18 Attachment(s)
Modifications to my Waldown 8SN
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Front and back
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The quill handle lets me snug up or lock the quill
without tools. The table lock feels better than
the original handle. Both handles are indexable.
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Link belt. Much smoother, quieter, less vibrations.
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Of all modifications I can think of, this has to be the most useful.
1HP VFD, 1HP 4-pole motor. The housing was saved from going to the tip.
The yellow button turns the work light on. The relay in the back is the
latching for the on/off buttons.
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I mounted the control box on top of where the original on/off switch was.
On top the speed potentiometer, below the reverse/stop/forward chicken head knob.
The toggle lever at the right of the box selects control input either by the chicken
head knob, or by the foot switch.
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Have you ever been drilling, holding the workpiece with the left hand and the quill lever
with the right, the drill starts binding and you cannot reach the stop switch?
This is the second-most useful mod I did. A footswitch. Pressing on the right is forward, left
is reverse, no foot on either switch is stop. Both hands remain free.
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This shows the two little indexable levers that I use to lock the belt tensioning. Not that I
change belt often. 99% of the time it sits on the 2000rpm setting, the VFD then can be
varied from near standstill up to about 4500. I actually only choose a lower belt setting
when using a circle cutter.
I hope some of my ideas may be useful to others. I really love to use my Waldown. When renovating it, I did also restore the original 1-ph motor, cleaned it, new paint, new bearings. But somehow changing belt speeds spoiled the fun. The VFD turned it all around. And the restored old motor I sold on eBay, it nearly paid for the brand new 3-phase motor. If I could go back, I would again buy an old grotty Waldown and restore it.
15 Attachment(s)
Conversion of my TOYO210 milling attachment into a drill press
For about 20 years, this Japan made Toyo was my only milling machine
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Here shown attached to my EMCO lathe. The stand is already heavily modified. In 2005 I bough a standalone mill.
Then the lathe was fitted with DRO, with the scale behind the cross slide. The Toyo had to go.
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I mounted it onto a solid Aluminium plate, to remain useful as a drill press for my PCB's and other small jobs.
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The speed range is clearly more for a mill head than a drill press. That is with the stock 1-ph motor.
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The Toyo210 came standard with 3 collets, 6, 8 and 10mm to accept milling cutters and the keyed 6mm chuck. I added the "large" 8mm quick lock chuck for larger tasks.
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About one year ago I converted it to 3-phase VFD. The beige motor is salvaged from a skip, it belonged to a swiss made distillation apparatus. The VFD I bought NOS from eBay France for peanuts. The housing comes from China via eBay. The remainder are bits and pieces from my scrap box. In the second and third picture you see in the background the foot switch. For me, a drill press needs a foot switch, I like to have both hands free.
I hope this gives some inspiration on what can be done with an old left-over milling column. Sometimes very similar Unimat or Emco Compact5 milling columns can be found on eBay for not too much expense.