Rotary table worm gear Lubrication

[raross61]

That's awesome Bob. I don't know if I mentioned it but I went to buy some endmills off of a guy on Craig's List and told him what else I was looking for. He said no at first. But then remembered that he had a rotary table underneath his work. That kind of score never happens to me. :cool2:

Yes I live very close to you and I also saw a guy on craigslist selling many end mills on there. It was a good buy for that price, I like the little vise on top, did that also come with it?

Bob in Oregon

 

[Tornsteel]

Yep. Every thing sitting on the table came with it. The plate on the one jaw is not secured to the jaw. The gentleman turned the plug him self. The table is just a little bit over kill but I can't really afford one thats the right size.

 

[raross61]

Yes I feel your pain! The next step up from these is about $800.00, in (import) brand, I had my tooling guy check. I was a pretty good quality though, horizontal / vertical. Does yours tilt for horizontal operation? Mine has a couple of bars slotted so you can run it horizontal. They sure take up the head space quick, don’t they! I bought some stubby machine drills, so I was able to drill with it on the machine, the regular length are way hard to get into the collets, and the last thing you want to do, is ad a chuck and eat up another 3" of head room!
Bob in Oregon

 

[raross61]

Here are some pictures of the rotary table I have, it for sure is a Palmgren! I took a few pictures of the base, when I got it from the guy, there was only one “link” on the tilting piece. The one piece was not very straight, so I used it as a pattern and made 2 new ones, sorry you can still see the marks on it after running a face mill on it! Not real proud of the finish, but I was in a hurry because I had a job for it, you can see in the one picture when it is down in the vertical position I add a .004 shim under the one bolt and it trams out well. I was not sure if yours had the tilt feature? Could not really see by the pictures, but the scroll gear inside looks exactly like mine!
Bob in Oregon

 

[Tornsteel]

No. Mine doesn't. I wish it did though. I'm just happy to have it though. I put a 3/4 end mill in and had about 2.5" left from the table to the end mill. A little tight.

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Wow! Very nice. That looks clean.

 

[raross61]

No. Mine doesn't. I wish it did though. I'm just happy to have it though. I put a 3/4 end mill in and had about 2.5" left from the table to the end mill. A little tight.

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Wow! Very nice. That looks clean.

Yes that is what I was saying even on my Mill the head height goes away quick! What did you finally figure out you were going to use for lube on the rotating spiral gear? I know these are not a "sealed" oil lubed gear, but I made the dumb mistake once of buying a phase II table (Horizontal), with enclosed, oil filled gears, that was not as smooth as these tables are. The gear is covered pretty well on these, from swarf, and even though mine was sitting for 4 months it's still real smooth! Great to talk to someone close to me, I am actually not in Portland, I am in east county right by I84, Troutdale / Fairview.

Bob in Oregon

 

[Tornsteel]

I went with some white lithium. It is very smooth and I don't see any problems with swarf because I can't put it on its side. That's cool. We aren't that far from one another.