MadModder

Hi Folks,

Something for everyone this week! milling, turning, Kitchenaid foodmixer rebuild, and a day of antique repairs I start to sort out some of the stuff "downstairs" and start on my Dads old photographic equipment. There a lot going on and its all in here!

Phil, spring has gone cold again in East Yorkshire

 

That looks amazing.

Eric

A kind soul on another forum gave me some possible ways to mount the bed to the brackets, including a couple of links.  It definitely pointed me in the right direction. 

That led me to a trail of bread crumbs, which told me that I needed to measure the slot width - it's 8mm.  Searching for an 8mm t-slot nut with an M5 thread led me to the fact that 8mm is the width of the slot on a 3030 extrusion.  Searching for 3030 T-slot nuts led me to this, https://www.ebay.com/itm/157340497226.  Which allowed me to verify that these T-nuts had mostly the same dimensions as the ones that came with the clamps, the T-nuts in the link are M5 - the ones from the clamps are M6.  (I've got enough issues with M5 screws, M6 would be worse.)  One "Buy it now" transaction later and VIOLA, I have a plethora of T-nuts on the way.  Although mounting the bed to the brackets, and the X-axis lead-nut to the bed, will take a healthy bite out of that plethora - I should have enough left over to allow me to clamp objects to the bed for years to come.

I also got my M5 grease zerks today, more stuff that can come off the ToDo list.

So yesterday I managed to get at a pair of hydraulic fittings that would allow me to release any trapped pressure locking up the turret - the only problem being that they are 'bulkhead fittings' and trying to undo them they just rotate in the bulkhead and I can't get my arms round the intervening metal work (one side is in the lower part of the control cabinet and the other is in that lathe enclosure.

Then I had a brain wave (or so I thought) the control valve in question is a 'Ceetop' variety mounted in the same lower control cabinet on a manifold plate as they are. If I slacken the four mounting screws a bit with the power off so no pump running, the valve will no longer seal to the mount and any pressure will be released - have a picture of the valve in question:

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So I slackened the mounting screws and tried levering the turret spindle as per my experiment on the spare one on the floor. Absolutely solid - no movement what so ever - very odd. So I thought OK re-tighten the valve back to it's sealing mount and try driving the solenoids electically.

At this point there was a nasty squelching sound and oil pouring in vast quantities into the cabinet and on to the floor 

I suppose that the valve is not seated properly - I'll investigate when I've cleared the mess up

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Quick power off and large numbers of workshop rags applied to the flood. Luckily I recently bought a bail of washed rags. I've left it to soak up for the moment.

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As you can see, the base of the cabinet is going to be fun clearing up!

No Steve I've no intentions of using that turret - I only got it with a load of spares I bought from a chap in Ireland. It has proved useful as a diagnostic aid though.

When I packed in a couple of weeks ago, the turret disk was stuck mid motion - now it has relaxed into the rearmost (locked) position (presumeable under pressure from that spring), and hydraulically I cannot drive it forward into the fully unlocked position (I'm referring to the front curvic / hirth coupling which is not the one in the pictures above) so I am more convinced that I have a valve issue. First approach is to uncouple the appropriate hydraulic hose but to say that they are hard to get at is an understatement. Somewhere I have a hydraulic piping schematic - hopefully that will let me relax pressure further down the line but it's a bit of a jungle of pipes at the manifold where the valve are.