8x30 Milling Machine Restoration

Nick,
Thanks for the thoughts of my father. This site is welcome distraction right now!

Not sure where to start, so in no particular order, here is my mill today.
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Some of the changes I made, some of which are mentioned above. First is the added oil lines to the lead and elevation screws (you can see the oil scrape marks I put back on. Yes I know that isn't the right way, but it way better than none). I just drilled thru the screw to get to the elevation gears/screw. Yours would need metering valves added if you did the same.
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My machine did not have way wipers for the knee, so I drilled and tapped these holes for future wipers, then made and installed them with as much felt as possible.

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Machine did have a front way wiper cover (no felt underneath of it), but did not have a rear way wiper cover. I had to remill the front one to allow for the felt, and made this rear wiper cover.

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My motor mount pivot holes were bad, but not as bad as yours. This is how the mount drooped when I got it with all of the slop in it, and the pivot holes after the bushings were installed.

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More to follow,
Ted
 
part 2....

My machine now has 110 volt light, readout, and power feed, but there was never a place to plug everything in. I added this box to the back and split the incoming 220 to the 110 inside.
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My original table, knee and cross locks were crap, and did not have any brass tips where they pushed on the gibs. You see the nice adjustable handles in the DRO photos.

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And speaking of the DRO, this is how mine mounts, with plenty of room for the new adjustable handles. Not a great scale like one I would have bought, but I rarely use it so works for me. I did pop in 37 holes on ~3" bolt circle once for an indexer, so was VERY glad I had one.

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PO never mounted the read out, I guess it set it somewhere? This is how I mounted the read out. Welded bracket with plastic bushings on machine, bent bracket on read out, plastic bushing at read out, the tube has large 45s on the read out end with welded caps at both ends. Slide to position easily and stays there.

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When I finally put my machine back together and started to use it, the first thing I found out is none of my new collets and end mill holders would fit inside the spindle (machine came with 1 collet installed). Thought it was the set screw so adjusted that, but turned out the bore at top of the spindle was too small by .0015, and PO had reduced the end of the collet to allow for it (maybe even his whole set). I asked my Dad (another former tool and die maker) for advise, and he suggested making a sort of lap with crocus paper wrapped around the end. I did not have much hope, but had nothing to lose, so made this, hooked it to my drill and went at it. Wore out 4 strips of crocus, but took less than an hour to have every last collet and end mill holder fit as they should. ALWAYS listen to your elders!

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another interesting thing I discovered when I bought a hold down kit was the T nuts would not fit the table. Required tee nuts 9/16 x 7/8 x 11/32 heads can be had easily on web, but my table needed the 11/32 heads slightly thinner (.330 max), some of the 9/16 width reduced (my slots are more like .560 and slightly tapered with .559 at bottom), and if the 7/8 was not exactly centered to the 9/16, then I had to reduce the 7/8 a bit. This is what I had at the time. At time I did not have a surface grinder (mill was first purchase), so had to mill them as best I could with carbide end mill (you can the shinny surfaces). Funny, but since I now have dozens more (I mostly use the 3/8 thread stuff today, not the 1/2 in the photo) I just dusted all of the ones I now have the other day on my current surface grinder (way easier).
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slide and pulley block to follow...
 
part 3 ....
This is how I made changing the speeds quick and easy. Original design has the intermediate pulley block bolted fast, so needed to loosen the motor adjuster, then the 2 bolts, move the belts, then tighten the motor adjuster and then the 2 bolts. First improvement I made was to mill the intermediate pulley block slot widths to slight slip fit with oil/bronze bushings, then cleaned up the top surfaces so they were same thickness each side and length. I stated in previous post they were headed bushings, but forgot that didn't work so I took the heads off and just used thick washers I filed flat. The intermediate pulley block now just slides back and forth with light hand pressure, never have had need to touch those bolts again. Belt changes less than a minute (with most of that looking at the belt speed chart figuring where I need to put the belts).

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Also raised the motor pulley up to match the top spindle/intermediate block pulley heights. This allows for more usable speed range than the machine came with. Motor pulley used to come loose every so often (single set screw on top of the key) even when thread locker was used, so I added 2 other tapped holes and now have 3 set screws equally spaced around the diameter (matching flats filled to motor shaft). They have not come loose since I did that.

