Rong-Fu Round Column Mill Refurb/Repaint

[SwedeWorkspace]

I recently picked up a Rong-Fu (RF-30?, very similar to the Grizzly G1006 or HF equivalent) round column mill. It was in pretty decent shape mechanically, but in need of a good cleaning and paint job. Since I'm hoping to refurb a full size knee mill someday I thought this would be a good starter project.

I owned a newer round column mill few years back and while it does have some annoying qualities, most notably losing Z location when moving the head up/down, it does have the advantage of being light enough to drag down into a basement. And I figured a light-duty mill is better than no mill at all.

On to the build:
First, I took everything apart and cleaned it as best I could. Then I stripped all the paint off using an 4.5" angle grinder with an abrasive wheel. I taped everything off with blue painters tape then primer and painted the castings using Rustoleum Red Primer 7569 and Rustoleum High Performance Enamel Dark Machine Gray 7587.


















More to come...

 

[stupoty]

Looks like it should be nice and shinny when you done with it

I think its a rf25 , ive got the same style rf mill. For any issues that the smaller round coloumn mills have i would say it has been very useful for me and also done better than other smaller tools.

And as you say its nearly portable ;-)

Stuart

 

[Canuck75]

Chips

If you ever take that motor switch apart I would really like to see how it is wired and what the make and model of the switch is. How many contact points are there? Pictures as well?. From the look of it it is wired for FWD/REV. Is that 110V I see on the motor box and not 220V.


Thanks
Canuck75

 

[brasssmanget]

Chips

If you ever take that motor switch apart I would really like to see how it is wired and what the make and model of the switch is. How many contact points are there? Pictures as well?. From the look of it it is wired for FWD/REV. Is that 110V I see on the motor box and not 220V.


Thanks
Canuck75

For what it's worth my RF31 is wired forward and reverse, it is 110v, and it's starting to act up and not make contact without some jiggling/tapping on the handle. I may soon be opening that up to have a look see. If I do i will post pics in a separate thread..

 

[yendor]

Gunrunner you need to order a set of these for the Z axis hand crank. Bill did you just spit coffee on your monitor? :rofl:

View attachment 253356

 

[furpo]

The Rust-oleum High Performance Enamel seems to be a decent paint.
I did a Logan 820 with it last fall and was pleased with it!

 

[sdunt]

Mine doesn't have a Forward/Reverse Switch but I'd love to add one. So I'll be looking forward to seeing any details you can post as well.

RE: Forward - Reverse. I was in a panic when the Mill I bought turned out to be 3 phase. Knew that going in, the price was TOO good... But..

I put a VFD - Motor driver on it, which converts my house hold 220v 'split' phase to 3 phase, gets me near infinite variable speed, forward - reverse, soft start up and dynamic braking. It can stop and lock the spindle rotation in one second....

I write up the process, since the manuals are NOT real clear.. http://monarch14.blogspot.com/2014/03/3-phase-power-in-home-shop.html

I enjoy the features of the VFD so much, I am planning to convert my big metal lathe to a 3 phase motor as well so I can get variable speed, soft start, etc, on it as well. These are really cool devices.. It might be worth a look.