Hi folks,

Just after thoughts on this proposed action:

I have a Warco MiniMill which very similar to the Sieg X2. I am in the process of fitting a stiffening plate in a similar manner to Neil's description in MEW199. Now there are a few slight differenced between the two machines, eg Neil could fit his plate over the pivot pin OK – I can't as there isn't the room so I had to make a new pin, and so on. Anyway, Neil had to fit spacers, substantial ones at that, between the plate and the base (Neil's Fig 7). On my machine, this gap is about 0.7mm at one side and 1.4mm the other side. And it is tapered. The tapering and the gap difference is because the bracket between base and column is twisted due to badly located holes for the three fixing screws (Neil's Fig 2) which results in the stiffening plate being twisted.

Anyway, I'm thinking along the lines of using Milliput Epoxy Putty to fill the gap. Here's how I think I should do it: mix up the Milliput, apply to the stiffening plate in the form of a ring around the bolt holes, cover with a piece of thin plastic sheet, eg ClingFilm or equivalent and then bolt up thus squashing the Milliput into a shape to fit the gap. The idea of the plastic is to prevent the Milliput adhering to the base this allowing for future disassembly.

What do people think?

I'm also going to add two bolts at the top of the plate to fasten it to the vertical column. Neil didn't do that. Presumably I should do that before applying Milliput. In fact, I think I should probably check and adjust alignment before using the Milliput as well.

Peter G. Shaw