Thread: Cash Mill rebuild

Gee I wish we could restore 2 of them together My example is probably in worse shape than yours it appears to have been flogged to death by somebody . I read somewhere that these mills were originally built during WW2 and some were supplied to the US forces , this happened quite a bit and it was known as " reverse lend lease " Mike

pic of the table power setup

Will be interesting to see it go back together.

Thanks for the encouragement guys.
Mine never came with the table power feed.... I considered making something like it a long time ago, but ended up with reversible a wiper motor drive a couple of decades ago (as I mentioned in another thread about mill table feeds). That worked really well and I'll refit that when it goes back together.
Oh, I aslo mentioned somewhere once that I had fitted counterweights on the back for the knee lift which was much too hard for me. That has also stood the test of time. I used 46 kg in all (in two equal weights on steel cable). Something you might consider Mike! Now the table lift is a matter of turning a hand wheel instead of fighting that bloody great crank.
BTW, what motor is in yours Mike?

This looks interesting I will follow along eagerly

Ps I had no luck with the chuck jaws

And another thing: WHile it's all apart, I will try and get new bearings for it. The originals are large taper rollers which show significant and uneven wear - not destroyed, to my surprise, given the pounding the poor things got all their life because of the MT4 spindle.... but definite uneven tracks in the cones.
I will change the spindle to NT40 while I'm at it - maybe in the toolmaker's factory, because he has some great precision machine tools. I believe that the NT40 taper will fit inside the morse taper almost all the way - it will be a little short where their profiles intersect. That will make tool changes a lot easier and less harsh. I have an NT40 arbour that was bored to MT4 for me a long time ago and I can see where they intersect.
THE other reason I want to do that is that my Huret vertical head has an NT40 spindle and that would allow interchangable tools then....

Originally Posted by jhovel

Thanks for the encouragement guys.
Mine never came with the table power feed.... I considered making something like it a long time ago, but ended up with reversible a wiper motor drive a couple of decades ago (as I mentioned in another thread about mill table feeds). That worked really well and I'll refit that when it goes back together.
Oh, I aslo mentioned somewhere once that I had fitted counterweights on the back for the knee lift which was much too hard for me. That has also stood the test of time. I used 46 kg in all (in two equal weights on steel cable). Something you might consider Mike! Now the table lift is a matter of turning a hand wheel instead of fighting that bloody great crank.
BTW, what motor is in yours Mike?

Counterweights ..yes I will copy your setup . My Cash has a single phase motor I think, it ishidden inside the base as you know , I will take some pics . Keep the pics ofyour rebuild coming . The table on mine needs resurfacing , the engineers inWarragul will do it for me .Im not sure of the condition of the ways ór thespindle MT bore yet . Mike

PS this may be of interest
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/321171842...84.m1423.l2649

Hi Joe,

good luck today and tomorrow! I'd be like a kid in a lolly shop there. Have fun and I look forward to seeing the results.

Cheers,

Simon

Originally Posted by jhovel

Sadly, the column has a huge foot flange which prevents that from being ground, so that will be scraped back to specs.

I only just stumbled on this now, Sat 4.00 p.m. If I'd known I'd have come down and supervised. I was out in Mulgrave this morning.

Depending on how big your gonads are, you can grind most of the dovetail. You have to have faith that the table will reverse in the same spot, and the reversal happens with the wheel still in the cut. Then you just scrap the last few inches, until they blend.

That's what Marko does with Huron's. Bridgeports are no dirrerent, once you lay them over on their back, the base is in the way. You drill three dimples in the back of the casting, then set it up on screw jacks with bearing balls sweated into the tops. I have jacks here you could have borrowed.

You know his style of grinder, the arm would hit the foot, so you stand the wheel off with about 18" of arbours.

Regards Phil.

well, did I have some fun in my mate's factory!
He let me help a bit while we were setting up the first few parts on the surface grinder and asked me lots of questions about what and where I learnt stuff about machining, then pointed me to his other surface grinder and said "go and grind the gibs yourself there".... I WAS like a kid in a lollyshop! Today he let me use one of his big universal mills to machine a pocket in the Cash knee to fit proper swarf guard plates to protect the y-axis screw and knee gears.
We finished all the grinding today and I'm home again. I learnt A LOT about machine setups and tool and cutter grinders....
Don't the mill table and knee look like toys on that magnetic chuck!
Phil, we didn't do the column. Its foot is too big and way too close to the vertical ways (about 2-1/2" at the bottom). But surverying it properly, there is very little wear in it anyway. I will scrape it. Most of the wear was in the very short vertical dovetails of the knee.
Now I can scrape one side of all the ways for oil retention and to clean up the dovetails a little bit more.
IMAG1258.jpgIMAG1259.jpgIMAG1261.jpgIMAG1269.jpgIMAG1270.jpgIMAG1274.jpgIMAG1275.jpgIMAG1277.jpgIMAG1278.jpg
The last photo shows all the bits back in the car for the way home....
We had to do the table dovetails in two setups - the overlap of the ground surfaces is as good as invisible! A straigedge over the centre of them shows no light....

PS: the guy in the dustcoat is my friend Joe. Boy does he know what he's doing with his machines and metrology tools! You wouldn;t believe some of the finishes on his dies and associated gear! When we talk about mirror finish, we mean you can see your reflection in the surface - when he talks mirror finish you could use his steel parts in a reflective telescope!

Great pics Joe!

Love that stack of wedges in the 8th pic. Good to see the pro's do things like that too! That green grinder must be pretty big, how big is the Cash's table?

Cheers,
Ew

Hi Joe,

In that 8th photo that Ueee was referring to, is that grinding wheel a dedicated dovetail grinding wheel or did you dress it to that specifically for the job?

Edit: I guess what I'm asking is was it dressed for the occasion?

Simon

Now the fun of putting it all back together.

Happy to help out here if I can.

Have to pull my mill down before long and any hands on experience I can get will be most helpful.

Simon, the wheel was shaped specifically for this job. THe dovetails are 55 deg angle and he cut the wheel to exactly that angle for me.
Ew, the tool and cutter grinder is BIG - table mength about 1200 long, table movement about 450mm. That's why the mill table dovetails were ground in two parts.
My mill table is 800 long and 200 wide.
Jatt, I'll give you a call when I'm working on it and there is simething to get a second person's hands dirty

Now thqt the gib crane is sorted, I hoiked the column onto the base for a stable work platform. Turned out to be a bit low for me really and I will give soem thought what I can put in between. I think I have some big oregon slab pieces that might work....
IMAG1284.jpg
So, into the measuring and scraping.
With the straightedge on the ways, a 2 thou (0.05mm) feeler gauge wouldn't slide in more than about half an inch for a short distance in the centre of one way. So it's 'just' scraping that's needed
Putting the straightedge/prism on it with some blue shows the wear up nicely.
IMAG1286.jpg
A quick break-up pass with the 'Aldix' (my nickname for my Aldi recipro saw mod to use as a 'Biax' style power scraper) and rubbing the straightedge on again:
IMAG1287.jpg
A few more targeted passes and it's starting to look straighter.
IMAG1288.jpgIMAG1289.jpgIMAG1291.jpg
I'm happy with that for today.
Tomorrow I'll start using the granite surface plate to check and try and achieve actual flatness across both strips - and right angle to the spindle.
I got new bearings today (just shy of $200 ). So I'll install them and the spindle (temporarily - that's reasonably easy with taper roller bearings, actually) and set up a test indicator on a long arm that I can swing right across the face of the slides.