Chester Super Lux advice

[Taf_PembsParticipant @taf_pembs]

Hi Jon,

Totally agree with you on some of that, certainly the column (and base) on mine is, I think, relatively flimsy for what it is supposed to do, especially with such a weight hanging out of the front of it. Having said that, while trawling the wonders of the interweb it seems the castings vary considerably in their type despite ending up with such similar machines. Some have significantly more ‘meat’ to them than others, more and thicker webs etc

Built to a price at the end of the day.

As for the resin, it is specifically designed for this job. It’s for machine tool joint faces, even stuff like large gantry mills etc that are assembled with shim packs to get the accuracy then the joints injected, poured or trowelled in / on. They do slideway coatings too, similar to Turcite etc

The website is HERE for more info.

 

Once up and running, if it’s all OK then I’ll just use it but if the rigidity is an issue then that is something I will look at addressing in the future… maybe!

🍻

[John MCParticipant @johnmc39344]

Hi Taf, interesting read, the link to the manufacturers website.   I have used this very product some years ago to stabilise joints on scientific instruments, lasers in this instance.   Difference between that and machine tools is the only load being carried was the weight of the optics, in other words, a couple of kilos.  Some of the examples in the document look rather suspect to me, maybe okay for a quick fix until the job can be done properly.

The problem with using it on machine tools is that the loads are far greater.   Using it as you are is introducing a relatively flexible joint between two components that really should not have a joint at all.

Modulus of elasticity for this resin is around 5.  Cast iron starts at around 65. It could be as high as 100 depending on grade, assuming a typical grey cast iron.

I would urge you not to use the resin as you are, use your scraping skills to correct any error.   Then, when ready for final assembly, a very, very thin layer of resin on the joint face before bolting the joint together.  There has been research in to making highly loaded joints like this, results show that there is some benefit in stiffness of the joint because  the minute voids within the joint are filled with resin that bonds to surfaces.  Micro-fretting of bolted joints can be significantly reduced using the resin as I have described.

 

[Taf_PembsParticipant @taf_pembs]

Evening John,

I hear what you are saying, unfortunately the amount of scraping needed for the ways etc pails into insignificance to what would have to be removed to get the column mount flat.

If nothing else this will be an experiment into the feasibility of of using this product for this. Martin that I spoke to at Buttkereit recommended the SKC 57 for the application (I had already worked out that that was what I needed but described the issue to him first), he said he had used it for similar joint faces several times.

After it was suggested on this thread someone pointed out that Stefan Gotteswinter (YouTube) had used a similar /  equivalent product to sort the column on a virtually identical mill. I found the video and he was extremely pleased with the result.

I’ll give it a go and will certainly post the results here, good or bad. I think the seriously feeble Chester cabinet stand that that it came on will be more of a problem! Talk about flimsy ! I can feel an order for some substantial steel box section to make a proper stand coming on already 😒😂

Worst case is I will have to come up with a way of removing enough material to get the base flat to do a proper scraped mating face.

I’ll let you know how it goes. 👍🍻

[Taf_PembsParticipant @taf_pembs]

Allo all..!

The resin test.

I placed the resin tins on their edges between a couple of stops and then after a minute or so rotated them all 180 deg to see if they rolled back to first position, reducing the time I left them each time (bare with me!).. I soon found 1 tin that was somewhat less fluid than the others so this would be the test pot. The others seemed pretty good.

I made up a pair of test plates, same spacers & gap, same injection point size & vent.

Fixed them together after rubbing some silicone grease onto one of them so I could get it apart after and taped the edges.

I had opened up the pot as instructed and mixed it the day before. To say the solids had separated out was something of an understatement. They needed breaking up and then a freshly turned piece of 4/4 bar began to crush them into submission. Having watched the application video the solids need some serious mixing but this really did. Once broken up I used the supplied paddle mixer in the drill on low speed and that soon learned them, with a little patience I soon had a lovely smooth relatively liquid compound.

Back to now, opened up the tin, back in with the paddle mixer and once smooth added the hardener. This made it surprisingly runny so the worry about being able to inject it subsided! after a thorough mixing as per instructions, I poured it onto the cartridge, insert a thin steel tig filler rod as a vent and pushed the plunger in. Withdraw the filler rod once all the air was out and set to injecting it.

  Once it was showing at the vent hole I used a scalpel to just prick the tape at various points around the edge (corners mainly) to vent it and all bar 1 corner was already full of resin, the other corner showed resin almost straight away after pricking the tape there. SUCCESS!

One thing I did notice was that as the resin came into contact with the cold steel it thickened up considerably. More on that later 😟

I left a little excess over the holes and left it to cure.

