Tom Senior

Hi, 30 years after moving the Senior Mill into the workshop it now has to move into a new one. I am having trouble. With the years passing the need to minimise the weight of lifts has increased. I have got the motor and the the vertical head off. I have got the table off and I do remember how to take the knee and column off. However I cannot remember how I managed to detach the cross slide from the flexible shaft to the column mounted gearbox. The slide with its feedscrew removed slides back and forth but stops just short of pulling off. It is retained by the keyed sliding part of the feed drive not coming out of its socketed shaft from the gearbox. All the visible pins in the construction are immovable even after having been heated. There is only so hard I am will to hit these pins with a pin drift and they have been all tried that hard. Why won't the keyed shaft pull right out of its socket? I do have the original manual and have studied the cut away drawings and parts list. What am I not seeing, where am I being an idiot?

Hi, writing the above was a good idea, after tea I popped across to the workshop and I remembered. Just like the knee, you have to take off the cross slide gib strip. Then it is easy, out pops the table drive shaft as you lift the slide to clear the cross slide nut sitting in its pocket within the knee. Job done - once tea fuelled the old grey cells work eventually! Thanks to anybody who was considering a reply.

Glad you remembered, I have only got experience of the light vertical which lacks the power feed. You will find that the main column is the heaviest part. The base is a weldment and much lighter than it looks.

Good luck with the move.