You can always lean against the column to get that .0005" out if you need to. No joke you can probably push it that much. I would ditch the spacer tubes. It might make the machine nice now but when the spindle is at the top of the column it is well over your head. When doing large part work you are going to have the thing way up there and be hunting a ladder to take full advantage of the travels the machine has. Also those square tubes will certainly be flexy and could possibly make the machine more prone to vibration and chatter. You want it nice and dampened solid not sitting on bells. i am very glad I put my machine in the pit and took it off the stands they had. It would have been way too tall most of the time like they had it. Hot chips are much more pleasant thrown at your waist than on your head and down your shirt collar!

Keith, you are looking like you are feeling much better. Well Done! 👏👏👏

The turcite needs to come out flush to the ends of the saddle to prevent debris from getting under the edges and lifting. I've seen that happen to a lot of applications of turcite and rulon in the field.

When you're done that machine is going to be "dialed in" better than it was when new! 😁

Flex in a heavy casting always surprises me. A relative told stories of installing a massive cast iron press on a poured concrete base. 6 forklifts (8 in later retelling) with support beams moving very slowly. And then the mounting holes did not fit over the studs embedded in the concrete. Realized it was because the press was flexing. Wound up making minute adjustments with jacks to get everything lined up. Quite a story as he told it. Thanks for the video.

For future reference, wax paper or clear packing tape works much better than the food wrap cellophane.

I really hope I'm not off base, here, but the thing I like the most about the series on the HBM is that Keith seems to have said "I'm going to take the time to get this really right!" And he seems to be having fun doing that. Often he seems so busy with so many projects that he doesn't have the luxury to slow down and really dial in the details, the way he can when given the opportunity! I'm just pleased as punch, and can't wait to see... no, hear! this machine in action.

Hiya Keith

Great review of how to scrape Turcite.

Thanks for sharing

Very clear explanation and nice results from the effort. I feel that the Machines that You have restored and/ or fine tuned have gained some extra worth for anyone who knows your Good Name in the Industry Keith. Thanks for this series. This is part of my required "reading".

"Just gonna have to get in here and work on it." Great show.

Awesome video Keith! Interesting to see the turcite process and especially the troubles of it - and what you did about them. Made a lot of sense and liked your measuring and adjusting techniques.

Worn to perfection , what a concept , cool .

Good Morning Georgia!📐⚙️👍

Great video. Been watching this restoration for some time now. Looking forward to completion

Nothing will ever wobble on a tripod - Three is the magic number! That turcite must be similar to teflon with it's slipperyness - interesting that you do have to "scratch" rather than scrape, much more control on material removal - and I suppose using the power scraper is out of bounds! Thank you for sharing, Keith, take care you 'n' all from Cambridgeshire in the UK!

Great video

Can't wait to see it working.

Nice job, a lot of work and every step has the potential to add more to get to the final product. Thanks for sharing.

Really lovely work Keith.

Thanks for sharing 👍

You made a grand job of affixing the turcite to the beds Keith....😄

Nicely done

Great video Keith, keep'um coming..

Retired manufacturing engineer here, worked with mostly horizontal machining centers and gantry type vertical machining centers. Old school, like this boring mill, says more mass is better, and three point set is preferred. However, in my experience, recent modern machine tool design has opted for lighter, steel weldments, outfitted with linear bearing ways, bolted to massive steel reinforced concrete foundations, brutally twisted and cajoled in to alignment by multiple anchor bolts and adjustment shim blocks. I have seen some long bed machines under so much tension, that if an anchor bolt snapped, the machine would probably jump at least an inch into the air. P.S. One time, the torque required to get the last three tenths, OMG! Naturally, these would have to be re-checked and re-aligned about every six months, regardless of the mass of the foundations. Un-aged steel weldments, stressed to extremes, are notoriously unstable.

looks great

Man that came out nice!

real precision keith!

Damn boy. Looking trim!

Scraper is louder than speech Keith.

They make some good release agents that I find work better when dealing with epoxy

Nice!! 🙂

Seeing the feet, you added and the height it raised the machine brings to mind a question I have had many times over the years and that is why is so much of the old equipment built to an uncomfortably low level. I have seen and used many old machines that would be more comfortable to operate it they were just a few inches higher. I had a hundred-year-old lathe at my last business when I closed that was 36 in swing 17-foot bed, worn out and fun as hell to use because it was the boss you just had to make your peace with it as there was no forcing it to do anything it didn't want to do. But the bed height was mid-thigh and would kill you back stooping over to operate for very long.