It took longer than expected but then it is old stuff so no bother. On day 3 the bit I left on a piece of board to check curing was rock hard to I separated the plates and here is the result.

Full coverage and proper hard. Not bad.. ready for the main event!

More a bit later…. including the mess 😬 🤣

[Taf_PembsParticipant @taf_pembs]

Morning All..!

With the mill now reasonably assembled – i.e. pretty much all the heavy stuff it was time to true up the column.

And here comes the next issue.

When I was sorting the table ways, the table upside down on the surface plate there was no rock, the firm tap on each corner produced no ‘clearance sound’, going round with a 1 thou shim revealed no gap but a half thou shim would just about slide in in random places. Perfectly decent I thought, they have something right!

However, that was purely the outside edge. Every time I took a set of measurements round the table (left front, middle, left rear, right rear .. etc etc) they were different, square on long edge or short edge. I was moving the square around like this in the hope of finding something repeatable as when I just did middle with the square facing each way to prove the measurement, it was always different and a thou out over the shorter base would obviously give a much larger error in the vertical.

Time for the straight edge.

Its hollow in the middle (dam it emoji)

But it is also ever so slightly bowed down at the ends!

To be fair, it really is only a tiny amount but using the square like I was to check it was really showing up on the vertical.

Not long since, a neighbour offered me a couple of toys in exchange for beer (Jolly decent chap!) .. a cast iron surface plate and a very large square. Both need some cosmetic attention. Once cleaned up I went over the surface plate with a surface gauge and a tenths indicator sticking out about 5 inches and could not believe what I was seeing. it’s only real variation was the remains of the original scraping marks! Everywhere round the plate the indicator showed no more than a couple of tenths difference!

As that was the only flat thing I had I though I’d treat the table to a bit of lapping. some decent 120 then 240 wet n dry paper (If you need to, do NOT buy the budget pack stuff from Toolstation or the likes, it’s rubbish and falls apart, use a decent motor factors), bit of white spirit for the wet and, thanks to the gantry hoist to move the thing onto the table, a lot of sliding around..

It worked a treat (if somewhat time consuming!).

Back to truing up the column.

After a it of faffing about, it is within 0.015 left to right (X)and less than 0.01 front to back(Y) -it shows 0 but not sure I believe it! I tried various positions for the square and moved the table around and it still shows the same, also placed the square on my larger steel fairly thick square so it was fully across the table – same results and the same along the table for more contact spread.

At Last!!

[Taf_PembsParticipant @taf_pembs]

Finally injecting the resin.

Now for a bit of an apology.. a friend of mine came down to give me a hand with the resin injection as my lack of a working right hand would really make this go wonky. So trying to get this done in the workable time of the resin I didn’t get much in the way of photo’s but there are a couple.

The next pot of resin was much easier to mix up and again was thoroughly mixed the day before.

We taped up the sides and rear – and there was Booboo No1. Not enough / strong enough tape, I think just a coupe more layers to stiffen up the tape would have been the way to go.

Mixed up the shmoo and poured it into the cartridge.

(This is a small pot that I used after but there was only 1 pic from the main event!)

Booboo No2 – When I mixed the test pot I was surprised how hot it got and remembered Martin had told me that the reason for the main mixing the day or so before was so too much heat wouldn’t be introduced into the stuff when mixing the hardener in.

I also remember the cooling effect of the steel on the viscosity of the resin.

So I didn’t mix this pot as vigorously as the first pot and behold it didn’t get as hot (still pourable though).

I then failed to realise that the significantly larger cooling effect of a large ish mass of cast iron on the already cooler resin would have fairly disastrous consequences!

The pic below was after recovering some of the spilling resin back into a cartridge, opening out the vent hole and injecting via that as well!

As you can see on the far side of the column, a rag jammed in with some wood and held with a clamp, the table pushing a small piece of ply on another piece of ply against a leak.

Once the leading edge of the resin stiffened up too much, the still warm stuff at the injection point thought it great fun to find it’s way out where ever is could. Up through the bolt holes, bulged out the tape so giving it a way to start it’s outward journey from there etc Funnily not from where the foam was across the front edge though. What a mess.

But.. injecting from the vent hole and pre-venting the tape with pin pricks at the point where the resin had already reached had the desired effect. Resin emerging at all vent points round the taped edge and when poking the foam down a little it was all across the front too. Success!

As you may be able to see , there has already been a serious attempt to remove most of the excess but it’s bond is so good that everything else comes off with it!

Anyway, it’s full right round. But.. that gap at the front where the foam was seems bigger than I expected. It isn’t much but when I worked out the area, it was over 16cm2 which bearing in mind the relatively small surface area of the total contact due to the different central hole positions between the base and the column is not an insignificant amount.

