Bridgeport for Beginners!

Man that is pretttttyyy! I've got no oil squirting under the cross slide ways. I can snug that up pretty good and still move it evenly across it's range of travel.
Can't I just take the lazy way out on this one and buy one? Some days I just get sick of making crap I need.

It's a safe assumption this dude is metric and I found something that looks pretty close from grizzly. I'll try calling them tomorrow and see if they have specifics on what I found.
Cheap too! 50bucks for the screw and 30bucks for the nut.

 

Buy IT! for that price it's a steal!!!. Machinery 600 wanted $1500 for a screw and nut for my little Colchester....people say the 600 in the company name is the spares markup percentage.

 

That's what I'm thinking. Smart man said "Pick your battles wisely!" I need experience, but not bad enough to worry about 80bucks. Fingers crossed this is the right size.

 

If it fits, hell yeah buy it.

 

Well they had the screw, but the nut is on B/O for a month! So I at least have the screw coming for now. Hope it's a match!

 

Well shit me, I got the lead screw in from Grizzly today and it's the same size diameter, but the threads are much smaller and the length is a inch or so shorter. I don't want to screw myself on travel so this might not work. I'm obviously not setup at the moment to cut an acme thread so I got to thinking....

Couldn't I just buy a length of ACME threaded rod and shave down the one end? Assuming of course I'd still have the diameter I need after cutting the threads off one end of it???
If this won't work, I might need to go on the hunt for a thread cutting tool for ACME. At this point, I don't even know if they sell them.

 

https://www.cutwel.co.uk/threading/...able-threading-inserts/acme-threading-inserts

 

Rock on Peedee. Thanks. I'll have a look on this side of the pond. I'm sure what I've got is metric so this should be fun
Now watch me come full circle needing a certain gear cut some whacked out metric thread. I swear this stuff never ends. The dividing head is in paint work now. Sorry no photo at the moment, but its gonna look sharp when I'm done.

 

If you have trouble I can pick them up and airmail them, you chaps haven't got your head around metric yet

 

Thanks bud, I appreciate the offer. I'm guessing I could thread this screw and nut with imperial. I think my dial has both on it, but I can't remember atm.

 

The offer is there, no trouble for me. You'll need a tool holder for the inserts, I'm a lazy bugger, especially when it comes to grinding tools when you just buy an insert tip the right profile.

If it throws your dial off you'll be pretty p$$$d with all the work put into changing it.

 

Before you change anything, what is your backlash? The play you demonstrate in your video is not as important as the amount of backlash on your dial. Use the allen screw to reduce it and check for tight spots on the length of the screw. There will be one area that has the most wear, but you never want it to bind. The rest of the crosslide movement can be corrected with the gibs as Mark mentioned.
Then when working, practice taking the backlash out and it will become second nature even with the DRO. Using the DRO without ballscrews gives you a false sense of the position of the crosslide because it only shows the position of the crosslide, not the loading on the screw.
I checked my 70 year old 11" Logan and have .021" backlash on the crosslide and .006" on the compound. On my 15 x 30 Enterprise I have .031" on the crosslide and the same .006" on the compond.

 

Yeah, I don't really have a ton of backlash in the screw. Maybe 20 thou? It's definitely way looser in the middle of it's travel. I started pushing up and down on the carriage and I can see oil pushing out on the bed lathes, so I should probably try to get some of that out before throwing out my screw and nut. I'm not seeing any flexing with the ways on the cross slide at the moment. That's adjusted pretty good. It only gets snug at the far ends of it's travel. Where I never go anyways.

 

You can use the little allen screw to reduce that backlash, but leave a little play for lubrication. That adjustment is the advantage of the bronze nut. My logan has a cast iron nut so there is no way to reduce the backlash.

 

And AGAIN, I find myself screwed when a machine is down. I reinstalled the cross slide screw and will deal with it later. I see some room for improvement that can be made where the carriage rides on the ways so I'll address that first.

So I was at church (scrap yard) earlier this week and saw a guy there asking about a cabinet. Funny I walked right by it and didn't even notice it. Then I saw it, a 10 drawer Stanley Vidmar in great shape. The guy was told it was $300 and would let my buddy know in the morning if he wanted it. Telling my wife about it over dinner and she had my ass when I told her a new one is 2grand. I showed up the next day 15mins before the junkyard opened with trailer and cash in hand!



Ya see I really need this box. I've been putting all the machining crap in a 6 drawer HF roll around and it's outta space. So before I could get it inside, I needed to restack the garage and that meant moving the bridgeport. UGH. Major lesson learned on this one. NEVER EVER place any machine on plywood. I swear that thing glued itself to the ground. I picked up a crappy 2ton jack from the tractor supply and turned it into a toe jack. I'll build a base for it later, but for now, if I'm careful, it won't F off on me.



Now that I can lift it, I needed a way to scoot it around. This is half inch plate with 5/8" drill rod and cheapy bearings from fleabay. I pressed the bearings on and saw no need for jesus clips or some other pain in the ass.


I made 3 as 4 is asking for trouble. Funny thing, I found it easy to move the bridgeport with one skate on the front and one on each side biased towards the front. The machine is surprisingly light in the back and a skate placed there just ends up doing nothing.


Now that I have the mill in a better spot right under the air conditioner, I was able to bring in the cabinet.
Time to load this sucker up! I wish I could find a bigger drawer for the very bottom, it'd be a great place to stick the dividing head AND positioner. Yes, you heard that right. These drawers are rated at 400lb capacity each! If you ever come across a Vidmar or Lista, don't pass it up! They are SUPER expensive and worth the money! Now for a cheap solution for about 500 little containers to hold all this machining crap and keep it from rolling around. Anyone got any cheap ideas???

 

I'm not ready for nuclear work, but this is good enough for roller skates.

 

Those are nice machine skates, I scored a couple of microfiche drawers which are solidly built and have 3-5 trays per drawer. So far they have held a lot with no problems and cost $10+ some paint.

 

I outgrew this little cart fast. Time to craigslist it.

 

Dollar tree shitter baskets. perfect. I can see me standing in front of this box for the next 10hrs.
This is actually really good for me. I can finally get all my crap in one place, see it a glance and avoid the trips to the box store.