I'd use washing up liquid (Fairy in the UK) neat as a release agent before putting the epoxy on. Just a thin layer spread around with a finger where you don't want the epoxy to stick. It will make it a lot easier to get it off later, used with the cling film it should do a really good job.

My OCD would have forced my to redo the turcite. I wouldn’t sleep right☺️

"You look Marvelous" 25 years younger!

you scrape Turcite or Ruelon 100% different than cast iron or even bronze. You (first of all) use a hooked scraper and remove the material by pulling the scraper backwards. You just break up the bigger dots and then stone it with a India stone that is wet with mineral spirits or even spindle oil. A regular scraper will dig into the Turcite, and cause you a ton of grief. The stone is the rick here. Must be a clean new one, (I prefer the India slip stone and bought them by the case). When you start out, use a pink stone cut out of a thread grinding wheel. I then will go to the India stone as the pattern starts to develop. If you just have to use Turcite, remember it's only as good as the glue you put it down with. Turcite recommends Shambam (that name is real), but I found that Hardemans has a better glue. Coolants will eat up Shambam, but won't touch the other. It's a good idea to go with a double thickness and then mill it down to within .010". Turcite also grinds very well, and some machine tool folks go that route. Lastly Turcite with a thickness under .045" is not going to last very long (even .060" is not too good). Ruelon will out last Turcite three or four to one, but Moglice is the better way to go 100% of the time

Better to use wax paper- not plastic wrap. You'll find alot easier cleanup next time.

keith, you have not checked the spindle for square, vertically and side to side,, you have checked the column, but not the same!!! if the spindle is not true, you could be boring holes with the spindle, and they would not be necessarily parallel, and/or square to the table, you will probably do most of your boring with the saddle, but sometimes you have to bore precision holes with the spindle, if you know the spindle is out very much, if you know how much, you can shim the part and indicate part true to the spindle and shim accordingly, it is good to know for future reference, a horizontal is one of the most difficult to get true because of so many axises, great videos, it is hard work and very time consuming!!

How you doing since your surgery good I hope

Thank you for the video. What scraper are you using? where could I purchase one? I plan to use professionally for turcite. Thanks if you get a chance to respond!

Quick question. When you scrape cast iron you hit it with the flat stones to remove the burs raised by the scrapping. I know that the turcite probably doesn’t have the hard burs but it did look like it left something similar when scrapped, call it fuzz? What’s the process at the end of a scrapping pass to remove the fuzz or any raised high spots. Just curious.

The turcite is not what I expected. I was thinking of something more squishy. Now I see how rigid it is.

👍

Keith, Once you have the machine level have you ever considered Philadelphia (Philly Orange) Orange Resin to provide a more continuous foundation? Philly Orange provides significantly better support than the leveling pads. Bob

Keith, you have lost a ton of weight! 👌

Did the lead screw alignment work out as you had hoped with the added Turcite?

Keith...does the turkite being recessed under the casting allow metal chips to more easily get caught and then scrape or damage the ways? I don't see any kind of way wiper to help prevent this. Maybe some 3d printed way wipers could be made...I would even do the print work for you if interested

Just want to suggest wax paper next time instead of plastic wrap. I find it works better.

Just curious. What is the thickness of the oil film, when the machine is in operation? I guess it must be less than a few ten thousandths, otherwise it would be part of the scraping equation. ... Your videos are the best.

Only we old timers likely know what "dead nuts" means :)

Hello Keith! You are losing weight! Look great!

You should have used release tape made for epoxy. It would have taken 2 minutes to get the epoxy away.

I’m wondering if there’s any point in scraping the part before applying the turcite since variations in the thickness of the epoxy may well exceed any variation due to wear.

Why would you not want to achieve something like a 20 points per inch for the Turcite the same as for CI with some oils grooves or half moon flaking for oil retention? About to scrape my Turcite and can’t find any information about the desired finish surface.

Which material is use in matching

Keith. Can you give a more detailed explanation if what turcite is? I thought it was some kind of plastic but not if you can scrape it

Outstanding work sir .

😛😛😛❤❤👍👍👍👍👍

I can’t remember, did you check the tram of the spindle

almost first

What level of precision is actually required for the work that you do ? The machine maintenance team where I worked certified the machines to a level of precision. Some were 25 microns (about a thou) and only one was 0.25 microns (about one hundred thousandths ). It took about half a day for most machines but up to a week for the extreme precision machine and time was indeed money. There was no point calibrating every machine to the ‘n’th degree when all but a few jobs were +- 0.1mm and most of the machinists would struggle to work to +- 1 micron or better as they never needed to. I appreciate that you are getting it as good as you can but what is the trade off with time?

When it comes to epoxy just enough is what all you want. More as seen here creates problems.