So I cleaned up the area and faces, put another foam tape strip across the front to form a dam as there would be almost no injection pressure, I mixed up the remaining small pot of resin and filled the rest of it.

Once cured, all removed the foam tape and tidied up – it turned out OK.

All in all, pretty successful in the end, happy enough.

If I were doing it again..? Set up a small fan heater to pre warm the base and column to around 20 – 25’C and do a far better job of the tape – several layers.

Next job is to torque down the bolts while checking the column doesn’t move.. fingers crossed!

Oh.. and a good clean up and touch up the paint.

🍻

[mgnbukParticipant @mgnbuk]

it is within 0.015 left to right (X)and less than 0.01 front to back(Y)

Over what distance ? Squareness usually described as error/distance & the general “rule of thumb” used by the fitters I used to work with where a manufacturer specification was unavailable was “a thou per foot” (around 0.025/300 metrificated). This was more aimed towards manual machines – most CNC machines we worked with had manufacturer specs of around 0.015 / 300.

Encouraging to see someone taking column squareness seriously and not mucking these alignments up with shims doing a spindle “trammel” check. Before you commit to injecting the epoxy shim, though, recheck the squareness with the head fitted. You may find you have to bias the column backwards to have the YZ squareness correct when when the overhung mass of the head is in place. Came across this while rebuilding a Boko borer at a previous employment – the fitters found the column leaned backwards when they checked with the head off & queried rescraping the column/bed interface to correct this. I was surpised that this non-wearing joint could have left the factory wrong, so suggested refitting the head assembly & rechecking – the alignment then matched the original alignment sheets supplied with the machine.

Not unusual to see the overhung ends of the table droop – more unsupported length, more droop.

Nigel B.

[Taf_PembsParticipant @taf_pembs]

Hi Nigel,

Sorry, having just read what I wrote again I didn’t mention it. That was up and down the long edge of my granite square which is 250mm (160mm short edge) but less a little for clearance of the indicator and bits so realistically it was over 230mm.

All the measurements were taken with the machine built up so gear head in place etc, the only mass missing was the oil in the gear head.

I have literally just been up the workshop for a bit, cleaned up a bit and tightened up the bolts with an indicator set up to show Y-Z and it didn’t move, I re checked X-Z and Y-Z up and down and it has stayed as set so really really happy with it!

Proof will be in the cutting though and still got to put the electrical side back together and finish the oiling system but I’m done for now, pain killers and rest!

🍻

[Taf_PembsParticipant @taf_pembs]

As stated above, the final tightening seemed to go perfectly so really happy.

and yesterday and today I gave it a quick sand round (very rough!) and the last bit of grey paint sprayed in it’s general direction. This will be how it’s staying!

I will hopefully get to fitting the control and wiring and finishing the oiling system in the next week or so.

I’m almost getting excited to see if the thing still works! 😁

🍻

[PeteParticipant @pete41194]

Very well detailed with what you’ve done and so far how well it’s worked out Taf. 🥃

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

I’m impressed, very clear and full of interesting detail.  Much appreciated!

Dave

[Taf_PembsParticipant @taf_pembs]

Cheers folks, appreciate it  !

Have you started a pool yet on whether the thing will ever get finished or even work?! 🤣

 

[Nigel BennettParticipant @nigelbennett69913]

Work? But I thought it was just going to be an ornament!

It does look fab, Taf. You’ll be afraid to use it for fear of damaging the paintwork. Mine (23 years old now) has “Made in China” engraved on the front plate. If I’d done what you’ve done to yours I would feel justified in making a new plate with “Built in Wales” on it… if I lived in Wales, of course.

[Alan JacksonParticipant @alanjackson47790]

Hi Taf,

I am so glad it all turned out so magnificantly. Your detailed coverage has been inspiring. I look forward to you describing its performance in operation. Very best of good  luck

[Nigel BennettParticipant @nigelbennett69913]

You ought to enter it for the Turner Miller prize!

[Taf_PembsParticipant @taf_pembs]

Morning All..!

Taa Daaaaaa!!

Power on – Check … Power Z drive – Check. All other axis moving properly – Check

Motor Start – **^^$£%^********. ****, *&^**&^*, *******.

Turing everything over by hand during each test and final assembly, everything felt fine but obviously that wasn’t under motor power. However I’m not sure how something can rotate so freely by hand then make a strange clicking noise and suddenly be a little stiff to change form low to high range.

