What's on there now? You gunna be another member making a post to retrofit an AXA or BXA Tool Post? Need some tips?
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Craig's Craftex CX706 Comes Clean
- Thread starter trlvn
- Start date
What's on there now? You gunna be another member making a post to retrofit an AXA or BXA Tool Post? Need some tips?
trlvn
Ultra Member
What did you get for gear oil? Are there actually yellow-metal gears in the headstock?Made a big mess of my 706 today, decided to totally drain the gearbox oil, that means taking off the front panel as the drain plug is 3/4"above the bottom. A lot of paper towels later to soak up the oil that i didn't catch and i got to examine the gear box internals. Lots of black gunk in the bottom. I may put in a lower drain hole for the future. The apron drain is on the bottom so no issue there except getting small dish to catch the oil. Plan on picking up a QCTP in the near future.
From the earlier discussion on gear oil, I went into Commercial Oil in Hamilton last week and got 4 litres of Lubriko-Gear EP 100 in preparation to change the oil on mine:
$28 all in. But the guy had me quite confused. I asked about Mobilgear 627 and he talked non-stop for a good 10 minutes about fully synthetic and this and that. To me, this is a pretty low-stress environment for gear oil. As long as it isn't going to attack the metal in my gears, I would think that almost any oil would do a decent job. The web page for this oil says "non-corrosive to steel, brass, bronze and other common bearing materials". A fully synthetic oil was going to be 4X the price!
Incidentally, as I was about the leave I noticed that they have 4L jugs of cutting and tapping fluid. The guy said they are about $30. They also had jugs that included "Way" in the name. I didn't ask (because I was afraid of another 10 minute spiel!) but I'm guessing this might be way oil. And I already have a lifetime supply of way oil.
Craig
Gears are shiny silver color, didn't see any sign of brass gears or bearing bronze bushings. Without tearing it apart i couldn't tell what was used for bearings. I have many different oils on the farm, will likely go with Precision Matthews 75w80 recommendation. The gears could use a deburring, in fact a lot of parts on these machines need a going over to smooth things up.
trlvn
Ultra Member
@gmihovics was kind enough to help me out with a couple more 3D-printed parts. I was looking for something to help organize the drill chucks and centres for the lathe. I'd found a holder on Thingiverse that was almost right except that it didn't actually have a MT2 tapered hole. @gmihovics modified the design and produced the following for me:
I'd also found a design for a holder so you don't have to have 3 hands when measuring an awkward part with a micrometer. You can just barely make out that there is a screw at the back that clamps the micrometer in the holder. Works well for the style of micrometer shown but wouldn't be able to clamp on a classic Starrett or Moore and Wright mic that has a cast metal frame. The picture also shows a couple of the MT2 holders before they were mounted on the wall.
Many thanks to @gmihovics. It was great to meet him briefly today.
Craig
I'd also found a design for a holder so you don't have to have 3 hands when measuring an awkward part with a micrometer. You can just barely make out that there is a screw at the back that clamps the micrometer in the holder. Works well for the style of micrometer shown but wouldn't be able to clamp on a classic Starrett or Moore and Wright mic that has a cast metal frame. The picture also shows a couple of the MT2 holders before they were mounted on the wall.
Many thanks to @gmihovics. It was great to meet him briefly today.
Craig
trlvn
Ultra Member
As a matter of fact, the tools do stick. If I just pull up, it is not easy to dislodge them. Weirdly, I find that if I press up on the portion sticking out the bottom, the tool comes out pretty easily.
@gmihovics would there be any problem with wiping a bit of oil in the holders? Oil won't dissolve this material, right?
Craig
That's a good question actually, I have never thought about that. Oil shouldn't be a problem along as long as it doesn't have any detergents in it I would think.
I'll post the stl file today and then post the link here in the thread. I'll take a stab at an MT3 design really quickly too.
I just used 15%, I did increase the perimeters to 4 though. it's also just printed in PLA.
Prolly the same reason you can push screw driver bits out of their plastic holder but it's harder than a frozen tree stump to pull them out. Just guessing it's all in the way you deform the holder when you hold it.....???
DPittman
Ultra Member
Just remember to ipe off oil residues from Mt taper before using.
Canadium
Ian
Can't help wondering if internal ridges were in the design maybe that would reduce the sticking by reducing the surface area in contact? A design improvement?
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trlvn
Ultra Member
I haven't looked at them closely but there are a bunch of MT3 designs on Thingiverse for free:
Search Thingiverse - Thingiverse
Download files and build them with your 3D printer, laser cutter, or CNC. Thingiverse is a universe of things.
www.thingiverse.com
Craig
ok, here are the STL and STEP files for MT2 and MT3 holders.
www.printables.com
thank you to @trlvn for letting me butcher his photos
Printables
thank you to @trlvn for letting me butcher his photos
trlvn
Ultra Member
So, I couldn't leave 'well enough alone'! The 3D printed indicator holders worked OK-ish. Bu I wanted to check the run out on the perimeter of my 3-jaw chuck and found that I could get the tip of the indicator far enough away from the center line to get on the chuck. After a little head scratching, it came to me that basically a "T" shaped holder in a spare quick change tool holder would let me position the indicator pretty much where I wanted. With a 0.5 inch thickness, it would fit in the holder and be thick enough for the 3/8" stem of a standard indicator. I found I'm lacking 1/2 inch aluminum, which was my first choice, but then remembered that I have a box of 'plastic' cutoffs from an auction a few years ago.
This is what I threw together:
I think the material is a nylon (?). It is aggravating to work with. It cuts not that badly but the swarf is partially melted and forms large burrs on the edge of the piece. Same problem whether cutting on the table saw, band saw or milling machine. Easy enough to remove with a razor knife but it makes it hard to see what you're doing while working.
The following is a super-brief video of it in action:
https://1drv.ms/v/s!AgYZqfsw641WgSpFhxsER6Csxh-j?e=2787JG
Craig
(Could we allow embedding videos from Microsoft OneDrive?)
This is what I threw together:
I think the material is a nylon (?). It is aggravating to work with. It cuts not that badly but the swarf is partially melted and forms large burrs on the edge of the piece. Same problem whether cutting on the table saw, band saw or milling machine. Easy enough to remove with a razor knife but it makes it hard to see what you're doing while working.
The following is a super-brief video of it in action:
https://1drv.ms/v/s!AgYZqfsw641WgSpFhxsER6Csxh-j?e=2787JG
Craig
(Could we allow embedding videos from Microsoft OneDrive?)