Member postings for Lee Jones 6

Mmmm... Pretty!

A tommy bar, now there's an idea! Wait for v2.

Jason,

When cutting a shoulder, did you say it was better to come in from the side?

I have Harold's 'Milling A Complete Course' and he seems to suggest chewing away 2mm coming top down.

Recording on the mobile phone doesn't seem to pick-up the banging sound, which is a shame.

I do not currently have any plans to make new fly cutters.

In fact, I'm only using (playing really) this one until the new carbide inserts for my face mill arrive.

Not sure I can get any less stick-out than I already have. Maybe 5mm, but I've seen SO a lot further than mine.

Incidentally I have noticed a small flat spot on the base of my cutter. I think my grind needs to be improved.

I did some playing around last night.

Reground the tool (excessive clearances).

Results (remember, you have to click on the video to see more than the preview):

0.3mm DOC - 180RPM - 36mm/min

0.3mm DOC - 280RPM - 36mm/min

0.3mm DOC - 280RPM - 20mm/min

0.3mm DOC - 600RPM - 40mm/min

Best surface finish, by far, was the 600RPM cut, but it was very noisy.

It sounded like the machine was taking a beating.

Thanks Bill.

I did consider making one of these (and might still yet), but I already have a 'healthy' list.

Edited By Lee Jones 6 on 26/05/2020 07:52:46

No nod in my machine unfortunately, else I would do that.

Ah yes, good idea. Steel for the win!

Cheeky! I'm trying to get to the bottom of those.

And yes, totally cheating (and would void the point of the project).

Well my tap & die set tops out at M24, so I guess I did.

First project I get to choose (after being forced to make a part for the screwcutting gearbox).

Outside thread for the top (jacking) part (m30 x 2mm):

Inside thread for the bottom part:

Finished article:

This is what I have:

Why didn't you make all of the parts?

Warco Super Major Milling Machine - Stripping Gearbox

You know those jobs you wish you had never started!!

So when pushing the mill, the gears can make a tremendous knocking sound.

Being the inquisitive type I really wanted to find out what's going on. With a view to identifying any potential issue early and thus prevent any further, potentially irrecoverable, damage.

On my Harrison M300 lathe, viewing the gearbox is a simple matter of loosening a few cap-head screws and lifting off the top plate.

The Mill looked a little more involved, but not a lot more (spoiler: I was wrong)!

Remove face plate and dials:

Remove the motor:

Remove the 6 cap-heads and simply lift the top plate.

Ah, balls! Looks like the gears get lifted out with the top plate.

Have a quick peek inside, then put the plate back on.

After much; pushing, pulling, bashing (rubber mallet) and screwing (using them as a press, it went back on.

Put everything back together and forget the the whole thing.

Ah balls! The 1, 2, 3 gear selector has disengaged !!!

Re-strip - this time we need to go big. In for a penny ...

Taking another look at the exploded view parts list to locate all of the curclips and bearings.

Now we play a little game of 'jimmy up the plate and bash down the gear shafts' using pin followers (so as to avoid lifting all the gears out before I've had a good look at them).

Success:

Now time to drop the oil.

Ah balls! Dropped the plug and overwhelmed the funnel.

Oil everywhere. All over the floor and contaminated the cutting fluid system:

Gears out:

Nothing appears out of sorts. No worn teeth. Everything looks tight and in good order.

Time to put it all back together again.

Also think I found the source of the clattering. There's a plate at the back of the mill head which protects the screw. A little grub screw keeps it in place which was pretty loose:

Once we're all back together, I'll give it a test by removing it during a heavy cut.

Fingers crossed!

Just putting my Warco Super Major Milling Machine gearbox back together.

The operating instructions say to use a non-detergent SAE 30 oil.

I don't have SAE 30, but I do have ISO 68 (which Harrison recommends).

According to the conversion chart below, they are very similar.

My question is, would it be suitable to use ISO 68 instead?

That is not correct John.

There aren't any plastic gears in my mill, fortunately. If there were, I would have stripped them long ago.

I'll put a separate thread up about yesterdays epic.

Makes sense to me.

I have a radius and clearance angles on all sides.

I'll try dropping the the RPM and offsetting the work. Thanks.

... when I have the gearbox loaded back into the mill.

(long story - don't want to talk about it!)

Got you. Makes sense.

So long as the entire structure won't all become too soft.