Hey Wes. It's actually the third time I've binge watched the allignment playlist over the last year. Two times preperation, now for the last information I needed. Currently I'm setting up my first own CNC lathe, a german Weiler UD 24. These videos have been a truly perfect guide! Thanks for the effort that went into making this.
Hi Wes, I'm a long time fan of your channel - enjoy the repair challenges of all kinds . Like you I have a workshop with CNC equipment and find your videos super instructive so thanks so much for taking the time to make these videos ! Your skill set is an inspiration to say the least .
Wes, I am so grateful for this set of videos! I'm pretty sure I'm never going to have occasion to setup a CNC turning center, but seeing a practicing machine tool mechanic/rebuilder at work is a rare and wonderful opportunity to learn a lot of the principles (and ethos) that apply just as well to manual machine tools. By the way, you're a total natural at this; I wouldn't edit out a single bit. You seem to have perfect intuition for what someone trying to learn is going to need to see and how they need to interpret it. You're definitely at the top of my subscription list. The viewers and subscribers take a little time to ramp up, but I have every confidence you'll get there. I don't see anybody else out here in RU-vid land who's working in the machine tool maintenance/rebuilding space and I know a lot of metalworkers have a keen interest in that for their own machine tools (as I do) :)
Thanks Steve. Machine repair and rebuilding is a niche within a niche (machining in general), so there is not a wide audience. My hope is to show what works for me in a more professional/commercial setting. A large majority of the information online is given by, and intended for, hobbyists. Much of my content will be of no use to the hobby machinist, but I hope it is helpful to someone.
We need more maintenance technicians with your set of skills. Met a lot of guys who can plug and level a complete machine but won't "risk" to operate the machine to make some test cuts. Thanks for the information.
I was a welder/fabricator, mold maker, machinist and CNC programmer for years before taking a union job as an IAM maintenance mechanic at a stevedoring facility in the Long Beach harbor ending in recent retirement. I am curious why you have this expensive piece of equipment but can relate because of my personal collection of industrial equipment, LS Starrett measuring tools, and SnapOn brightware, plus their biggest box, hutch, side lockers, and upper hutch that can not possibly hold it all. In fact I bought a 26', 1987 F700, tall, box truck to facilitate a long, and difficult move from the city to the mountains, and now have most of my machine tools solidly bolted to the floor within with a two aught, SOO, fifty foot extension cord until I can afford to expand my garage to meet the demands of my many, many disparate antique projects. If it's made of metal, or old oak I just cant stop myself from bringing it back to beauty.
The interapid indicator is actually great for chuck work-mount. Great buddy on the mill! Thanks for posting your educational series on the lathe alignment! Was excellent:)
Thanks for taking the time to do a thorough walk thru as you aligned everything. At least these have jack bolts. My Haas ST has the flat mounted spindle casting like this one, flat Z rails with a wedge the X rails are on. Turret doesn't have a curvic coupling. Not fun to align without all the jacking plates. I guess they were saving money.
The likeliness that I will ever do this to a CNC lathe, is simply "not".... But, not all is lost on the matter, due fact, that I really enjoyed watching the series, let alone, I learned allot, too. I always wondered what it would take to do a ground up alignment on one of these. Also, the amount of information you went into was extremely thorough, Thank you for that... Typically, I have a note pad to write my questions on while watching videos of my interest, so I can keep track of them, so I can post them in hopes of a reply, but, every single question, (and there was approx 35 questions that I wrote down), I was going to ask, only for you to answer each one, by the time I finished writting it down, LOL... So, really, there would have been more questions, that I would have written down, but stopped, because I knew you were going to answer them, if I would just wait... Fine job on this series.. Again, Thank you. It was actually fun to watch, especially if you like to learn. I will ask, if the machine gets moved, is this always required to do, I realize that is an abstract question, or is running a sample test bar good enough to tell that all is good enough? Dru
Just want to let you now this video was very helpful for me the machine I am aligning the tail stock on is a little different but it reassured me that I was doing it correctly and I learned a couple tips and tricks I did not now from this video so thank you
I have 4 indicators, 1 brown and sharpe 50 mil, 1 brown and sharpe .0005, 1 fowler .0001(garbage), and 1 federal .0005. I only use the 50 mil one and it's as accurate as it can be but costs a pretty penny. I picked up the federal one for 5 bucks on ebay and it was grubby and the clock work was sticky but I cleaned it up and it works nice but its motion is like the interapid and even has a little lever to switch from push to pull. I don't like it that way but I just push on the indicator to check its direction to not mess up what I'm looking for. Can't argue with a working indicator for 5 bucks!
I had 2 of those Brown and Sharpe indicators with the lever to switch directions. They were pretty useless. I think they have only .01 range. I gave them away.
Hi Wes. Why don't you make a bar with a 10mm thick 'washer' fixed(welded) near each end. Say 30mm bar, 60mm OD washer. Now you can skim the washers without having to move the X. The washers should last a good few hundred skims..
I've got several Interapid test indicators, they are all like this one here.....I see you working on all different types of machine tools. Do you ever see any of the old Burgmaster Turret Drills....not the tiny benchtop units, but the larger 2 and 3 Axis? I used to work for Burg in the 1970's... 2-20, 2-25, 2-30
Thanks for posting this. I too have a psycho-path lathe....I mean powerpath. They are good machines but quirky to say the least. I have done big mods to improve the machine. Swapped out the old servos and drives to brand new yaskawa...that turned out really good. Built my own led load meter. I also bought a special mach chip burner and copied all the ic logic chips on all the boards. I upgraded the motherboard to a slightly newer one with more processing power. How is your machine running?
Hey Wes, I have the same lathe I recently purchased do you happen to have the software to send files to it or any software the machine may have come with? Mine came with no software or manuals.
These Bridgeport controls were basically based on a 486 DOS PC, like many controls from that time (Milltronics, Dynapath Delta 40, Anilam, etc). Everyone thought it was a great idea at the time, but it's now very difficult to get components that are compatible with those old slow processors. The software will not run on a faster processor, so the control is basically obsolete. But, it can be repaired.
Just a tought, did you check the backlash compensation before moving in and out in x when you did the cuts ? i mean too much compensation would ruin the tailstock aligment measurment compared to a cut without interrupt in x?
It should not matter. As long as you approach the part from the same X direction before making the cut, the compensation should have the same effect on both diameters. If I was feeding -X on one diameter and +X on the other, it could give me errors if it was not set correctly.
