Wabeco F1200

[Wongster]

The wait is finally over!!! The mill was delivered in the morning while I was printing the Z axis endstop clamp to replace the broken one on the Portabee 3D printer. It is now sitting proud on the bench space where the Proxxon PD400 used to sit due to its height.



There is a thick layer of dried out grease on the ways of the mill and on the table. But all axes move very smoothly. I know that it is a practice to disassemble new machines to clean out all the dried grease like what I did for my Sherlines and Proxxon, but for this, I've some hesitation. The axes are silkly smooth to the turning of the handwheels and there is a test report enclosed in the pack showing all the test done on the mill and its accuracy. Would I disturbed that by disassembling it? Especially when I'm rather bad at getting the gibs right as experienced from the other mills and lathes.

It was a blessed day for me today. I discovered that the plastic casing of the Mitutoyo Digital Vernier has cracked and a small little screw can on longer hold the thumb wheel. Made a trip down to my favorite shop in town to buy a replacement. It happened that the shop owner, Mike of SgTooling, has several pieces of China made MT2 collets. He doesn't have the complete set but gave them all to me with 2 MT2 saw arbor and an MT2 flycutter - FOC!!! Tested the collet just now and it fit perfectly!

I'll clean up the table and do some test cut soon. Will be leaving home early tomorrow. Hope for a good solid few hours of shop time sometime next week.

Some pics of the various parts attached to show off my new toy













Lastly, any member here with a Wabeco F1200 to share your experience on the mill?

Regards,
Wong