HM 52 Horizontal Arbor support clean up

Dave J · 27th July 2010, 08:48 PM

Hi,
Talking about horizontal arbors in Marks thread and rather than hijack his tread, I thought I would post it here because most of these mills come like this and it may be helpful to other with the same mill.

About a month back I decided to clean up the horizontal arbor support of my mill because I couldn't stand looking at it any longer.

It was not strait on any sides the clamping rod was drilled crook (down on one side about 10mm) and the support was rough all over and full of bog/putty.
I just used a 20mm end mill so it only destroyed 2 tips, some of the cast was hard while other places were soft.

There is a picture that shows the bolt, there is no excuse for this other than untrained cost cutting cheap labour. The oil hole(s) looks like some kid was given a drill to play with. Even the hole through the bush didn't line up with the grove machined into the top of it for oil distribution.
The way I fixed the angled bolt was to bore a larger hole offset to the original holes in each side were the texta marks are (one high one low) then made a plug one end tapped to suit the rod and a bush the other end. I heated them up and gave them a dunk in oil to blacken them and to keep the rust off.

The word "quality" in the add goes down the drain when you find this sort of thing under the paint. But after having 3 of these machines through my shed nothing really surprises me anymore.

I machined the absolute minimum off it and after cleaning it up it just needs a small amount of bog on the few spots that were to low to be able to machine out. The inside had about 15mm of bog in the bottom, this all came out when I cleaned up the inside walls and bottom.
I trued up and rounded off the bottom of the support on the rotary table which you can see from the photo is quite a bit.
The 2mm slot cut into it for clamping was way of as well so I straitened it up with a 4mm slot mill then drilled a hole at the end to stop any cracking.

I used some quick steel to plug up the holes were the oiler was (and all the other holes) because I didn't want to heat it with weld. Instead of having the oiler there, I drilled and taped a hole at the top on the inside were I will attach a remote oiler. The B model comes without a centre web above the bush on the inside, so a remote oiler may not work for one's with the centre web.

I still have to paint it so I don't have any pictures of it finished, but will add them when it is.

Dave

Dave J · 27th July 2010, 08:58 PM

More photos.

Dave J · 27th July 2010, 09:13 PM

Sorry the photo's are mixed up, they didn't all load the first time

,now there everywhere

.

Dave

**Stustoys** · 27th July 2010, 10:11 PM

Nice work Dave, seems you can make a silk purse out of a sows ear.

**Woodlee** · 27th July 2010, 10:38 PM

Jeez they had a few shots at drilling that oil hole didn't they?
Must have been on a Monday morning after a hard weekend end on the Saki.

kev.

**Graziano** · 27th July 2010, 10:52 PM

Wow Dave, that's gotta be the second roughest lack of workmanship I've ever seen. You've really done well with it.

Dave J · 27th July 2010, 11:00 PM

Originally Posted by Woodlee

Jeez they had a few shots at drilling that oil hole didn't they?
Must have been on a Monday morning after a hard weekend end on the Saki.

kev.

And that was after they already pluged one hole with a cast iron plug, you can see the plug on the right in picture 711 and 714.

Dave

Dave J · 27th July 2010, 11:03 PM

Originally Posted by Graziano

Wow Dave, that's gotta be the second roughest lack of workmanship I've ever seen. You've really done well with it.

What is the first one you have seen? curios

Dave

**RayG** · 28th July 2010, 12:24 AM

Hi Dave,

Nice clean up job, and a good description of how to go about fixing the manufacturing problems, thanks for posting, the pictures are worth 1000 words.

I don't think mine is quite as bad, (I hope) but now, after seeing that, I'm getting keen to pull it all down and check it out properly. I've had to put the work on the CNC conversion of the mill on the backburner for a bit while I get a few other jobs under control....

