Mill Vertical Rack Securing.

Arnak · May 23, 2011

Hi Folks,

Just a quick tip for those who have mills with a round column like the Warco Major Mill.

It can be a problem when raising or lowering the mill head to stop the head from swivelling around the column I used 2 cap head bolts to secure the rack to the column, as per the picture, one at the top and one at the bottom.

Unfortunately as the rack and head fit is a bit sloppy it does not mean you can raise or lower the head and maintain the correct position but it does stop the head swivelling quite so much.

To swing the head in the normal way just take out the 2 cap screws.

I just noticed that the pic is upside down... :-[

Arnak

Omnimill · May 25, 2011

Would it be possible to fit some kind of brass shim to take out the slop?

Vic.

gbritnell · May 25, 2011

There's a thread going on another forum about issues with the round column mill. Even if you used the rack as an alignment guide and had the clearance down to .001 the thickness of the rack gear is about .50 but the distance from the column to the centerline of the spindle is about 10 inches so you would have to multiply the .001 times 20 which still isn't close enough for precision work when moving the head up and down.
gbritnell

Arnak · May 25, 2011

Hi,

Yes that is true, even with the rack secured there is still a couple of inches swing from side to side when raising or lowering the head.

However it does stop the violent head swinging when raising or lowering which I found to be a pain.

Just a thought but I suspect the only real cure is to bolt a hardened steel strip down the opposite side of the column with that inset into a very precise groove in the head?

That is if there is room in the casting to do that?

Arnak

techonehundred · May 25, 2011

Its interresting, this discussion is going on also in the Homeshopmachinist forum. He has a little different way of doing it. Here is the link. http://bbs.homeshopmachinist.net/showthread.php?t=48144