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How much more usable you ask. First is what I started with, and 2nd is where I am today. I gained aprox new 350, 600, 700, 800 & 1000, but lost the max 3440 that I would never use anyway. The red speeds are when you take a single long belt direct from motor to the spindle and bypass the middle pulley. I was going to make a new motor pulley with 4 grooves for even more spreed ranges, but this is working well for me so may never do that.

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and finally my future head riser with slide adjustment. This will be 5" thick, and made from 3 main blocks. Bottom and top will be round to match the mill, but will have dovetails cut into them. A fixed long block with matching dovetails will slide in/out between each upper/lower block. Does not to be super tight precision on the dovetails; I will simply lock the long slider with screws with brass tips pushing against it. As I purchased the steel, this will provide some 14" front/back adjustment. I am not really interested in a nod feature, as my machine is .0015 out on a 8" diameter circle front/back, and better side/side. Plus once shimmed you can easily mark it and you are done (and I now have the surface grinder for things that need to be perfect). This was a simple mock-up I made from wood to double check what I drew on the computer. The final slider block will be longer (only limited by motor mount and rear of spindle casting), but same principal. First photo would be basically as machine is today, 2nd would be head out past table, and 3rd would head back behind table.

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The little steel block above sitting on the prototype was just used to stop the part from tipping over during the photos. It is actually one of a set of 4 (exactly 1, 2, 3 and 4" long) that I made years ago for Bridgeports and fits this machine - I use them to lock the spindle down when milling so quill can't move.

Last is the progress to date on the slide - supplies delivered. I found a deal on ebay one time and bought the 8" dia 4140 blocks thicker than I needed for $80 each delivered. Funny but they came USPS in a priority mail box at about 76 lbs ea for $15 shipping - just barely fit in there (my mailman was glad I was home that day to unload them from the truck). The 8" dia blocks need to be cut about 1.5" (or faced) to length. They did not originally fit into my 4x6 cut off saw, so would have had to face them off. I have since modified that saw so they will fit between the guides (barely) today by adding a new location for the fixed jaw. Will still be limited to 5" height of saw casting restriction, but can cut them from both sides in the saw so won't have to face them off for hours and will have some usable scrap peices.
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Need to make an indexable dovetail cutter (best) and worst case I buy one from Shars. Going to be many hours into this one....

Ted

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Nick,
I forgot to ask how did you get the spindle out? My spindle makes noise and I need to get some new bearings in there.

Ted
 
Nick,
I forgot to ask how did you get the spindle out? My spindle makes noise and I need to get some new bearings in there.

Ted

Ted,

Very complete write up and thanks. I'm going to work my way backwards through them with some more comments but for starters here's the spindle removal information.

All of the items shown in the red rectangles will need to come off to drop the spindle out. Essentially the pinion train on the quill as the rack teeth on the spindle body don't go all the way to the top, and the return spring needs to be released. The actual pinion gear shaft comes out the right side but in order to free it up you'll need to remove the fine feed engagement components on the left side of the head. The fine feed handle assembly can stay in place I believe. You'll need to remove the depth stop screw to get access to the screws that hold the block (#121) onto the spindle. Perhaps take that piece off last so you have something to keep the spindle from dropping out while futzing with the pinion assembly.
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I made a simple pin wrench tool to crack the spindle nose cap open. I'm not sure what method yours will be, but that seems like a common way the caps are secured. I didn't have any bearing drivers that worked for reassembly so I turned up a set to include one for the head.

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As I was putting my head assembly back together I was a little puzzled as to why the spindle lock hangs out so far in front of the head? Looking at pictures on grizzly's site the current model is still done this way. I took a stab at guessing this isn't actually necessary for any reason (I hope :oops:) and shortened mine up before final reassembly. The actuation was dialed in so that the spindle lock is fully loose at 12:00 and fully tightened by 7:00. The spreader spring had to be replaced in doing this but it seems like it works just fine.

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I went ahead and drilled and tapped the head assembly and the spindle stop block for the future quill DRO while everything was disassembled.

