Some basic X2 mods and first time use

[compressor man]

Yeah yeah I know, another X2 mod post. Well I never get tired of reading them!! Got my mill about a month ago and exercised almost supernatural patience by first disassembling the thing into about a million pieces and cleaning out all of the red shipping gunk. While it was apart I lapped all of the ways and gibs up to 400 grit and then polished them with metal polish finally ending up with some really smooth x,y, and z movement. I also chose to paint the back and sides of the column to avoid any potential rust issues. I filled the base with an epoxy/sand/granite mixture. I know that anyone who has one of these little mills knows there is not a great deal of base to fill but it was fun to do anyway. I also built the requisite brace to the column/base joint. My design for it was based largely on the good ideas shown here (thanks guys) but I chose to use some channel rather than a very thick piece of flat which is what I have usually seen.

Here also is the first ever time the mill has been used. I am flattening the top of my little RR anvil. Maybe it is not a real anvil but I love it for my needs. I dont plan to shoe any horses or build any swords with it!!

 

[GOOFY063]

i like the brace set up, more mods for me ;D ;

 

[black85vette]

Brace looks good to me. I like the bolts at the bottom. Good job! Thm:

 

[Bill S]

Nice job on the brace Chris and welcome to the X2 club. Of course you know you won't be able to stop with just a brace, thats just the start. As soon as you start making things the need for all sorts of mods will come up, belt drive, dro's, I bet you already wish you had a power feed when you were milling your anvil. You're hooked now my friend.

Cheers
Bill

 

[black85vette]

I bet you already wish you had a power feed when you were milling your anvil. Bill

Yes, you will really like a power feed. Wonderful for making those long cuts the entire length of the table on multiple passes. Thm: Come to think of it DROs are pretty cool too.

 

[compressor man]

I bet you already wish you had a power feed when you were milling your anvil. Bill

Whew, I really did some cranking on that very long (relative of course!) anvil. Not sure if many of you have had a close look at a piece of RR iron but it has quite a crown to it. I got most of it off but never really did get down to having nice square corners on the 2 long edges. That would have meant quite a lot more material removal. Yes, a power feed, a DRO, a belt drive, a etc, etc, etc would be great, I mean really great but...I had to buy a new central heat/ac unit last week After writing a check for over $5k, I am afraid that my hobby funds have taken a fairly drastic blow.

 

[black85vette]

After writing a check for over $5k, I am afraid that my hobby funds have taken a fairly drastic blow.

You are not supposed to use hobby funds for something practical!!! Seriously, I know things like that pop up. Sorry to hear an expensive one snuck up and bit you. Same one found me a couple of years ago. Good news is that it may be the LAST heat and air unit I buy!! Funny how "lifetime" warranty does not impress me the same way it used to.

 

[MakMov]

Just cleaning it up and making sure everything is tight helps a lot.

I just got an X1 and it was horrible, but nothing was tight enough. I took it apart and cleaned everything, polished the gibs, greased it and put it all back together. It was better, but still had issues.

I took the column off and took apart the base where it turns for the head angle and found a number of problems there.

1. It was all full of swarf, probably from the originally machining.
2. Nothing was tight. The 4 bolts holding down the plate were all loose.
3. the pins were also not tight.


I green loctited the pins, cleaned it all up, put it all back together and was able to do a series of 1 mm wide steps 2mm deep without any measurable diviation across a 1.5 in block.

It's been a night and day difference just by tightening and cleaning the swivel base.

If you really really jerk on the head hard I can get a .002 deflection at the tooling. However, under general use of the machine there seems to have no defection detected with a DTI.

Otherwise, I have been pretty happy with it so far once I got it tuned up.

The X2, I see has the same system and could have the same problems.