Strip down and have a gander. I inspected every tooth of every gear although it was worse in low range rather than high. All the gear teeth looked how I’d left them after tidying them up a little with one of those little diamond EZ Lap ‘files’, they were OK bar 1 that has more ware to it than all the others (I presume the previous owner liked that speed!).

Then looking at everything else it was staring me in the face – Hi – Lo shift. My fault!

Fresh ware and I remembered where the clicking came from having seen it and it’s wonderful workmanship when first inspecting the thing –

It’s the deep craters where they have attempted to deburr the hole.

As for the My Fault bit.. well the selector arms were very loose, it was really noticeable when changing gears before the strip down, lots and lots of ‘end float’ on the shafts. so in an attempt to reduce that and make it feel a little better I shimmed the inner ends so there was only a little free play – Obviously not enough!

With that re shimmed to give a little more freedom and checking the other side it was time to re assemble.

Another thing I noticed was that until all the 6 the bolts were released (top casting to the body of the gear head) the 2 dowel pins that locate the top casting to the body of the mill were impossible to move yet prior to main assemble I checked them and they move freely through the top cover (as they should) but also freely through main casting. The dowels have an M6 tapping in them to remove them if required I suppose.

I knew straight away what to look for and yes.. the chap at the counterboring station when being built had his drill bit in again rather than a socket cap counterbore tool. I found a 9/16 very old drill bit that was suitably butchered (I really must but a set of counterbores for bolts) as the holes are basically 14mm the 9/16 would have a good guide and hand dressed the recess bottoms.

Funnily enough when reassembled I could (with only a little force) withdraw and reinsert the dowels properly and I genuinely think the location fit of the drive sleeve to the spindle top is smoother, certainly feels to slide smoother. Bonus!

Ok… Taa Daaaaa!!!! 2.0

Try again.. All worked perfectly!! All the gears shift fine, a bit noisy but then it is a straight cut gear box so it’s going to be but it is significantly quieter than it was – Excellent!

Phew.

[Taf_PembsParticipant @taf_pembs]

Anyway, all this is a little pointless if the results for trying to fix it’s main problems of head tramming and column tramming are in effective.

I set up an indicator much to the misses displeasure as I used my Christmas present early, my new Noga short arm indicator base (They really are as good as they say!!) and set about tramming in the head. A sweep of around 280mm in X and after a fair bit of tweeking here is the result –

As they say up north, That’ll do!!! Very Very happy indeed!! I wasn’t going to mess about with that any more.

But.. What about in Y? This was the biggest problem as is due to the miss alignment of the Column..

WOW..!! I can breath again now. That has worked better than expected! Less than 0.01mm over table width.

I’m going to call that a success! 😲😁

I checked round a few places and it is all within 0.01mm so proper happy.

Just to finish the oiling system now and I suppose I’m going to have to use the thing!

 

[Taf_PembsParticipant @taf_pembs]

Hello and a very happy new year to all !!!

Had a pretty quiet Christmas etc, but did manage to get a couple of hours in the workshop over the last month, and actually got round to doing a few bits!

First job was to finish the oiling system. I got the 2nd manifold mounted and plumbed to the pump but then decided to wait until I got a couple of lengths of drag chain from china (proper cheap but it isn’t doing a lot!) to finish off the vertical saddle supply.

The manifold.

The pump.

The R/H Drag chain carrying the oil pipe to the vertical saddle. The brackets for this are angled outwards so everything clears the vertical limit switches. It’s hard to see but there is small ally bracket around half way up the drag chain for support.

And the L/H set up. Same again with the small support bracket.

All those little check valves seem to be working really well, I did have to remove 1 and clean it through but been fine ever since. all the lines stay full of oil and the whole system seems to be working really well.

I’m sure I’ll be tweaking the metering valves a little but they only just need to be cracked open for it to work well. Pleased with that.

 

Problems..? Yes. I’m going to have to lengthen and re route the rear table oil supply pipe as it is going to be in the way of fitting way covers. No biggie. The main problem I see is if I do decide to keep this mill then how am I going to fit DRO scales, the table oiling fittings are surely going to be in the way. will need to look at that a little closer.

Anyway, to the exciting bit..😲

[Taf_PembsParticipant @taf_pembs]

FIRST CHIPS!!!

Salt, vinegar and a dribble of curry sauce please 😬

As I’ve said before, it was trying to fly cut a piece of aluminium that started this whole mission yet despite turning the workshop upside down I can not find the piece that I tried to cut so sorry, no before and after pic.

It was a section of ally that was around 2″ x 3″ but no matter what I did the result was not even as flat as the Preseli Mountains – peaks and gouges all across it.

