calgaryguy
Chris
Rees Atchinson has a number of videos up showing a metal planer resurfacing lathe beds, etc. Who knows as to the quality of the finished product, but interesting to watch...
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Grind lathe bed in ontario
- Thread starter 05plsrt4
- Start date
Rees Atchinson has a number of videos up showing a metal planer resurfacing lathe beds, etc. Who knows as to the quality of the finished product, but interesting to watch...
Funny that you say that. I would think Windsor Essex would be a very likely location. Windsor Essex was the tool & die capital of the world for ages till the orient took over. Detroit manufacturing relied on Windsor to meet their machining needs.
I guess that depends how you measure such things. I didn't realize that Windsor Essex was so huge that it could be compared to 5 or 6 US States! I thought it was only 50 sq miles or so..... LOL!
Seriously though, the US region you describe is prolly 1000 times as big as Windsor. So it seems pretty obvious to me that it would have more tool & die shops than Windsor does.
Nonetheless, as a fellow who spent his entire career in the auto industry, I can testify to the fact that the big three autocompanies and the majority of the big suppliers universally preferred to place machining work in Windsor Essex IF THEY COULD. The skills and job shop capabilities in Windsor Essex were legendary throughout the rust belt. Not only were they good at what they did, but they were also fast and cost effective. In every sourcing decision I ever participated in, the first choice for machining work was always Windsor Essex.
Unfortunately, as you have noted, the entire rust belt including Windsor Essex really is rusting away. The orient now has the quality and expertise they never had before AND they also have the lowest cost too. Frankly, I find it all very sad.
Nonetheless, I totally agree that it's worth a look in Michigan, Ohio, New York, Indiana, Illinois, and Pennsylvania. It really is a huge area with more people in it than all of Canada combined and there probably are some very good shops there that can do the work that @05plsrt4 is looking to have done.
All that said, I wouldn't personally do that without weighing the cost and certainty of such work against the cost of simply upgrading to a better machine.
Dabbler
ersatz engineer
I have a second hand experience on this, sorta - kinda.
My friend Bert rebuilt some punch presses (8-10) as tehy became worn. They would need way adjustment at around 300-450K strokes on average. This is after being rebuilt to exacting specifications, but still iron/iron ways with heavy way oil lubricant.
He rebuilt the first one, and it exceeded 1 million strokes, and still no way adjustment, so he got to go-ahead to rebuild them all, in turn. The result? After 8 million strokes on the first machine, the runout was still in specm, but they adjusted the ways 'just in case'.
At the time Bert left the company, all 8 presses were well over 5M [4M?] strokes without way adjustment.
[These figures are from memory, but I'm very sure of the 1M test, and the subsequent numbers are a little fuzzier]
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Personally, I love Walnut - especially burl or root. Very hard and drop dead gorgeous!
deleted_user
Super User
I do too. But it would not look good with turquoise acetal
There are many types of 'plastic' that are used as friction bearing/bushing/slide surfaces that have great attributes; low friction, self lubrication, impervious to corrosion & some chemicals. I've seen instances where nylon, UHMW has actually worn the steel surface it rubs against. But they have downsides too. Lower modulus, lower strength, heat distortion... generally not for high loads.
From my vast internet lurking of turcite (which by definition makes me a subject matter expert LOL) the material is bonded to the surface, then hand scraped in. So basically acts as thin friction/conformance layer sandwiched between the mating sliding surface. I believe it can be stripped & replaced without grinding native cast iron. But I think bed grinding is more about correcting fundamental geometry like bed is worn or distorted? I'm not sure to what degree turcite could make up the difference if scraped to a perfect datum assuming the underlying bed was 'out'. I've seen it on new machines (boned on a new grind) on reconditioned machines (bonded on a re-grind) but I wonder if there is middle ground (bonded on a worn surface within X amount)? Inquiring minds want to know.
From my vast internet lurking of turcite (which by definition makes me a subject matter expert LOL) the material is bonded to the surface, then hand scraped in. So basically acts as thin friction/conformance layer sandwiched between the mating sliding surface. I believe it can be stripped & replaced without grinding native cast iron. But I think bed grinding is more about correcting fundamental geometry like bed is worn or distorted? I'm not sure to what degree turcite could make up the difference if scraped to a perfect datum assuming the underlying bed was 'out'. I've seen it on new machines (boned on a new grind) on reconditioned machines (bonded on a re-grind) but I wonder if there is middle ground (bonded on a worn surface within X amount)? Inquiring minds want to know.
Have you considered staining the Walnut with a purple tint?
