6" MS Bar for Z axis extension

Evening,

The time has come to make a riser for the Z axis on my Warco VMC - Does anyone know of a good place to source a 6" length of 6" diameter mild steel bar cos I don't want to have to get a massive piece that I won't ever use again. I've used the search for various terms and found nothing

Cheers

Most commercial steel stockholders will sell you a 6" length. At 6" diameter many commercial users may not want a standard 10 foot length, or have the means to handle and cut it.

Just got an online quote from Parkersteel. A standard 10ft length of 6" diameter EN1A is £673 and weighs just over half a ton. A 150mm cut to length slice is £44.29p, both plus VAT. The standard length is on 11 days whereas the 150mm length is ex-stock. So they obviously have part length bars in stock.

Andrew

May also be worth enquireing about thick wall tube

A couple of years ago I made a riser for a friend's VMC out of 6082T6 aluminium. It can just be seen in the following photos. Aluminium was chosen after good results from making a number of raising blocks for CenteC mills.

I bought mine from M-machine in Darlington....was about £72 delivered iirc....

Bear in mind that that, unless you want to greatly extend the mounting studs, you will need to machine access ports in the side to accept and tighten the retaining nuts. This job is simplified by using two lengths of 6" bar that are bolted together after machining the ports in one of them. This does, of course, mean two cuts.

Hi Dave

I made my 4" raising block for the VMC in cast iron purchased from M-Machine. A bit more expensive, but machines nicely.

Mine was made in 2 parts as Gary has suggested, and was written up for MEW, starting in issue 215. I understand that the position of the hold-down studs can vary, presumably depending on age and sourcing by Warco, so it might be worth checking your machine before you make the raising block.

One little problem I have experienced when testing the Z-range is that it is possible to disengage the Z-axis leadscrew. Had great fun re-engaging it and will not repeat the exercise.

There is a downloadable drawing on the yahoo groups 626 forum.

That is what I based my riser on, however do check the dimensions of your machine as others have said....

My machine came from Chester machine tools and the spigot diameter and top recess dimensions were different ot those on the drawing....I machined the slots for the securing fasteners without any issue, looks good to me...

Thought I had posted some pictures, looks like I was mistaken.....

£45 delivered from Jenkins Steel. That's actually 150mm - don't know how accurate the "six inch" dimension needs to be.

Murray

Ah, I forgot about them....very competitive for us hobby consumers....and they are not far from me ( well when I move oop north...)

As for the 6" dia, that depends on the dia of the body castings...I think I managed to reduce the o/d by the least amount....

6" was to include a skim - 150mm finished is what I need

Jenkins has sorted me out - many thanks, I went for the next diameter up as it's not bright finish though

Thanks to all

John Mills ( aka Doubleboost ) on YouTube briefly mentions his riser in the video "Trouble at Mill" **LINK**

If you are easily offended, start watching around the 2 minute mark - the video was made during his early, "sweary" period. Nothing really bad, though.

He mentions the Z-axis screw too. He made a new, longer one and bronze nut to go with it in his video "Well Screwed Part 1" et seq - see what I mean? **LINK**

Worth a look, maybe.

John

I'm a great fan of John's video's and I have seen that one I hate to tell you this but I swear a LOT more than that!

Dave

Probably worth calling in to pick stuff up from them if you can. I sort of reverse engineered their pricing and it seems that the cost of the shipping element is £16.80, plus ~£1.30-1.45/kg for the steel, prices including VAT. But it seemed the best I could find.

I bought a 250mm length of 130mm dia steel from them recently, along with some other large-ish bits and a man in a van delivered them. Quite a weight to lug about!

Murray