• Scam Alert. Members are reminded to NOT send money to buy anything. Don't buy things remote and have it shipped - go get it yourself, pay in person, and take your equipment with you. Scammers have burned people on this forum. Urgency, secrecy, excuses, selling for friend, newish members, FUD, are RED FLAGS. A video conference call is not adequate assurance. Face to face interactions are required. Please report suspicions to the forum admins. Stay Safe - anyone can get scammed.
  • Several Regions have held meetups already, but others are being planned or are evaluating the interest. The Ontario GTA West area meetup is planned for Saturday April 26th at Greasemonkeys shop in Aylmer Ontario. If you are interested and haven’t signed up yet, click here! Arbutus has also explored interest in a Fraser Valley meetup but it seems members either missed his thread or had other plans. Let him know if you are interested in a meetup later in the year by posting here! Slowpoke is trying to pull together an Ottawa area meetup later this summer. No date has been selected yet, so let him know if you are interested here! We are not aware of any other meetups being planned this year. If you are interested in doing something in your area, let everyone know and make it happen! Meetups are a great way to make new machining friends and get hands on help in your area. Don’t be shy, sign up and come, or plan your own meetup!

New to me MTW MD 001 Milling Machine

MotoRider

MotoRider

Active Member
Picked up this machine today, a Kijiji deal. Got it for a good price. Clean and tight with not much use. It’s a nice step up from SIEG SX2P.
IMG_5982.png
 
Nice, that's the machine type I bought new and converted to CNC thats since been replaced by the Tormach. I had it for 14 years (2010)? Its a good machine, as long as you stay inside its capabilities. It has a big work envelope, but don't push it with big cutters, its not really stiff enough. Better to take faster small cuts (even manually). I think I decided eventually that its sweet spot was around 1/2" cutters or 3/8". With a 1/2" you can get the most out of the spindle speed while not having too much deflection and chatter. 3/8 for a better finish.
One of the other "design features" on it are that the column casting is a bit too thin and not reinforced well in the middle of the travel. What happens is the dovetail ways get pinched in by the weight of the head being cantilevered out, and this makes it hard to get a good adjustment on the Z gib - too tight at the ends, and loose in the middle. A few different solutions for it - 2 of which are applicable to a manual machine:
1 - use a counter balance (or gas spring) for the head - this helps but to be truly proper would need to lift from a distance away from the ways to remove most of the moment force generated.
2 - make a rib that holds the column open. see here: https://www.cnczone.com/forums/rf-45-clone-mill/413796-cnc.html#post2596470

Other things to look at:
The bearings in the gearbox on mine were trash from the factory - assembled with a hammer on oversize shafts. The bearings are readily available 6XXX series bearings so not expensive to change if needed, but do check the shaft diameters if you are in that far, mine were way over size (hence the hammer assembly technique).
If you are looking in the gearbox, there is a drain for it hidden up in the pocket behind the spindle.

Can't think of anything else helpful at the moment.
The cast iron of the table machines really nicely with a 3/8" carbide endmill plunged in really fast - left a beautiful finish until I hit the e-stop.
 
Mike R said:
Nice, that's the machine type I bought new and converted to CNC thats since been replaced by the Tormach. I had it for 14 years (2010)? Its a good machine, as long as you stay inside its capabilities. It has a big work envelope, but don't push it with big cutters, its not really stiff enough. Better to take faster small cuts (even manually). I think I decided eventually that its sweet spot was around 1/2" cutters or 3/8". With a 1/2" you can get the most out of the spindle speed while not having too much deflection and chatter. 3/8 for a better finish.
One of the other "design features" on it are that the column casting is a bit too thin and not reinforced well in the middle of the travel. What happens is the dovetail ways get pinched in by the weight of the head being cantilevered out, and this makes it hard to get a good adjustment on the Z gib - too tight at the ends, and loose in the middle. A few different solutions for it - 2 of which are applicable to a manual machine:
1 - use a counter balance (or gas spring) for the head - this helps but to be truly proper would need to lift from a distance away from the ways to remove most of the moment force generated.
2 - make a rib that holds the column open. see here: https://www.cnczone.com/forums/rf-45-clone-mill/413796-cnc.html#post2596470

Other things to look at:
The bearings in the gearbox on mine were trash from the factory - assembled with a hammer on oversize shafts. The bearings are readily available 6XXX series bearings so not expensive to change if needed, but do check the shaft diameters if you are in that far, mine were way over size (hence the hammer assembly technique).
If you are looking in the gearbox, there is a drain for it hidden up in the pocket behind the spindle.

Can't think of anything else helpful at the moment.
The cast iron of the table machines really nicely with a 3/8" carbide endmill plunged in really fast - left a beautiful finish until I hit the e-stop.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the info, I’m going the change the oil in the head and take the faceplate off. There seems to be a little oil on the bottom of the spindle I noticed when I got home, I don’t recall seeing it there when I checked the machine out, although there was definitely some bouncing around with the trailer, funny how you don’t notice how bad the roads are until you’re actively dodging potholes! I did see some stuff on counter balancing, but not the column bracing stuff. A quick browse of the web is showing a lot of ingenious approaches to solve these problems. First priority is to get the beast back up on its stand and figure out a DRO for the quill, I know the z axis DRO I put on the mini mill made a huge difference.
 
Dan Dubeau said:
Nice looking mill, big work envelope. Looks brand new.
Click to expand...
Thanks, it hasn’t had much use, and it was clean. He said he hadn’t used it in 4 years, as they had a giant CNC machine where I got it from. I wanted to explore the CNC but unfortunately ran out of time.
 
MotoRider said:
There seems to be a little oil on the bottom of the spindle I noticed when I got home,
Click to expand...
Mine had an oil weep that I never tracked down. I'd always have more than a few drops of oil on the table / vise / spindle nose after it sat for a day. I don't think there's anything under the face plate that relates to keeping the oil in the head, unless its the shift levers - never looked at that relative to the oil level....maybe that was it? Never thought of it / cared enough to do something about it, I just wiped it up and carried on.
 
Ok thanks, I’m not that worried about it, it’s “new” and sitting on the floor, I’m sure I’ll forget all about my illusions of grandeur once I start using it. lol
 
Mike R said:
applicable to a manual machine:
1 - use a counter balance (or gas spring) for the head - this helps but to be truly proper would need to lift from a distance away from the ways to remove most of the moment force generated.
2 - make a rib that holds the column open. see here: https://www.cnczone.com/forums/rf-45-clone-mill/413796-cnc.html#post2596470
Click to expand...
3. Epoxy cast the base and part of your column. I did this and added an immense amount of weight and dampened vibrations and sound. Pictures were on my SD card that failed. So no pictures, But can advise on the process if required.

Nice machine
Gluck
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top