Regards
Ray

Dave J · 28th July 2010, 01:07 AM

Hi Ray,
I have been wondering about your convertion.
Here are a few more for you from my machine, I will add more latter

Photo 1 is the Y axis M12 thread
Photo 2-6 is how the power feed was fitted with dowels, you can see the dowel missed the casting in picture 6
Photo 3 is the knee oilers full of crap
Photo 4 is were they have a oil hole going no ware
Photo 5 is the tables extra holes so the arbor support didn't feel bad. Just up from this they drilled the hole for the DRO scale through into the T slot.

Dave

Dave J · 28th July 2010, 02:39 AM

Here are a couple more for you guys
1st one is the worm and thrust bearings that tilts the head, full of grit and little grease and in need of shimming.

The next 10 pictures are of the repair I had to do to the ram swivel base because the casting was cut short in one part for some reason. It allowed dust and grit to get on the sliding surfaces.
After I dug out the bog and cleaned up the casting, I made the pieces up out of flat bar welded them together, then shaped them to suit. To fix them in place I used broken drill bits a dowels and countersunk/8 treaded Philip's head screws. To finish it off, it got a light coat of bog on the outside. I made sure the bottom was pretty well flush with a strait edge before drilling the dowels so it only need a light stone underneath.

The last 2 pictures are of the worm cleaned up, shimmed properly and ready to go back together.

Dave

**Stustoys** · 28th July 2010, 11:18 AM

Nice work again Dave, They really are fixer-uppers. On my lathe(close to a H&F AL-335) the tailstock wouldn't slide into the carriage so they had to mill a few mm off the back. I've had to pack the leadscrew bearing block out .75mm so that the lead screw and power feed shaft are parallel to the bed. I'm not really happy with how tight the taper on the face plate is on the spindle and it appears that the concave you're missing they gave to me.

I measured it this morning and over 150mm it come out at about 0.05mm total(so that would be 0.025mm concave on 150mm right?). The reason that they don't a bigger Dia (on my lathe anyway) is that the feed nut is off at 183mm of crossfeed.

Stuart

The way I checked it was to clamp a parallel in the four jaw, at the front at centre height adjust until both ends were within 0.01mm then wind the carriage across on the parallel. Now assuming the parallel are straight(which might be asking a lot as the "matched pair" set I bought from H&F aren't even the same thickness, when I asked I was told "they are only parallel on one face) you should get a nice even movment of the needle? Mine goes from 0 to .03, then stops for a bit, then goes back to about .02, then stops for a bit, then goes on to .05

**eskimo** · 2nd August 2010, 05:28 PM

now that Dave has cleaned up my horizontal arbour support (which i'm still waiting for Dave to post back) I hope he has inspired you others to do the same..lol

Dave J · 2nd August 2010, 06:52 PM

Originally Posted by eskimo

now that Dave has cleaned up my horizontal arbour support (which i'm still waiting for Dave to post back) I hope he has inspired you others to do the same..lol

I haven't got around to painting it yet because of the weather mate.
I think the postage back is going to be a killer.

Seriously though,
If you lived a bit closer I would do yours for you, even though cast iron makes a mess.

After checking the arbor over before doing anything to it, I noticed the hole in the arbor was off centre to the ram. After checking the ram etc over, I found that the ram is mounted off centre on the column and the the hole is bored true to the horizontal spindle, when the ram is strait with the Y axis. So it ends up the arbor hole is in the right position but the ram is off set to one side.

Stuart
I always had a tight spot on my lathe cross slide, one day I was determined to get to the bottom of it. After spending some time going through it I found the nut height was machined wrong as it was sitting to high, and was binding on the screw as I wound it in. I made up a shim (around 0.8mm I think) and it now runs smoother than it ever has with no binding.
The mills X and Y axis nuts were the same, I had to add 1.2mm and 1.1mm shims to them to get them to get the screws to run true.

When I first bought this lathe I was always messing things up unless I measured the part direct. The reason I fitted the dro was I found the cross slide screw varied along it's length giving false readings on the dial. Some threads were closer together than others along it's length.

The mill has faults all the way through it that I haven't posted about. Here is another one below, It's the bottom swivel plate and the arrows show where the top plate oil holes line up to it for oiling it.

Dave

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