Thread: milling machine stand

Hello all,

Today I did very little due to the heat. I did however cut the chip tray to size and cut out the wedges in each corner to facilitate the corners meeting when the 4 sides and folded to 45 deg. I sent it to the fabricators the same afternoon. They are understaffed at the moment and told me it may not be ready till next week. I'm not in a hurry for it but at the same time can't wait to see how it looks! Or, how well my angle calcs worked out when the sheet is folded!

Hopefully a small (neat) weld seem at each corner will render it coolant proof...

Here's a question for anyone (Yes Dave that includes you, hint hint) When I finally bolt my mill firmly down to the stand, how do I ensure it's not warped or twisted due to small imperfections in the cast or top of the mill stand?

Do I remove the table and adjust with shims until both the Y ways are equally level using precision level?

The way I see it, if the mill base is not precisely machined at the base where it makes contact with the stand, and/or the stand it sits on is not perfectly flat then bolting it down firmly to the stand will inevitably introduce some warping in the base and this will manifest itself in some form of loss of accuracy in milling operations....

Am I on the money with this?

Cheers,

Simon

Hi Simon,
I know the feeling of waiting for things, but your is such a small job most of the time would be setting up the panbrake.

To answer your question (I think I said about it earlier in the thread). Your on the right track, you should have enough room to place a level on the front and back of the Y axis ways. If you find it's not enough, wind the saddle forward and then back to get it in. You will need to use parallels to get the level up over the dovetail ways.

Dave

Dont bolt it firmly down untill you have it sitting flat on the stand,use shims under the hold down points.

Originally Posted by pipeclay

Dont bolt it firmly down untill you have it sitting flat on the stand,use shims under the hold down points.

Good point, it also needs to be shimmed first up so it doesn't rock when you wind it forward and backward, if you need to do that t get the level in.

Dave

Yes, I forgot that I will need to check side to side and well as back to front. Not a huge amount of distance between these measurements so hopefully it won't have too much adjusting. I don't have any parallels either and be buggered if I'm going to buy any so I guess I'm making myself a set of them too!

I removed the mill from my existing stand and now it sit on the ground. I looks rather sad sitting on the floor! Oh well not for much longer.....

Cleaned up the stand and chip tray and have posted it for sale. A closer inspection of the stand shows that the steel flat sheet that is supposed to hold the adjustment feet is only about 3mm thick! I never had it on feet but I bet if I did, I would be able to rock it to and fro just with the flexing of the steel. Very light duty. Ha! and I'm worried about the strength of my stand! Mine should take a Tank compared to that....

Simon

For some reason I was thinking your stand was cast iron, and is why I said $200. I have mixed you up with someone else who was talking about their cast stand the other week.
I was wondering why you where saying it was only worth that, because I was thinking a cast stand would have to be worth more than that, LOL

Dave

I'll allow you to be confused just this once Dave! Don't let it happen again...

LOL, I will try not to, but cant guarantee it.

Dave

Hello all,

I see V8's lathe stand is coming on quite well. I bet he will finish before me!

I have started to make my first drawer runners. I have decided to play with the idea of using some bearings I had laying around. They are a 608RS. Not sure what they are meant for but I have some from a project that I never went ahead with. They are a bearing with a 22mm OD. A quick search on ebay will see that they are quite reasonable. I had to order some more so I have no shame in saying I bought some Chinese ones for $15 for 15 and free delivery! For what they will be doing, they should last forever!

Each side has 6 of these bearings, 3 top, 3 bottom and an RHS rail sliding through the guts. The drawer itself will be simply pine and screwed to these rails....

The rail glides as smooth as silk but I may add some of that tape on the sides. The biggest issue will be that the drawer maybe be too smooth and may need a locking mechanism. I shall deal with that a bit later.

The steel came from an old treadmill that I lugged home. A local gym was throwing 2 out so I grabbed both. Took them home only to find they both still worked. I grabbed the best parts from the two and made one good one that I sold on ebay for a few hundy$! The other I have kept for scrap steel and parts. Actually the parts will come in real handy, the motor is a 240V 3 phase (emerson) and the dedicated VFO still works. I just have to make a variable frequency square wave generator to inject into it to fool it into thinking I want to run faster!

Oops. Got sidetracked....

So far so good.

Simon

Eureka!

Just worked out what to do about the drawer lock/catch. I have some rare earth magnets sitting around. They are about 32mm round with a countersunk hole for securing & very strong. One of them should keep each of the drawers shut. One at either the front or back that locates onto a flat piece of steel when closed will do the trick!

May locate one for when it's fully open as well but I don't see it as being a real problem. Just a simple limiting catch to stop it coming out all the way will most likely do.

Love it when a plan comes together!

Simon

Hi Simon, looking good.
I thought you would have gone with the simpler 4 bearing per draw like this set up below, click on the picture.
https://www.machineryhouse.com.au/T768

Dave

Originally Posted by Dave J

Hi Simon, looking good.
I thought you would have gone with the simpler 4 bearing per draw like this set up below, click on the picture.
https://www.machineryhouse.com.au/T768

Dave

Hi Dave,

These runners are essentially a heavy duty version of the ones you find in your kitchen. I had thought about doing a similar style with fewer bearings but I soon realised that the rear bearing needs an upper and a lower track. The lower track holds the down force when the drawer is closed, the upper track is needed once you pull it out and it starts to canterlever and the force is then in the upwards direction. Given the price of the bearings, I thought it was just easier to do it this way.

Cheers,

Simon

Today I worked a little more on the stand. Nearly finished on of the drawers. I also got the chip tray back from the sheet folders. Here's what it looks like....

Simon

Looks good, and it looks like your corner cutting ended up right.
What are you going to put for a drain? You could use something like a bathroom waste socket, but it will sit above the tray leaving coolant in the tray all the time.

Dave