Member postings for Peter_H

You're right I missed that oil seal completely. I'm trying to think how else oil could get to the spindle bearings. The only openings I recall on the whole spindle assembly is the aperture at the top where the shaft comes out. Even with the quill at the lowest point, I can't see how, but it's difficult to think about the internals in 3D. I'll think on.

Just so I'm on the right track, oil emerges from between the spindle and the quill, not from between the quill and the head casting?

Lex, I did a clearer traced diagram of their exploded diagram of that area :

https://www.model-engineer.co.uk/sites/7/images/member_albums/143475/808162.jpg

And of the casting alone :

https://www.model-engineer.co.uk/sites/7/images/member_albums/143475/807977.jpg

In neither of them can I see any sign of an o-ring or flange seal, or any outlet other than the spindle/quill, but I'm unsure on orthogonal veiws. It looks like the only thing that stops spillage is the casting (green in dwg I think) being deeper than the back gear (dark blue in dwg), and the lower spindle seal (felt, hardens over the years, cracks apart when removed) leaks that spillage.

Obvious questions, but have you checked the oil sight guage on the front?. They are notorious for getting blocked with gunge and showing a fix incorrect reading. Over the years, the oil gets topped up and up and eventually over fill. Also, checked for casting cracks?

Maybe put a tin under the spindle, engage back gear and highest speed. Don something oil proof, stand well back, Quill up, push the startbutton, stop after 5 minutes, quill up, on for 5 minutes. Repeat. Or just pull the drain plug, change the sight guage, and refill.

I'd be interested in any ideas for a pneumatic draw bar. Advancing years makes it more difficult to get up there with a spanner everytime.

Sorryu, due to ceiling height I can't remove the drawbar without tilting the head 90 degrees and it took an age to get in clocked in again last time. I made my drawbar from a simple length of steel M12 studding. I turned an over length brass nut with a taper on the bottom to keep it central when taking force, and a pair of locked together nuts for operating it. Surprising easy to get the length right. I don't have any INT30 holders with the old imperial drawbar thread, They're all M12.

DItto as Ian, no spindle lock, just drop it into the low backgear. Fine for tightening chucks etc.

If your ceiling is high enough to be able to pull the drawbar straight out the top then you're luckier than me!. Only way is to tilt the head right, do whatever with the drawbar, tilt it back and align it. Pain in the neck which I haven't had to do for about 125 years luckily.

Mark - yes, the crossfeed nut. That's what I thought we were talking about? Having looked back at the original post I can see I grabbed the wrong end of the stick!

Peter

Edited By Peter_H on 15/02/2022 09:57:18

Good description Mark, thanks.

It looks like the VBRP mk II was different. Both parts of the adjustable nut are the same or very similar, and consist of a normal 20tpi thread on the outside, a flange with C-spanner holes on one end, and 5 tpi ACME right through the middle. There a locknut each end similar to the flanges above, but with an internal 20tpi thread to screw on the outside of each nut half. So the nut halfs 80 and 84 screw into the fixed casting 82, adjusted by screwing each nut half lightly together, then locking with locknuts 83 and 81. The inside of the leadscrew hole in casting 84 leaves a volume that acts as an oil reservoir. You can just see the oil nipple near the right lock nut and adjacent to the item 84 leader line.

What may be more practical, and benefit everybody, is if Mark could post the drawing or whatever sketches he used for making it.

It doesn't look much more than a cylinder with two different diameter bores, one fine threaded ( to mount it?) and the other threaded ACME for the lead-screw. Any external keys or flanges or anything Mark?

"ekpsupplies2009"  at ebay.co.uk sells Meehanite 250 grade cast iron bar by the inch. 60mm diameter is around 4 to 5 ukp per inch(!) but is looks like the genuine article.  "southweststeam1" has 80mm bar at around £10 per inch. Any decent metal suppliers should be able to sell it but you'll be looking at buying a few meters minimum.

