# Preventive Maintenance Weekend



## Richard King (Sep 1, 2012)

Good Day To All 

I was thinking this could be a Preventive Maintenance Weekend  (PM) could be a weekend that all small machine owners and readers to give back a little by cleaning their machine out in the shop.

A short list of supplies for you to have would be:
 Safety glasses, vacuum cleaner, some bright lighting, a magic marker, some rags, a squirt bottle of industrial cleaner like 409 or Simple Green,  a spray can of brake cleaner, Some mineral spirits, a coffee can or bucket, some zip lock plastic bags, a few paint brushes, squirt can of some light oil and or way oil, a digital camera, a sharpening stone, a file, your manual for your machine, other cleaning supplies you have setting around.  

Make sure you have a window open, be careful to avoid causing any sparks and turn off the electric power to the machine. I would hate to have anyone write as they were cleaning up their machine they burnt down the house..ha ha.

But many people never clean up there machines the old fashion way, they whip out the air hose and clean off the machine.  As a professional maintenance man / machine Rebuilder I love when you do that, I see $$ dollar signs when I see an operator blowing all those chips off, up and under those way wipers and into the precision surfaces, bearings, screws and shafts.  I wrote in another blog last week about how I was teaching a  Scraping class at John Deere in Waterloo, IA a few years ago.  JD had a super precision Swiss made SIP Jig Bore in their tool room.  When you buy a new Sip, you also buy a Lifetime Warantee for your machine, and the Sip Engineers will come in yearly to do PM work to the machine.  

Well when I was there the Sip people came in and when they reached the machine they saw an air hose with air nozzle on the end (non OSHA approved I bet, ha ha). The  garbage hit the fan and they immediately VOIDED the warrantee.  Remember the commercial a few years ago when the car mechanic said "you can Pay me now (buy a new air filter for $10.00 or pay me $1000.00) or pay me later ( when you engine blows up?) !  

The same goes with your machines in your shop, a little PM now will save you lots of expensive repair work later.  The average Machine Rebuilder is now charging $75.00 to $100.00 per hour now-a-days.

Take some pictures of your machine before you start, then wipe off the ways, use a paint brush to clean under the dovetails and nook and crannies where chips and dirt are lodged in deep.  Then I would suggest you crank the tables, cross-slides, compounds, saddles out as far as the travel will take them and clean some more, if you notice any burr's stone or carefully file them off, take pictures of how the way wipers are installed and take them off, put them in a plastic bag, write on the bag with the marker where the wipers were removed from, then go to your bucket or coffee can and wash off your wipers.  

Be sure to slip on the glasses...(I hate saying that a I figure adults know that) I find brake cleaner works well for cleaning the gunk off them and if your careful blow them off with your air hose away from the machine. Take another paint brush and sweep the ways where it was to be sure no chips hiding behind them gets removed.   While the wipers are off if you have a lube pump pull the lever a few times to clean out under the ways and see if it works, if not squirt the ways with clean oil and crank the part to get the clean oil under the ways, move it back and forth a few times, wiping the crud off the ways and replace the wipers.  If you forgot exactly how they were on there, look at the pictures you took.  

I figure if you can wash dishes, you will do a great job washing your machine   

Wipe down the machine with the industrial soap, do a general clean up of the ways, shafts, screws, etc.  I'm sure you get my drift.  Make a mental note if you see wear on the ways, feed screws, if the gibs look like they need adjustment etc. So you can ask me what to do.  I hope to help everyone on this blog when they have a maintenance issue.  
Make sure you walk the dirty rags out to the garbage can outside when your done.  I bet if your machine could talk it would thank you for the PM.  Have a great  weekend! 
 Rich
:rofl:  Silly little guy cleaning his chin..lol


----------

