# Deckel FP1 slotting head restauration



## Friendly non murdering Sword (Apr 5, 2021)

I bought my FP1 with a slotting head, but it was laying around unused for quite some time. I now have some upcoming projects where the slotting head would come in handy but before that it needs some touch ups. I am not good enough in scraping yet so I won't scrape the ways for now and since they seem to be in ok condition and well good enough for the work I do, I might never scrape them... but there is still other things to fix up.

That's the slotting head right now:







The gear guard is missing so I'll make a new one and the movement of the ram feels a little stiff, but maybe thats just some decades old grease.  Other than that a small part of the housing casting broke of and I'll try to fix that up. I'll probably need some help or opinions from you.

But let's start... The disassembly is mostly straight forward: Unscrew things and then pull at things and they come right off.

There are only two minor non straight forward disassembly steps:

In order to separate the ram from the base there is a blind hole and the hex to unscrew it is only accessible when the ram is in a certain position:




To disassemble the crank there is a pin on the other side that has to be knocked inwards till it falls out





The gearing felt pretty stiff but that was only because of some old and hard grease, so it was already worth disassembling it to just get all that gunk out...




All the parts are now in a bath of degreaser and the next thing will be to repair the broken casting:





The broken part is in a non structural area and the the triangular hole is about 5cm (~2") wide and the wall thickness is 6mm (~0,24"). I have never repaired cast iron so can anyone help me out on what to do here? I thought of tig brazing the area since I already have all the equipment needed. Would brazing be a good or bad idea? Should I just close the whole area with the brazing wire or would I be better off to cut out a small triangle out of steel and braze it in place?

After that I would put the part on the mill and deck that top surface.

Thanks so far, -Marco


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## benmychree (Apr 5, 2021)

Welding/brazing could distort the casting, creating more work for you.  I would leave it alone or screw on a piece of thin metal to close off the gap.


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## Larry$ (Apr 5, 2021)

Cast iron can do some strange moving when heated but you might get away with it. An oven would be nice. 
Since this is a non-structural fix (Beauty or dirt stop) I think I'd be inclined to clean it really well and use filled epoxy or Bondo. Do a nice body job and it will look like new. Clay can be used to make a dam for molding an approximate shape for liquidy epoxy.  
I would avoid brazing steel to cast. Since there is little be be gained using heat and there is some risk .......


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## Chipper5783 (Apr 5, 2021)

What is your intention for tooling?  I ask because I have equivalent offering from Maho (an MH600 from 1963) and the tool mount looks the same.  Mine came without any tooling.


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## Friendly non murdering Sword (Apr 6, 2021)

Chipper5783 said:


> What is your intention for tooling?  I ask because I have equivalent offering from Maho (an MH600 from 1963) and the tool mount looks the same.  Mine came without any tooling.



My slotting head also came without any tooling. The original cutters for the deckel slotting head are hard to find and if so, they tend to be pretty expensive. I have seen asking prices of 40-90€ per piece, at least in germany.

I plan on making my own tool holder for the slotting head and then maybe grind hss blanks into the shape needed, but I'm not sure yet.

You can also have a look at this german forum thread, where people built their own tool holders (I hope external links are allowed?):

Stossmeißel für den Stosskopf


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## Friendly non murdering Sword (Oct 4, 2021)

Man it's been a couple of months. I finally got around to finish this restauration... Job and other things have been straining me the last months but I found some time lately to get this one done:

- *Fixing the broken casting.* For lack of other options on hand I decided to TIG braze the broken casting and luckily everything went fine. The casting didn't pull any weird behavior on me while brazing. I forgot to take some pictures but it wasn't pretty anyways, I milled the brazed area to final dimensions afterwards.

*-Paint. *I striped all parts down to bare metal and applied MIPA 2k putty. After sanding I used MIPA 2k Epoxy Paint in RAL 7005 "mouse grey". I've really gotten to like this MIPA stuff because allthough I applied the paint by rolling I find the surface finish quite okay and the paint is really tough. Better than any 1K paint for sure.




*- Replacing the oil catch pan. *The slotting head was missing the oil guard around the drive gear. I did two attempts to manufacture this out of a steel disc and a bent piece of sheet metal which I then TIG welded.









I lost the first one with a mishap on the mill and on the second one I realised that I probably wasn't able to match the quite tight tolerances of outer and inner diameter with a welded assembly even after turning on the lathe. So I decided to make these parts out of a big chunck of aluminum and they turned out quite pleasing:









While replacing the oil guard I was really baffled and amazed on what actions the previous owner went to hide the fact that the oil guard was missing... All oil guards on these slotting heads I have found online mount the oil guard with through-holes from the back. But my slotting head only had blind holes with no threads inside and for the life of me I couldn't figure out how the guard was mounted. I already suspected something fishy but I decided I was going to drill out the blind hole from the back and when I punch marked the hole location I realised what was going on...





The previous owner covered the holes with plungs. They must have been matched quite well to the bores because even with the paint striped to bare metal I didn't notice these plugs. So here's the end result:




*-Assembly* The rest was just cleaning and oiling all remaining parts and machining a socket for the nut on the drive shaft, it is deep inside a blind hole:





The machine tag is probably made out of aluminum and I couldn't get the yellow discoloration of. I only tried with soapy water and a toothbrush. There aren't any replacements on sale anymore and I didn't want to ruin it with stronger chemicals. Has anyone any tips on how to clean these up?




Here is the end result so far and the slotting head is now working buttery smooth again:









Next will be a custom toolholder for the slotting head since I'm missing any tooling on this one.


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## Larry$ (Oct 4, 2021)

Friendly non murdering Sword said:


> There aren't any replacements on sale anymore


Keith Rucker has used a man to make replacement plates. They look very nice.


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