In nearly 20 years on ebay, with Balding, beaver, VBRP as search terms, I have *never* seen a cross-feed nut for sale. What I do have somewhere is a balls-crew and nut for both full length table and cross-feed from a CNC version of the Beaver, but the end fittings are quite likely different.

Peter

Edited By Peter_H on 09/02/2022 10:34:58

Edited By Peter_H on 09/02/2022 10:36:11

Ahhh.. tapered dogs. Now it makes sense. I assume the big gear is the back gear - I have that. Unfortunately the rest of it doesn't ring any bells. Maybe we are different versions. Mine is the VBRP MkII with the variable ratio taper belt drive up the top. My back gear drop int to engagement by manual lever. The gear is fitted on a hollow shaft with dogs, but they have more teeth than that. I did a section drawing in Qcad which is in one of my picture albums here. I will investigate further, as if the trimmed tape dogs ahs relevance here I can't wait to get it done!.

Ian,

> facing off the drive side splines so it meshed deeper.

> I spaced the toothed pulley down by a similar amount

That sounds very interesting. Do you have any sketches or dimensions and references to the part diagrams please?. If there's a short cut to getting rid of some of the spline rattle I'm up for it, but I don't quite follow what you've done. Thanks.

Same problem with my MK2 VBRP Beaver mill. The splines rattle like a good 'un but I couldn't tell you which pair it is that have the worst play. I got all the bearings, etc to tilt the head over 90 deg, get the spindle out and start going through it to see if there is anything I can do about. it's now a couple of years later, I'm much closer to 70 and feeling less an less able to tackle it (

It's not uncommon on Chipmasters' for the screw-cutting gear tumbler to leak oil from it's worn O-rings straight into the tray where you keep tools, lunch, etc. I armed myself with the two correct O-rings and set about it today, keeping in mind I can't do much at a time these days.

Drained the oil, got the 3 screws out that secure the flange (1371 Bearing, page 7, Gearbox : Casting and Levers). The drawing on that page and the previous one are a bit sketchy when it comes to how the tumbler assembly sits in the screw-cutting gearbox. I was hoping the Tumbler/Selector flange and shaft complete with gear (1538 Gear) may pull straight out, but of course it didn't. The outer flange part of the assembly (the part with the slots that you drop the spring loaded handle into to change gear) moves axially about 7mm or 8mm in and out and that's it. Attempt at removing the gearbox soon revealed the necessity to remove all the shafts, pulleys, etc mounted to it, and at that point I wasn't feeling too hot and chickened out.

I wonder now if I was going about it the wrong way?. The exploded diagrams in the parts manual shows on page 6 and 7 the assemblies involved. The two O-rings involved are (1671 Bearing O-ring 26-870) and (1672 Plug O-ring 27-850). These are both BS O-rings and easy to get hold of. Should I maybe be removing parts (1557 Tumbler Handle) and the associated 1745, 1725, 1727 and 1652 ?. This may the free the tumbler flange (1371 Bearing), allow me pull the (1640 Bearing Plug) out, replace both seals and reassemble.

What does the panel think?

Secondary, when its time to refill with oil, do I use the specified SAE 68 hydraulic Oil, or SAE 68 EP Gear Oil?

Thanks in advance for any help.

Edited By Peter_H on 27/08/2021 17:30:24

Edited By Peter_H on 27/08/2021 17:31:03

You seem to already have a huge number of manuals. Do you get bored with machines quickly and have to change them often?

The MkII has a shear pin on one of the leadscrews. I can now see why!

It just occured to me - how on earth do their quill removal instructions work without removing that key? I can't see how the quill can be pulled out without removing the key, but I have done it myself!

Mark - On the front of the quill housing you can see the head of what looks like a plug, about 1/2" diameter. That is the Quill Guide Plug which has a key section on the other side which rides in the key slot in the quill to stop it rotating. You'll see it in the parts listing as :

43 S100/750 Quill Guide Plug

The plug/key is itself stopped from rotating, and is retained by :

44 P185 10 UNC x 3/8" long set screw

Try to remove the plug key and see if the quill can be persuaed to move.