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This is as far as the spindle quill DRO install has gotten thus far. I got the idea for this from Dman1114 on this forum and his thread on installing a DRO on his Grizzly mill just like ours.

https://www.hobby-machinist.com/threads/dro-install-grizzly-g1008-knee-mill.40480/

The laser cut steel brackets have yet to be drilled for the reader scale to be mounted on and I believe I'll need to make a secondary block as well to get the heights just right. Mine however is just the Shars caliper style quill DRO and not the remote display style as Dman1114 has. The spindle lock handle swings in nicely behind the lower bracket.

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And just because we're on the spindle/ head subject here's a look at the head assembly components....
 
Ted,

One more thing about that spindle...

Before you remove the nose cap take note if there is any gap between the cap and spindle body. I didn't on mine because I didn't even think to look. On reassembly the cap sat quite away further from the spindle body than I would have thought (around .05 if I recall right). Since the bottom portion of the threaded cap is pressing against the spindle bearings themselves I figured perhaps the bearings weren't actually fully seated all the way down in the spindle. I disassembled the spindle to measure up the component stacks and sure enough a gap was inevitable. The edge of the cap that contacts the bearings was faced down so that it was bottomed out about the time the gap closed up. Had I known ahead of time the gap wouldn't have raised the alarm that the bearings might not be seated, but I'm happy I did it anyway.

Nick
 
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Ted,

Yes I can see where that pulley block would be a problem. Glad you've got it right in the sweet spot now. Our mill design diverge here a little as mine has a pulley mounted on a swing arm. I'm hoping that the factory got the parallelism close on this to the spindle pulley as I'm not sure how I would correct it if it's off. I'd probably have to shim the pulley sub plate to align it.

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Your mill had a little wider speed range, at least initially, then mine does. It seems that the speeds I have match what the current Griz model does, but I'm going to check it with the tach once its up and running. I like the idea of gaining the extra speed options going with a single belt. One of the other items I made for the machine is a whole new belt cover which I did for a few reasons. First is that the original case aluminum belt cover is big and weighs 20 pounds without all the fairing compound on it. My machine came with the cover broken off the hinges as you can see in the above picture they are damaged. There was some deep cracks and chips to the compound on the cover so I decided to blast it all off and redo it. The compound was thick! The center of the casting looked like a ski jump that the factory tried to even out with the compound about 3/16" thick across parts of the top. With the casting blasted down to bare metal I only started to re-skim it before giving up on that idea in favor of making a new one.

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Here's a look at the cover blasted down to the bare casting.

Second in addition to the weight of the cover I liked the idea of being able to have quick access to the draw bar like on many other styles of mills. Often I find myself changing tools without always needing to change speeds. Third is that I'm thinking at some point I want to add either a spindle lock or spindle brake and needed some way to mount that. And as if those all weren't good enough reasons the new motor mount I made pushed the motor back far enough that it bumps the old cover, so it looks like I was sold on the idea.

Here's what I came up with for that.

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The new cover is all welded 3/16" steel. Not lighter than the original aluminum one but only the access door needs to be opened to change the belts. The height is much lower than the stock cover and the top of the spindle pulley isn't too far below the opening which provides easy access to the draw bar. At some point if I decide to make a spindle brake/ lock I've also got a good solid structure to mount it too, and would likely locate it on top of the cover. The cover will be mounted down to the pulley sub plate casting to keep it secure.

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Side access door flips open.

Now admittedly I made a gaffe in the design of this cover. It sits too low to actually remove a belt off the top of the pulley without having to take the bolts out and lifting the cover up. (Whoops) Belt changes will still work fine but in the rare occasions that a belt needs to be replaced the whole cover comes off. With you mentioning running single belt I see that I'm probably not going to be able to do that.

You're ram riser assembly looks like an awesome project. I suppose if you wanted to ovoid the dovetail cutter you could make a fixture to hold the part at your given angle to mill the bevels with a straight end mill. However making the cutter also sounds like a fun project.

The little steel block above sitting on the prototype was just used to stop the part from tipping over during the photos. It is actually one of a set of 4 (exactly 1, 2, 3 and 4" long) that I made years ago for Bridgeports and fits this machine - I use them to lock the spindle down when milling so quill can't move.

Could you please explain how these work? Do they sit around the limit screw on the head?

