might seal all the time if the head was rotated to the side, so would the cover.
> ...



Alan,

The cover does seal with RTV.
When I saw that plate held with 3 screws I thought the same thing. If it starts to leak again it will be something I look at, but since it wasn't leaking from day one I don't think that was the problem. The RTV is evenly squeezed out around the edges.

I figured that the oil plug was BSP all along, but like I said I'm not going to worry too much about that. Now for my PM1236 lathe I will be doing something about it. Thanks!

Gary


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## GaryK (May 13, 2013)

*New T-Slot covers*

Finally got some T-Slot covers in 14mm. About all you see around are for standard 5/8" slots for Bridgeport clones.

I saw then on ebay a while ago, but they didn't stock them and they said it took about 8 weeks to get them.

Recently I asked them about their stock and they said they had them. I don't know if they still have any but you can ask them yourself
if you are interested. HERE

Anyway here they are. Your typical chinglish writing on the package. 




Now they fit the slot with no pressure at all. I didn't want them to slide around so I used a piece of 3/8" bar in the vise
to spread them for a snug fit. You only really need to do it on the ends.




I filled two slots completely and the third to the T-Nuts holding the vise. It worked out pretty good.
I ended up with two extra pieces for future use and you can see the combined 1" of scrap.
Can't get much better than that.

 They do have little holes in them for those using coolant.




Here is a completed view from both ends of the table.






Maybe Matt would be interested in importing these for his mills. A real nice touch and won't cost that much.




Gary


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## wheeliecake (May 16, 2013)

greenhornet-1 said:


> That's a very nice looking mill. Iv'e ben looking at some used bridgeports and people think they are made of gold!! I might have to look at one of these instead.



This is the same problem that I have having, old tired machines that need a lot of work to get into any kind of usable condition and people want top money for them.  Been looking for about 6 months now with no real luck, might have to bite the bullet and go with either the Rong Fu or IH 45 models.  I'm a guy looking for a deal and I find it hard to part with my cash lol.


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## JohnOZ (May 19, 2013)

What model Homge vise is that? Couldn't be sure looking at their website!

Thanks






GaryK said:


> As promised here is the information on the vise.
> 
> View attachment 49608
> 
> ...


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## GaryK (May 19, 2013)

JohnOZ said:


> What model Homge vise is that? Couldn't be sure looking at their website!
> 
> Thanks



It's their 5" model. 6" would be a little too big and 4"" would be a little too small for this mill.

I'm extremely happy with it. 

Gary


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