Acquiring And Refurbishing My "new" 1992 Mill Drill

[2volts]

Part One
About 5 weeks ago I was browsing on Gumtree (our Craigslist equivalent) when I saw an ad for a mill drill for $400.
The ad had only been posted within the last 5 minutes and I rang the bloke straight away, at first he didn't realise what I was calling about, he certainly wasn't expecting a response that quickly.
Anyway 45 minutes later I was at his place and this is what I saw.

It was mounted on a sturdy stand but in the back of his ute. I couldn't run it as we didn't have a 15A extension lead but it all looked OK and the price was good so we did the deal. But it got a bit more complicated when I started thinking about how to transport it home.
He offered to let me to drive his ute to my place with it but I knew it was standing far too high to back into my garage.
I agreed to call him the next morning with a plan to collect it.

He had mentioned it had been put onto his ute with a fork lift, so I called and asked if he still had access to the forklift. Yes he did. So the plan became drive both his vehicle and mine with my trailer to where the forklift was and transfer the machine from the ute to my trailer. Then he told me he couldn't drive at the moment and would have to get his son to come from work to do it.

So when I arrived at his house to go to the factory where the forklift was, the son couldn't leave work and wasn't coming. It was at this point that he mentioned the reason he couldn't drive his own vehicle was because he had lost his license for speeding. I had figured he must have had a medical reason, he didn't look like the speed demon type, but you just can't tell!

The plan then became put my trailer onto his ute, drive to his mates factory where the the forklift was, lift the machine from ute onto trailer, drive back to his house, transfer the loaded trailer back to my vehicle and then I'd be on my way.

Anyway, it all worked more or less OK. I didn't get upset when he speared the side of my trailer with one of the forklift arms, it only dented it a little bit! It was a very nervous drive home with a top heavy load in the trailer and hoping like heck I wouldn't need to do an emergency stop anywhere.

When I got home and backed the trailer up to the garage I realised there wasn't any height to spare at all!
About 50mm too high. Well if I let the trailer tyres down I'll get my clearance!



Millimetres to spare under the garage door!



Some rearranging of garage contents was needed to get under the 8" x 2" beam.


I got it off the trailer with a couple of chain blocks.



Very conscious of it being top heavy so I had a panic rope looped around the top of the machine in case it started to topple over !

The base plates on the legs had holes already drilled so I went and bought a set of wheels, which I fitted while the chain blocks were still rigged up.

Then I rolled it into the workshop and part one was done.

pete

 

[2volts]

It's an RF-30 machine, in reasonable condition. It had only ever been used to make cuts in aluminium door frames to fit door lock mechanisms.
There was aluminium swarf everywhere and it didn't look like it had ever been cleaned down so the first task was a big cleanup to see what was underneath the grime.

It cleaned up OK, then I started looking at all the moving parts.
The X & Y hand wheels and the vise handle were all very stiff to turn and it didn't seem like it had been lubricated much.
The motor belt was quite worn, and it had only ever been run on one speed, with one group of pulleys nice and shiny and the others unused.
I fitted a new belt.

The Z fine down feed worm shaft cover was broken; with nothing to hold the worm shaft in.
I made and fitted a replacement part.





The drawbar was 10mm metric at both ends so I needed to make a new drawbar with 1/2" x 12TPI BSW for the arbor.
Off to the metal suppliers for some rod and the tool shop for a 1/2'' BSW thread die.

I had to turn the rod diameter down a bit and got it threaded 1/2" BSW at one end, then turn the other end down some more to 10mm and thread that end 10mm.
At that point I could use it in the mill with 2 plain 10mm nuts jam locked at the spindle end.
Next task was to turn some 20mm round bar into 17mm hex bar, drill and tap it 10mm, thread it onto the draw bar and then I would have a new draw bar.

I wasted a few pieces of round bar until I got an acceptable piece of 17mm hex done. It needed some lateral thinking to hold it at the 60 degree angles, but it got done eventually.





I trimmed some excess length of the new 17mm and then the final piece of work was to get the 17mm lock nut welded onto the drawbar. I don't have a welder so I drove over to a nearby industrial suburb and and just looked for a general engineering shop.
I got lucky with the one I found, the gentleman welded it for no charge.



One of the hand wheels was missing its crank lever so I fitted the one off the head crank and then turned up a new lever for the head crank.



So now it's all done and ready for more action.



I learnt quite a bit doing all this and of course accumulated more tooling in the process as somewhere amongst all of that I decided a 3MT-ER32 adaptor and ER32 collet set was required for "completeness".


pete

 

[RJSakowski]

It looks like a great catch. I take it the vise came with it?

A nice story as well. Enjoy the new toy.

Bob

 

[brino]

Pete,

Congrats on the "new" tool. It looks like you got a great deal.

I always cringe when I see loads like that. It really should have been taken off the table to move it.
Anyway I'm glad you got home safe.

-brino

 

[2volts]

The vise was included. Not a name brand but it seems well made.
I agree taking the machine off the table would have been best, but transporting the machine as-is was a carefully considered decision.
Plenty tie downs were used. No animals or children harmed.

pete

 

[turnitupper]

Hi Pete,
I bought an X2 mini mill off Gumtree a while back for almost $700 which is not 1/4 of the mill you scored. May i say (using the vernacular of this forum) YOU SUCK!!! . Honestly, a very good deal as in this part of the world, machinery at a reasonable cost is thin on the ground. Nice work on the repairs.
John.

 

[2volts]

you are right John, it's generally slim pickings over here on the west coast of Oz.
Every now and again it falls into place though.

pete

 

[BillWood]

Well done.

Have just got mine bolted to the floor and tomorrow will be checking tramming and first cuts.

Do you already have some experience using a mill ?

Bill

 

[2volts]

Bill my milling experience is pretty much what I described above.

 

[hman]

Congratulations on a very nice deal, as well as on your "shoe horn" job getting it into the garage!!! I bought a used RF-30 clone (Grizzly G1007) a couple of years ago. Having to re-zero after moving the head is a bit of bother, but it's a pretty rigid and capable mill.