- Joined
- Feb 8, 2015
- Messages
- 107
I moved last year to Washington state from Santa Monica and brought my machine tools. The lathe, bandsaw and other stuff arrived fine but my RF45 clone from Precision Mathews was delivered in a terrible state.
Here is a pic of what it was before the move:
It was converted to bt30 with a pneumatic drawbar, belt drive with 7800 rpm spindle and 4" extension on the head with a full 12" of travel on the Y axis with DMM servos. If anyone wants, here is the original build:
http://www.hobby-machinist.com/thre...-bt30-spindle-power-draw-bar-enclosure.33468/
The shipper apparently dropped it from the truck! Here are some pics of how it arrived to my new house:
Long story short, 2 doa ballscrews, 2 bashed servos, broken mounts, pulleys etc and a lot of work undone.
Got small amount of money from the Rigger company but not close to what I have into it.
The machine sat for 6 months but I have decided to rebuild it and make it better than before. After taking it apart, I lucked out- no broken castings at least.
Stripped:
Bin o parts:
For 2.0 build, I filled the base and lower column + inside sides for the column with epoxy granite. This should add much needed increase in mass and stiffness to the machine. Second, going to make a minor upgrade on the roton ballsnuts from single to heavy duty double. From the prior build, I had little backlash and this should only make things even better. I had to replace the x axis ballscrew and am going to try to use the y and z ballscrews with new ball nuts.
Pics so far:
The epoxy granite was sand, decomposed granite and pea gravel with epoxy. I didn't try to be as fancy as my giant epoxy granite build mix but it setup nice and added over a 100 lbs of mass.
Finish is Alumahyde from Brownells. It is impervious to chemicals once cured and abrasion resistant. I think it is aluminum oxide and epoxy + pigment. Anyway, I have used it before and it is really tough stuff.
Ballscrew, new servos and upgraded ballnuts should arrive this week.
More to follow. Thanks for looking...
Here is a pic of what it was before the move:
It was converted to bt30 with a pneumatic drawbar, belt drive with 7800 rpm spindle and 4" extension on the head with a full 12" of travel on the Y axis with DMM servos. If anyone wants, here is the original build:
http://www.hobby-machinist.com/thre...-bt30-spindle-power-draw-bar-enclosure.33468/
The shipper apparently dropped it from the truck! Here are some pics of how it arrived to my new house:
Long story short, 2 doa ballscrews, 2 bashed servos, broken mounts, pulleys etc and a lot of work undone.
Got small amount of money from the Rigger company but not close to what I have into it.
The machine sat for 6 months but I have decided to rebuild it and make it better than before. After taking it apart, I lucked out- no broken castings at least.
Stripped:
Bin o parts:
For 2.0 build, I filled the base and lower column + inside sides for the column with epoxy granite. This should add much needed increase in mass and stiffness to the machine. Second, going to make a minor upgrade on the roton ballsnuts from single to heavy duty double. From the prior build, I had little backlash and this should only make things even better. I had to replace the x axis ballscrew and am going to try to use the y and z ballscrews with new ball nuts.
Pics so far:
The epoxy granite was sand, decomposed granite and pea gravel with epoxy. I didn't try to be as fancy as my giant epoxy granite build mix but it setup nice and added over a 100 lbs of mass.
Finish is Alumahyde from Brownells. It is impervious to chemicals once cured and abrasion resistant. I think it is aluminum oxide and epoxy + pigment. Anyway, I have used it before and it is really tough stuff.
Ballscrew, new servos and upgraded ballnuts should arrive this week.
More to follow. Thanks for looking...
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