Adding a 6 inch riser block to my 10X 50 Ferro mill

[John Conroy]

I picked up this used 6" riser block from Modern Tool a couple of weeks ago. Since we all isolated with nowhere to go I have lots of time to install it. I was a little hesitant to do this alone as it seems like a second set of hands would be needed but I'm going ahead with it anyway. I started by removing the DRO display , lights and anything else that might get damaged. The mill sit under my furnace with 7 inches of clearance so it has to be moved forward a couple of feet. Another chance to use the toe jack and skates. To make the head and ram assembly easy to lift I turned the head up side down. To give myself 2 lifting points I had installed a 7/16" eye bolt in a collet and there is already an eye bolt centered on top of the ram. My engine crane has to be extended as far out as it will go to reach and is rated at 1000 lbs in that configuration. I think the head and ram are pretty close to that heavy so I will have to see how it performs. I was quite sure this riser would fit from research done on the web and verified the dimensions I had found that are supposed to be standard for most Taiwanese Bridgeport clone mills.



Ready to lift after removing the 4 long bolts holding the ram to the base.

 

[John Conroy]

I had to remove the front portion of the extended base of the milll so the narrow legs on the engine crane would have clearance to get close enough. One my next projects is going to be modifying the legs on the engine crane to spread them further apart. It seems like every time I use this thing it's too narrow to fit around what I'm lifting.

 

[John Conroy]

I guessed at the balance point when I connected the lifting chain. My aim was to have the rear of the ram a little lower. I got it pretty close but the lift point could have been a couple links further back. I overloaded my long suffering Workmate to support some of the load while I am working to clean everything and fit the riser.

 

[Crosche]

Great project to undertake while you have the time to do it. I wish I could have offered a 2nd set of hands as I am contemplating doing the same to my CX603 knock-off.

 

[Tom Kitta]

I always wondered why pp add these - my mill I think has few inches more of Z space and I never even came close to maxing it out. In case I need to bore cylinders in an engine I have radial arm drill & that is one of few things I can think of that would exceed the envelope. Am I missing something?

 

[John Conroy]

My mill has a maximum of 18" between the table and spindle .
Add 10" for my 8" super spacer and 8" for a Mt drIill bit with an r8 to Mt adapter. Now there is.no space left for the part. The wedding cake effect as PeterT calls it. Or this 12"long drill bit.

 

[Crosche]

I always wondered why pp add these - my mill I think has few inches more of Z space and I never even came close to maxing it out. In case I need to bore cylinders in an engine I have radial arm drill & that is one of few things I can think of that would exceed the envelope. Am I missing something?

The new CX603 mills advertise 19" of travel in Z axis and mine being considerably older probably has 16" of travel. Once you deduct the height of my vise and boring head with tool stick out, I probably have 4" ~5" of work envelope max....so a little more travel would be a welcome thing.

 

[John Conroy]

Well I ran into a little problem. In the drawing above you can see that the flange that fits down into the mill is 317 mm OD. It will not fit into my mill, which apparently is not a typical Taiwanese mill. The opening in mine is 315 mm. The bolt pattern and hole size and thread pitch on the long bolts all match my mill. The riser won't fit in my lathe as it is over 15" OD or I would machine it my self. I called Modern Tool and talked to Dave again and he offered to do it for no charge. Can't beat that so I took it down there and dropped it off. The only bad thing is it probably won't be done until Monday.
A cool observation though. When I was taking out the last bolt holding the ram on I was reaching up into thhe machine through the access hole trying to keep the "spider" from falling down into the sump. It turns out there are 4 little landing pads the spider can rest on as long as the ram is facing straight forward.

 

[Tom Kitta]

I have to check but I think I have around 22in of travel - so that may explain why I never run out or even got close. Also with 40 taper spindle if I use a MT drill it more nicely fits in vs. R8.

 

[John Conroy]

I decided to give my old workmate a rest over the weekend. I was worried it would collapse and I'd come out in the morning and find a disaster. A couple of jack stands and a lenght of 1.375" steel bar will hold it.



Here are a couple of shots taken looking up into the ram. You can see the rack and and pinion for sliding the ram fore and aft.

 

[John Conroy]

You can see in the first pic here that the bolt hole is very close to the OD of the flange on my mill ram. In the second you can see more material between the OD and the flange on the riser. 2 mm difference in OD

 

[Dabbler]

very nice work! My big mill has enough vertical, but my other ones might need one of these. Since the new mill is in 'bits' now might be the time... Hmmm...

 

[John Conroy]

Well the guys at Modern got the flange on the riser machined to fit my mill and I picked it up at 4pm. You might notice a modification I made to the engine crane that allowed me to lift the ram assembly nice and level and had no problem getting it far enough back to set it down with no wrestling or drama by myself. I'll post about the modification in another thread. Tomorrow I'll get it back into place.