Setup and Continuing Saga of the Charter Oak 12Z

With the belt drive it's over 5000. Boom! ;)
 
Last edited:
At them rpm's it's more of a dink da dink, da dink, dinkdinkdink BAM as it dont stop skidding across the shop till it hits a tool box ahahaha
 
coolidge said:
Bill have you considered running grease instead of way oil? I'm only asking because I had read that Haas and other manufactures had switched to grease for ways on some machines vs way oil, less required and you don't pollute the coolant with a layer of way oil.
Click to expand...
That is apples and oranges.

The Haas machines use linear guide rails, which are greased. This machine has a dovetail slide way which should always be oiled.

Why oil? Chips stick to grease way better, and you will end up damaging the bed sooner.

I would recommend you get some rubber sheet or some bellows to cover the ways up and protect them from chips sooner rather than later. You can probably find what you need at mcmaster-carr.
 
So last night I tried just taking some light (.02) cuts on a chunk of hot roll I had laying around. First was with one of my remnants of my cheap india mills. Terrible finish. So I replaced it with one of my USA made 3/8 carbide mills and BIG difference. I don't have a power feed on the X axis yet, so was cranking by hand and still got a decent finish. And very smooth feeding at the handle. Granted, 20 thou ain't much for this machine but I couldn't tell from the feedback through the handle when I was cutting or not. Smooth as butter. Wow. It's been awhile since I've had the luxury of working on a machine this stable. Gonna have to take some bigger bites just to see how the machine handles it.

And I ordered the 3M 3-axis dro from DroPros. I'm going with the Z axis on the head and will put a little digital scale on the quill. If I'd had the money I think the best solution would have been their 4-axis setup where the head and quill are cumulative. Just didn't have almost 3k laying around right now.

Slim chance, but it 'might' show up before the weekend... :))
 
wrmiller19 said:
...the mill comes with a decent grease on the ways and screws (there was little to no cleanup required on this thing). I wonder which is better though?
Click to expand...
Grease is applied to keep the thing from rusting in transit. Oil would not of the job, especially if it sat in a damp warehouse for a few months.

Get some orange citrus cleaner, strip the grease off, and coat everything with Mobil Vacta 2 (ISO 68) way oil. Grease is not a good choice on your ways. You can keep the leadscrews lubed with it if you like.
 
Ever see how quickly things corrode at the beach?

AC units usually last, at best, 5 years at beach houses in the SE. Reason: Salt air.

Now think about your new lathe or mill spending 3-4 weeks in a container on top of a ship crossing the Pacific ocean... can you say SUPER corrosive environment?

IMO whatever is protecting the surfaces, needs to be removed... simply because that salt air has contaminated it.

Better to start with fresh coatings on all non-painted surfaces.

As to the grease vs oil discussion: IMO the question is: Which one was it designed for? That would, IMO, be the one to use... :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top