Some Walnut actually is a bit purple - especially the heart wood.
I'm not sure if acetal is the same family of plastics as Turcite, but anyways, looks like it has specific ingredients & properties for this purpose (bronze or similar fillers, etching which facilitates bonding... etc). https://www.professionalplastics.com/sturb.062
yeah, these things aren't the miracle cure they might seem, at least in context of machine tool rebuilding. Are you sure the nylon wore down the steel....or was it all the crap that can get stuck in the nylon?
Turcite does nothing to correct a worn bed; the bed gets ground and the Turcit (glued to the parts) get scraped into it. You have mill away the underside of some parts (i.e. saddle) to ensure alignment - the Turcite has to be a minimum thickness. Its popular commercially, but that's a different world. Maybe a new machine goes 15 years then the owners do a Turcite rebuild figuring its good enough for another 7. I want mine to last forever, or as close as possible. It does see some use on new machines, but in those case the machine is designed for it - regular pressurized way oil delivery and high end seals fit to the ways to protect it from contaminants that will embed.
It also doesn't address the other big areas of wear needing fixing....tailstock quill/bore and cross slide. imo no point making the substantial effort to fix the wear in the bed, without fixing the rest of it.
Moglice offers some big advantages. Its poured so if you carefully damn around the area and jack everything up, align HS TS and carriage to tenths (via the jacks) and pour. Then you don't have to scrape the parts into the bed - if they were in perfect alignment when the pour was done, you're done. The moglice ends up harder than turcite, but afaik it still afaik suffers the same down fall though....
The real issue with it is crap gets embedded in it and grinds away on the way. There are special wipers you can buy and figure out how to install (that never seemed easy to me). It has its place and lots of commercial guys do Trucite jobs, but they don't own the problem years later; its application extended the economic life of the machine X years, win. I don't think I want that risk on a machine I'm redoing for myself.
You might read Forrest's post here. He's 80 now and not so active but he's about the most knowledgeable individual I've encountered on the topic of machine tool reconditioning.
What's TURCITE ?
The subject of the topic says it all I think... I've heard here and there about TURCITE, but I still don't know exactly what it is and what for and how you use it.
www.practicalmachinist.com
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calgaryguy
Chris
Here's someone who had a Bridgeport table+ways milled by Rees Atchinson and his series on rebuilding his bridgeport.
Yes I'm sure its micro abrasion at work. The plastic is soft enough to embed particles & make a crude lapping tool. Actually I tried to make a split lap from nylon for home shop R&D. I guess it kind of worked from the grit holding standpoint. But failed for any degree of dimensional control particularly if it gets at all warm.
A poor reflection on our modern throw away society if you ask me. Might also be a reflection of the business case for a small business like that VS the cost of new machines. Lastly, might be a reflection of old skill sets retiring and younger skill sets not wanting to be bothered doing work like that.....
I dunno which or maybe another I can't think of. But it's a sad thing regardless.
Could be the better of the explanations. At least I hope so. The ones I came up with were all depressing. At least yours has a positive side to it.
Former Member
Guest
I'm with @Susquatch my feeling is that few smaller shops that can (because they have the older skill set) are also busy surviving given the various difficulties currently in industry.
The bigger shops, well, may do CNC but they do not have machinist as we would call them, just operators.
Case in point last year I had a machinist helping me in my shop, what was funny I knew more about machining and set up then he did considering I am not formally trained (other than a year or 2 in high school) this shows the lack talent out there.
Consider this think how much knowledge and wisdom is shared on this site with a not all members being formally trained. We just learn on passion.
The bigger shops, well, may do CNC but they do not have machinist as we would call them, just operators.
Case in point last year I had a machinist helping me in my shop, what was funny I knew more about machining and set up then he did considering I am not formally trained (other than a year or 2 in high school) this shows the lack talent out there.
Consider this think how much knowledge and wisdom is shared on this site with a not all members being formally trained. We just learn on passion.
Former Member
Guest
How long is your bed and how bad is it (pictures) there may be other easier solutions.
Rauce
Ultra Member
At my work we send small turbine case castings for regrinds to “Hamilton Grinding Ltd.” On Niagara St.
Small being a relative term, these would be 500-1000lb parts. I’ve been in there and they could definitely do a lathe bed but I have no idea what they would charge or if they’d say yes. It’s a smallish shop that’s a worker owned co-op.
Small being a relative term, these would be 500-1000lb parts. I’ve been in there and they could definitely do a lathe bed but I have no idea what they would charge or if they’d say yes. It’s a smallish shop that’s a worker owned co-op.