Edited By Peter_H on 28/10/2019 10:21:32

The clue is in the line. Level sight gauges have a fill line, flow sight gauges don't.

No, the quill plus spidle shaft is free to pull right out. The spindle is only connected to the drive train by splines. So the spindle+quill assembly will come straight out of the bottom after following the instruction on the handle/spring stuff. You then have a quill with spindle in your hands for renovation. One tip - in my case, the quill was such a good fit in it's bore, that if I took more than a minute or two trying to refit it, the heat from my hands expanded it and it would no longer fit!

Edited By Peter_H on 07/10/2019 10:29:45

You have to remove the quill by following the section in the manual "P12-13 Quill Removal Instructions". Don't forget to remove the drawbar first. The procedure is much much easier if you turn the head to one side first. Don't be tempted to try remove the spindle from the quill while the quill is still in the machine. The torsion spring which balances the weight of the quill assembly is quite dangerous until you follow the procedure to unwind it. It housed in the box on the right of the head, around the shaft of the quill operating handle. That's the handle that smacks you in the face if you don't release the tension properly .

There have been several variations in bearing types. Earlier machines had a pair of opposing taper roller bearings at the bottom and an angular contact bearing at the bottom. The later machines have a matched pair of opposing precision angular contact bearings at the bottom and an ordinary sealed deep groove bearing at the top. The spindle should come out of the quill fairly easily. Remove the spindle nut at the top of the quill, then the whole spindle assembly will get jacked out as you remove the quill bearing nut. The bottom quill bearing nut is actually the full diameter of the quill and around 17mm high. From memory, I think it needs a big C spanner to remove - it has two shallow opposing slots for getting some torque on it. Be careful of the felt seal at the bottom of the quill, which runs on the inner bore of that lower 'nut'. Mine had hardened and broke up and I was stupid enough to not take any measurements of it. If you get a chance, please measure it for me!. Also make a note of the directions of the pair of angular contacts. I can't remember for sure if the open sides face each other or face away from each other.

The angular contact bearings are separated by a pair of cylindrical spacers, one on the inners and one on the outers. The difference in length of these spacers, a few tens of microns, sets the preload on the angular contact pair, so be careful not to ding them, deburr them, clean with emery, etc.

If you replace the bearings don't be mean, they need to be precision matched 7207's.

Edited By Peter_H on 05/10/2019 11:41:50

Good news Lex. Just shout if there's any more photos you want, like a close of of the wiper. I can easily take one of those off . Looks like the wiper material is felt.

Hi. The gib dimensions I gave are 9.5" long, and I am sure the table is wider than that.

Look again at this specific picture

Near the blue letter A in a circle, at the bottom of the picture, you can see a gib adjusting screw touchung the gib.Look at the opposite end of where the gib sits and you can see there is a pocket for the other adjusting screw. The pocket starts and widens out at the end of the gib. Only one screw is shown, but lets hope it's the one you need.

Like most people, my mill is in assembled and in use, and the apron assembly is the other way up, so I'm definitely unable to take pictures of that area. I could take a picture of the front and back gib screws in situ if that would help?

Later... I've just done some measurements and photos of the mill. Yes, the table is about 10" wide (I see 255.0mm). Underneath, at the height the gib is at :

Apron measures 252.5mm wide.

Front of the gib 9.28mm from the front of the apron.

Rear of the gib 6.31mm from the rear of the apron.

Calculate the gib length from that gives : 252.5 - 9.28 - 6.31 = 236.91mm

The spare I previously measured at 241.3mm, so there a couple of mm descrepancy, which I can well believe from these rough measurements.

Like you, I had the image in my mind of the screws being wholly in front of and behind the gibs. In fact, the screw (assy?) is mostly above or to one side of the actual gib key.

These pictures may help. Sorry for the space, I can't see how to do thumbnais.

Edited By Peter_H on 02/10/2019 15:08:50