Kondia FV-1 Head disassembly

[Mayhem]

Thanks Mike - I did make some chips but I need to tram the mill and the vise, and also make some additional draw bars before I get too carried away.

[EdK]

Darren,

It looks like you were climb milling. How did it sound?

Ed

[Mayhem]

To be honest Ed, climb milling sounded the same as conventional milling. Having said that, I was only taking a .015" pass.

[Highpower]

Well done young man. 

[PixMan]

I'm so happy to see the machine making ANYTHING, even if just a test piece. You have to start somewhere.

So when would you anticipate getting all your "milling related" tools over to where the Kondia lives? You do need to get the vise straightened, and especially tram the head. There is very little to nothing which requires a working power feed, and so much more the machine can do without it.

[Mayhem]

Thanks Ken.

Mill tooling is all here now but I forgot to bring an indicator home with me to tram the head and align the vise. I also need to make a couple of draw bars as I have several thread types on my NBMT tooling (M12 x 1.75, 1/2-12 and 1/2-13).

[stevec]

Darren, I've read all your posts and I would say it was a struggle, but with help and success.

I would have to paint the ½-12 tooling and drawbar fluorescent orange or something to prevent me from mixing things up.
I can see myself trying to tighten one into the other to the point of "screwing" both up.

Great work and enjoy the mill that you now know intimately.

Steve

[Mayhem]

Thanks Steve - I intend to colour code the drawbars and the tooling. I really should make three new ones, as the current one is a length of all thread that appears to be bent. Either that or I need a collar turning up to stop it wobbling about.

Good news is that I have a lathe to turn up the drawbar and single point the threads. I also now have a working mill that I can use to make the hex ends

[PixMan]

What material can you find for the drawbars?

Remind me how you can do single point threading on your lathe. I know you have a lead screw of 2 or 4 threads per inch, so you have to do a lot of gear changing for each thread pitch? Do you have the gears to do a 1.75 mm pitch as well?

The best drawbars I've seen here for similar milling machines use a small thrust (needle) bearing below the hex. Try to incorporate that in your design if possible. It's not critical, but does make a joy of getting tension just right.

[Mayhem]

Probably 1018 unless I can find something more exotic. My lathe can single point just about any UN thread and metric threads are possible using the change gears that I have and a programme that works out metric equivalents. Of course, I also have my mates little lathe, which can single point metric threads.

A thrust bearing is on my list.