Anyway, I found the ground HSS cutter that I used originally, I did check that it was still sharp but didn’t want to regrind it (it wasn’t a particularly good grind it was just what was in the box with the cutter) as I wanted a direct comparison. I put it in the fly cutter that I used before and set to cutting a scrap piece of ally that I had laying around, slightly smaller but similar.

 

About the same depth of cut (about 0.25mm), but this time I sped up the feed (by hand unfortunately) as I literally just wanted a test cut to see the main cut and back cut to make sure things were going as they should.

Press the green button and start turning the wheel….

The result

The cutter clearly needs regrinding to a decent sharp point and the feed rate is (as said) way tooooo fast but the result is a whole world away from the result I originally had!

Both main and back cut clearly visible and the finish is seriously smooth – it took me ages to get the light on it just right to show the detail of the cut.

Phew!!!!!! Utter relief.

I have since done some roughing out on a big chunk of a wood splitting hammer head whittling it down to make a new clamp for my fixed steady for the lathe which has been good for sussing out the overall performance but more on that next.

Anyway, she lives!!! best I start using the thing now.

[StevePParticipant @stevepye68246]

Looks really good Taf. After such a lot of work, to get a great result can make your day!

Steve p

[Taf_PembsParticipant @taf_pembs]

To the conclusions..

The gear head is a world away from the grindy noisy thing that it was, it is now easy to shift, sooo much smoother and quieter but obviously being a straight cut gear head it is always going to be somewhat noisy. Happy enough with that. The motor however has something loose (not really looked yet) and depending on the cut and speed can make a noise akin to the chatter of a cut on an unsupported 10 inch stick out of an inch bar in a lathe! Frightened the life out of me at first. Could be the fan shroud.

Being able to tram the head relatively easily is great.

The simple fact that all the axis are really true to one another is hard to get excited about as that is how it should be but I’m allowing myself to have a celebratory pint over that one, it was a LOT of work.

The oiling system seems to be doing exactly what it is intended to do, everything is getting a nice dose of oil as it should but I’ll keep monitoring it as loosing supply to something would not be too pleasing after all this.

The base unit that is the original Chester unit is utterly useless. First made obvious then doing the first fly cut, it’s like the machine is sitting on a wobbly drum. It is about as rigid as a jelly. Probably going to me next mission, get some decent box section and build a proper solid heavy base.

Overall, everything is smooth. I have to admit I am very happy indeed.

 

Was it worth it??

No, Absolutely Not!

The time, effort and although not that significant, the cost of doing this to what is at the end of the day, a cheap chinese lump would have been much much better spent saving a little more and waiting to get something far superior in build quality and performance.

Am I glad I stuck with it?? Yes. I’ve learnt a shed load, but more importantly it has kept me sane while battling hospitals to get my self fixed and beck to proper work (not that the government has been any help despite giving them a huge amount of tax over my whole life – sorry, wrong forum!) but there may be some light at the end of the tunnel, I’ve got my ‘up to date’ MRI’s in about 2 weeks that they want prior to surgery’s.

Next?

A new base. Build a power feed. DRO. dam… I need an income to pay for this!

 

Anyway, Thank you to all who have supported and encouraged me throughout this, it has been greatly appreciated and to all that have followed it or shown an interest. I hope some folk may get some useful info out of it or better still come up with better ways of doing some / all of it!

I know before the forum platform changed you could see how many views a thread had received and it was mind blowing that so many folk (and some bots!) were looking in. Thank you.

Cheers All..!

Taf 🍻

 

 

 

[David George 1Participant @davidgeorge1]

Hi Taf Thanks for keeping on with this story. Great project to watch and how you get round problems and make such a useful machine. I hope you will keep us informed when you do if any further upgrades DRO or power feed etc. The power feed on my smaller mill was one of the best things i did.

Regards

David George

[Taf_Pembs]

On Taf_Pembs Said:
To the conclusions..

[…]
[…]

I know before the forum platform changed you could see how many views a thread had received and it was mind blowing that so many folk (and some bots!) were looking in. Thank you.

Cheers All..!

Taf 🍻

 

 

 

You are a Star, Taf

It’s been a magnificent piece of work, and a joy to follow.

I look forward to seeing what you have in mind for a stable base

… it deserves something serious.

MichaelG.

.

Edit: __ I would be tempted to start by looking here:

https://www.eliteprecast.co.uk/technical-drawings/

 

[David George 1Participant @davidgeorge1]

hI Taf.  Thanks for all your work on this mill and the way that you get over problems and show what is possible to improve a machine. Will keep on looking for new additions DRO or power feed etc. One thing I did on my mill was power feed to the Z axis which is invaluble when boring etc.

David George

[Author]

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