Nick
 
Nick,
thanks for the spindle write up. I definitely have to look into that.

I like how you do the quote thing. It took me awhile, but I think I finally figured that quote thing out, so here goes.

I made a simple pin wrench tool to crack the spindle nose cap open. I'm not sure what method yours will be, but that seems like a common way the caps are secured. I didn't have any bearing drivers that worked for reassembly so I turned up a set to include one for the head.

MY lower cap does have holes for a pin wrench. like you I just drilled holes into end of a long bar. I had to take that end cap off to get to the collet set screw.

Yes I can see where that pulley block would be a problem. Glad you've got it right in the sweet spot now. Our mill design diverge here a little as mine has a pulley mounted on a swing arm. I'm hoping that the factory got the parallelism close on this to the spindle pulley as I'm not sure how I would correct it if it's off. I'd probably have to shim the pulley sub plate to align it.

If you run into problems you could always just make a base like mine, it can't ever tilt that way. I have that same pivoting setup on my 2 drill presses. One of them never worked right, so I did add a plate and 2 holes like I did for the mill. Works great there as well.

Now admittedly I made a gaffe in the design of this cover. It sits too low to actually remove a belt off the top of the pulley without having to take the bolts out and lifting the cover up. (Whoops) Belt changes will still work fine but in the rare occasions that a belt needs to be replaced the whole cover comes off. With you mentioning running single belt I see that I'm probably not going to be able to do that.

I find that I often just change the collet without changing speeds, so you would be good for those changes. When I do change speeds, it seems like every time I have to take at least one belt off to change the one on top. Same thing on the drill presses, always taking one belt off. I find that I need plenty of space for my hands to take the belt off. Could you just make a riser and weld that onto base of your new cover?

By the way, your welds are MUCH nicer than mine! Wish I could do that as nice.

At some point if I decide to make a spindle brake/ lock I've also got a good solid structure to mount it too, and would likely locate it on top of the cover.

I thought I was going to want a brake/lock as well after all the time on Bridgeports with them. Never had a need for a lock on this mill - it is very easy just to hold the spindle pulley with one hand while loosening / tightening the drawbar. Occasionally I do miss the brake, but it is rare. Somewhere I have a design squirreled away where a guy put a pad underneath the spindle pulley with a side mounted lever. It looked slick and is also on m,y someday list of things to do.

And speaking of future things to do, I have only rarely ever wanted a quill DRO in my 30 + machine years (either on mill or lathe tailstock). I have lots of images I have saved of how others did their DRO brackets for the quill, but yours look very nice. Interested to see how that finishes up.

Few times it happened that I needed real depth control with the quill I just rigged an indicator. Mostly when I need an exact depth on the mill I lock the quill and use the knee screw. My mill actually came with a really bad home made quill indicator holder, one that limited the quill travel to less than 1". First thing I threw away.

I suppose if you wanted to avoid the dovetail cutter you could make a fixture to hold the part at your given angle to mill the bevels with a straight end mill.

I have a 3 way tilting 5" vise, so using the bottom of a cutter was the plan for the dovetails on the side of the sliding plate. The dovetails on the bottom and top blocks I would use the home made or bought cutter.

The little steel block above sitting on the prototype was just used to stop the part from tipping over during the photos. It is actually one of a set of 4 (exactly 1, 2, 3 and 4" long) that I made years ago for Bridgeports and fits this machine - I use them to lock the spindle down when milling so quill can't move.

Could you please explain how these work? Do they sit around the limit screw on the head?

I lower the quill to where I want it, then put the blocks on top of the quill travel blocks, raise the quill back up trapping the blocks, then lightly tightened to stop against bottom of the quill travel block. Maybe these photos will explain it better than I can with words. Here is the 2" block installed
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Here is the 2 and 1" blocks installed
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Blocks are simply 1.5 dia cold rolled steel with a .530 wide slot milled thru them.PB020169R.jpgPB020170R.jpg

When using end mills I almost exclusively use end mill holders over collets. The end mill set screw chamfer is down against the side of the set screw as well when tightened. I have seen way too many things ruined over the years due to end mill slippage within collets or quill slippage when it isn't rigidly locked (folks think the quill lock will hold it in place) that I just avoid that possibility whenever I can. Even with the end mill holders I also lock the quill with the stop blocks. I always use the knee screw for final sizing. Only time I use a collet with an end mill is when I am trying to maintain an exact diameter or not cutting accurately on the bottom.

