Goodbye, crap trap

[hman]

I've been producing prodigious amounts of chips with my new mill (PM-835S) in the last few days. Discovered an "inconvenience" - the crank mounts at both ends of the table allow crap to accumulate at the ends of the T-slots (which go past the well). I'm sure that a genuine Bridgeport wouldn't have such dead-end crap traps. Not only that, but the ~⅛" thick aluminum crank mount castings, being about ¼" above the bottoms of the T-slots, provided some nice ~⅛" tall "mouse holes," through which chips could fall down inside.

I started by mixing a goodly proportion of powdered aluminum into some West Systems resin. Once thoroughly mixed, I added the hardener and filled the uppermost cavities in the castings.


Then I mounted each of the filled castings at a 30º angle on my mini-mill and cut the inner edge down to make it approximately level with the slots. Ain't it great to have more than one mill?


Final result, just before replacing the crank and the power feed. Note the (epoxy filled) gap between the bottom of the T-slots and the edge of the casting.

 

[Norseman C.B.]

I have rubber t shaped plugs tapped into the short T slots at each end of the table to contain coolant and swarf
it works pretty good.............

 

[C-Bag]

Good job hman. Makes you wonder what we’re they thinking when they supposedly designed that housing. Did you send the link to this thread to PM? Maybe get this flaw fixed? What a concept. And yes, it IS nice to have a spare mill and lathe just for things like this.

 

[hman]

Thanks for the kind words. And @C-Bag, thanks for the suggestion. I've sent them an email.