CMD10/SeigX1 query

Hex socket in 3/8 ratchet, give it some more torque, if its not bottoming out, and you say tightening it with an allen key did work a little, try a hex socket in a ratchet, it's hard to get much torque from an allen key.

I have come up with another idea. Make and fit a collar to go round the quill, under the casting. There looks to be plenty of room. Fix the collar up to the casting. If the collar was fitted with a cotter, locking the quill would be easy. The hard part is fitting it as it looks like a major dis-mantle plus knowing where it's safe to drill and tap the casting. I will have a look and see if I have a suitable sized piece of steel for the collar. I must admit I have never liked the split casting way of clamping things.

If you can find a steel can that does not have a corrugated shape it would be a good starting point. Cut it down to allow a tab at the bottom to hold in place. If it's too thick to fit in then you can measure it and get some shim steel that is thinner and try that.

Martin C

I'm picturing a flanged sleeve, an upside down top hat screwed up to the casting from below? But bored to better tolerance?

Anyway, be interesting to see how you resolve this, keep us updated.

Pete, a circular sleeve will not allow the casting to close down and lock the quill, it would need to be slotted so tight tolerance is not really required. Also the thickness required is going to very thin otherwise there would be no chance of the clamp doing what it is already doing and closing the casting down enough to cause some resistance to movement.

Martin C

Martin, i wasn't suggesting that, i was just trying to ascertain what Anthony had described, if it was mine, I'd persist with the factory method somehow, I'd definitely try a hex socket on a ratchet to get some force on it.

But as i don't have the machine in front of me to investigate, I'll just have to take Anthony's word that isn't working.

Please, look in the manual given by Michael.

There you see that bolt 84 squeezes the casting around the “bushing” 21 in order to lock it up (separate from the two small vertical screws) The spindle moves up and down through this bushing. The bushing itself has not slit for diameter adjustment But it has a slot to prevent rotation. This is what I read from the exploded view.

Unfortunately, as I have already said. it is not possible to tighten bolt 84 sufficiently to lock the quill. I might try the "G" clamp idea. I did consider something along the lines of the sketch below. The only place this would go is on top of the lower casting, under the gear box assembly. As it would need to be 12 to 15mm thick, it would restrict the already puny Z axis travel to about half its current 30mm. The final option would be to make the cotter/locking pin anyway and hope find a part of the casting where one could drill a 10mm hole without compromising any thing else. This would involve a total strip down of the head assembly, which I would only do in the event of a major fault. The bearings shouldn't fail as I fitted a captive draw bar very early in it's time with me.

I suppose I will just have to carry on holding the fine feed handle to prevent it moving, while winding the X or Y feed with the other hand.

I still think the best bet is to put some shim in between the quill and casting near bolt 84. Get a cheap set of feeler blades and try some of them to find out what thickness works best.

Martin C

I had a look at the vertical milling attachment to my Emco Compact 5 (and also for 8).

Clamping of the quill is exactly the same as described in this topic. In the manual for the Emco C5 it is explicitly said to use bolt nr 3 for clamping. The bolt nr 3 (equivalent to bolt 84 in this topic) is M6 and also through the casting with a nut in a hex hole at the other end.

And I have to admit: for my column it is also (very) difficult to clamp the quill with an allen key! Actually, I never used it. Instead until now I used the fine feed to set the quill at the required height. And as far as I experienced it stays at that height during milling.

But I learned something: clamping of the quill of my Emco Compact 5 needs also improvement!

Regards,

Jouke

I made a lever to clamp the quill that does away with the need for a hex key, see:

**LINK**

A nice solution Michael!

What about the hexagonal recess in the Zamak (Emco Compact 5)?

All solutions apply a higher torque to squeeze the casting. This might perhaps damage the hexagonal shape of the recess which contains in the Emco case a M6 nut.

I removed the bolt, oiled screw thread and contact plane behind bolt head with teflon chain oil and locking with the allen key became already much easier. It seems to be sufficient.

Now you've mentioned that, it might be worth Anthony trying a flanged head bolt with a thrust bearing instead of the cap head allen screw.

Thank you for all your suggestions gentlemen, I can now report success. I cut a length of 8mm threaded rod, which went all the way through the head casting. The bit sticking out on the left hand side would give me something to grab hold of if the rod sheared. On the right hand side I fitted a sleeve I made earlier, a washer and a standard 8mm nut.

I then used a BIG spanner on the nut and managed to lock the quill. No way I could have done it just using the allen key. I was quite surprised to find that it took less than 1/4 of a turn of the nut to go from fully locked to totally free. Thank you all once again.

That's good Anthony, glad you got it sussed, as a more permanent fix, how about a screw on plastic knob on an arm a bit shorter than the quill feed feed arm, you can give it a quick slap with the palm of your hand to tighten it up.

One of these **LINK**

Looking at the pictures I understand now that there is M8 thread in the full left half of the casting?

The two halves are pulled together by screwing the bolt a little bit further into this long thread. This may cause a lot of friction.

In case of the Emco Compact 5 there is a M6 nut with a short thread with perhaps less friction so that less torque is needed to lock the quill

Just had a thought, Anthony ... If you bored out the original M8 [probably 1.25mm pitch] thread, and made an insert, then you could use a fine thread; which exerts more force per turn, and provides finer adjustment.

MichaelG.