To hold size on a part with the Bridgeports (and works well in my 8 x 30) I always locked the quill at top to start, and I usually started with 1" parallels under part in the vise. All of my milling parallels are exactly on fractional inch size, and in .125 increments. Once you got the size you were looking for on the part, I set the dial on the knee to that actual number i just measured. After that you can mill blocks all day long and know exactly where you are by the knee dial without using micrometers every 2 minutes. Reason for the exact 1, 2, 3 and 4" stop blocks was so I did not have to reset the knee dial when I needed more quill travel - I was still accurate with the knee dial when the quill moved down 2 inches. Saved many hours every week with that method. Still needed mics, but not every 2 minutes.

I use indexable cutters as much as possible to keep my end mill costs down. My favorite ones are the 1" negative rake series (like the Valenite mini-mill 45° chamfer one in photo above). The negative ones always want to push back up into the quill (which can only make the part bigger than intended if that happens), so I will use these with collets. When I use the positive indexable cutters they want to pull down so they always go into the end mill holders. My big flycutter for finishing cuts bolts on an arbor so that can't pull down either. I am probably overly anal about that, but then again I have rarely wrecked a block due to being too small.

Ted
 
Ted,

If you run into problems you could always just make a base like mine, it can't ever tilt that way. I have that same pivoting setup on my 2 drill presses. One of them never worked right, so I did add a plate and 2 holes like I did for the mill. Works great there as well.

As you can see I keep all options open lol. That might be the case too, and another option I'll consider if its the one out of the three that can't be aligned.

I find that I often just change the collet without changing speeds, so you would be good for those changes. When I do change speeds, it seems like every time I have to take at least one belt off to change the one on top. Same thing on the drill presses, always taking one belt off. I find that I need plenty of space for my hands to take the belt off. Could you just make a riser and weld that onto base of your new cover?

By the way, your welds are MUCH nicer than mine! Wish I could do that as nice.

It looks like I'll still be able to get one belt above the other or vice versa by swapping ends off the top of the center pulley out the access door. Your riser idea might happen if things are still a no go. When I make it out to the garage today I'll double check that. You know what they say about not succeeding the first time...

I would have preferred to mig weld this cover as I'm a little better doing that but it didn't work out to use the welding shop at work. I ended up stick welding it at home because thats what I've got. It turned out not looking too bad after it was all dressed up.

And speaking of future things to do, I have only rarely ever wanted a quill DRO in my 30 + machine years (either on mill or lathe tailstock). I have lots of images I have saved of how others did their DRO brackets for the quill, but yours look very nice. Interested to see how that finishes up.

I didn't do the quill DRO thinking I really needed it. I was at the moment with all the parts for the mill head disassembled and thought to myself that now is the time to put the threaded holes in them if I wanted to do so. This portion of the build isn't a huge priority but will just be a nice option to have. I had all the parts for the belt cover I made laser cut and figured I'd toss a few brackets in on the order while I was at it for the quill DRO.

I have a 3 way tilting 5" vise, so using the bottom of a cutter was the plan for the dovetails on the side of the sliding plate. The dovetails on the bottom and top blocks I would use the home made or bought cutter.

Right! I was overly focused on the slide and not on the blocks. How will you gain access to the bolts on the head assemble to rotate it? Are you planning on pocketing out the sides of the blocks for those?

I really like your quill travel block set you made. That's not something I've come across yet and see how its a very simple effective solution to the problem. I'm going to borrow that one from you at some point.

Nick
 
Nice job on your mill, I have the enco copy hopefully ill get it restored to use . It had been used only for drilling before I got it . They said the motor was shot ,, only needed a new capacitor ,, $12.00 USA not China $4.00. I didn't like the small cranks so I ordered 6" cast iron chromed to replace those. If I'm able I do plan on stripping and repaint and bearings also. Dro cheap set to start never had a machine with cheaters on it. Hopping and praying these back problems heal up or go away. Thank you God
 
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