After my little "incident" a while ago getting the table on my #12 stuck, I've been putting the mill to more use on a project I have starting up in the shop, and an issue that was an occasional minor annoyance is going to become more of a problem. When the crossfeed is engaged during a cut, the feed lever periodically slips its detent and pops the table out of gear. It seems to happen more with heavier cuts (this job calls for taking .125" deep cuts with a horizontal setup using a 2" diameter helical cutter to face the top of a workpiece that's about 1.5" wide). I have the speeds and feeds worked out so that the machine is pretty happy with the cutting, except for the feed disconnecting. Looking at the parts diagram, it seems that the feed lever is basically sliding part 12-567 to the left or right to engage the gears to power the table feed. I'm wondering if anybody has seen this issue before and might have some pointers on where to look to fix it. Is there an adjustment for tension on the detent ball/spring assembly(parts 5286, T-97, 12-503, 12-501, etc)? I'll admit that I haven't had the table off of the machine to check the condition of all of the feed gears because pulling the table would be a chore I'd prefer to avoid if possible. I'm a one-man shop and space for an engine hoist to support the table is a bit tight.
I'm going to have about a hundred of these pieces to cut, and standing there holding the feed lever (and having it jump out of gear sometimes even with me holding it) for 9 minutes per cut is going to get old really fast.
Any help is greatly appreciated!
I'm going to have about a hundred of these pieces to cut, and standing there holding the feed lever (and having it jump out of gear sometimes even with me holding it) for 9 minutes per cut is going to get old really fast.
Any help is greatly appreciated!