Thanks PC! The diamond plate is thin.......about .060" Mainly there to protect the drywall from flying oil and cutting/grinding/welding sparks. Also really helps with lighting.
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Joined the Lagun club today.
- Thread starter akjeff
- Start date
Thanks Rick! The shop definitely is a welcome thing in the winter.
Looks like "first chips" on the mill will take a little longer. Tore the Kurt D60 vise down for a good cleaning/inspection, and found a spiral retaining ring in three pieces, and the thrust bearing is shot. Will order a rebuild kit tomorrow. It's in great shape otherwise, so that's a plus. Have the head squared up, so it's ready to go, once the vise is back together. Need to clean up the glass scales on the 2-axis Acu-Rite DRO that the seller threw in with the deal. They look kinda rough, but still work. New seals are on order. Hopefully they can be salvaged.
- Joined
- Sep 1, 2020
- Messages
- 794
Cool! Good luck with the scales! can you tell what happened to the thrust bearing? I have never owned a Kurt but they are obviously very good. Mine is a Yuasa which is also a good vise and while the vise shows plenty of use, the bearing is fine (thrust roller type). Kurt is supposed to be awesome with parts and support.
I think it simply wore thin from years of use, and just broke apart, and then the pieces chewed up the thrust bearing. The vise didn't come with the mill, and not sure of it's history. It should clean up really well, as all the important surfaces are in great shape. Kurt vises are excellent, as is parts support. I had a 4" on my old Rockwell, and it was a great vise. Superb quality.
Update. Figured out the cause of the spiral lock ring failure. Whoever put the last rebuild kit in the vice, forgot a washer that goes between the lock ring and the thrust bearing. So the bearing rollers were "rolling" against the spiral lock. Called Kurt this morning, and within two hours, got a shipment notification. Rebuild kit was a whopping $12! Their service rocks!
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- Nov 26, 2017
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- 1,532
Do you have some precision ground stones that you could go over the mating surfaces with? As long as you are all torn down, it is a great time to make sure there are no irregularities in the critical surfaces.
I know that a lot of people like the swivels, but it has been my experience that they can rage havic on the accuracy of the setups. If it were me, I would leave it off until you need to use it. That gives you the best setup most of the time and the option to set up the swivel when the project requires it.
Every time I scan through the images above, I am amazed at the way your walls looks. I will have to keep this in mind, maybe not for the entire wall but for around machines maybe.
I know that a lot of people like the swivels, but it has been my experience that they can rage havic on the accuracy of the setups. If it were me, I would leave it off until you need to use it. That gives you the best setup most of the time and the option to set up the swivel when the project requires it.
Every time I scan through the images above, I am amazed at the way your walls looks. I will have to keep this in mind, maybe not for the entire wall but for around machines maybe.
Yes, a fresh stoning every time the vise, rotab, etc goes on the table. When I have some free time, will be taking these tools out to my friends shop for a light pass on his surface grinder. Going to buy one of his spare D60's, and then then match up the pair. Will be nice to have for the occasional longer work piece. And even nicer to learn how to use a surface grinder, from someone who knows what they're doing!
I feel the same way regarding the swivel base, but do plan to compare measurements with it on and off, and go from there. I don't have a need to take time saving heavy cuts, as I'm not trying to make a living with it, so the bases effect on rigidity will be pretty small for my uses. My hope is to take really good care of this machine, and never have a need for another manual mill.
The metal on the walls behind the mill and lathe is really nice. Bounces light around, and easy to wipe off whatever flings on to it.
Making a little more progress getting this mill in service. Was seeing excess runout on my R8 collets, even though the runout of the inside of the spindle taper is well under a half thou. Suspected there was some kind of little burr up in there, or the anti-rotation pin was hosed, etc... So, I took the nose cap off to remove the pin. Found that somewhere in it's past, the mill was owned my a moron. First, there were pipe wrench marks on the nose cap! It was removed for at least a turn or two with the set screw still tight, as the middle 2-3 threads were flattened off. Will try to rehab them with a thread file. The anti rotation pin looked home made, and had no locking screw stacked on top of it. Also, the nose cap set screw was left proud of the quill, so it was buggered, and it was rubbing on the head casting when all the way up. Otherwise, it went pretty well! Dressed the inside taper with a paper wrapped dowel followed by a stone. Gave the nose cap some love in the lathe, and put it all back together minus the anti rotation pin. Cut the runout of the worst collet to under a thou, and some collets were less than half that. Will give it one more round of polishing, and call it good. I'm not building the Space Shuttle with this machine.
The mill works great. Cut a test block of aluminum this evening, and all dimensions are within a half thou for length, width, and thickness no matter where I checked it. And I deliberately left the table locks off, just to see if it would drift. The vise is in really good shape dimensionally. After indicating in the fixed jaw, I swept across the bottom and it’s dead parallel to the table. Only time the needle wiggled was going over some pitting. Next task is to get the DRO cleaned up and mounted. What a relief!
Got the X-axis of the DRO cleaned and operational. Zeroed it with the table centered, and just stopped at random spots until the ends of the travel in both directions, and the dials and the DRO agreed at every stop +-.0005". It amazes me at how accurate those dials are. But I suck at using them, and look forward to having the electronic crutch in both axis' soon! Hope to get the Y done tomorrow.