Cross slide lubrication

Hi,

I´m trying to figure out how to arrange lubrication to all the surfaces, the crosslide is giving me some extra headache.

There are oil holes from top and oil grooves in the moving part. But I´m not keen on routing tubes on top of it, want it free for tooling etc.

Would it be ok to go up through the sadle and pump the oil up into the grooves? The grooves are of course zig-zag type and rather deep so would need to have an "oiling position" for the moving part.

Will grit accumulate in the oil pipe? Or am I overthinking complicating? Am I missing something else?

Cheers
H

Sure you can. Many machines do it that way. They have a Bijur gear pump in the bottom of the carriage and when the machine is running it gives the machine a pump. Monarch EE, Leblonde Regal (and some others who I can't remember now. LOL) do it that way. I have also seen where people mount a one shot lube pump mounted on the right side of the carriage and run copper tube. Another one is a Hardinge Lathe.
Look at those machines online and see if you can get some idea's. Rich

Thanks Richard!

Will most likely be a manual one shot

I found this one. The manifold for the meter units are under the saddle between the ways.
http://www.practicalmachinist.com/v...g-upgrades-has-task-gotten-any-better-314397/
and this one.
http://www.practicalmachinist.com/vb/monarch-lathes/10ee-saddle-oil-metering-units-159569/

They drill holes with a pulley drill (Long Drill) and then drill down through the ways inside the oil grooves. Then they drill plug the ends of the drill holes that are not feed lines with a 1/8 set screw pipe thread. Be sure to take a lot of pictures and show us :-) Rich

Lumberjack said:

Will grit accumulate in the oil pipe?

Click to expand...

We surely find a lot of it packed in there,yes. Hard to guess at how rapidly it accumulated because the lathes involved may easily be 50 and 75 years old, and nothing is known except from what is in our face now, if it ever even once got a proper flush and refill, per the book.

Crud has accumulated in the INPUT side of Bijur metering units and blocked them as well. That indicates both that the apron sump was not kept clean, either, and also that at some point clean oil had ceased flowing to the cross and other points as might have still flushed at least the cross slide's oil passages and the ways they were meant to lubricate.

For your use? So long as last act of a shift is to clean the lathe and pump clean oil up, there shouldn't be enough crud to settle back into the line, even if it sits for a year.

Leaving it dirty at end of shift for a next-run pre-start cleanup would give the entire idle period - potentially weeks, not hours - for "whatever" has dirtied the lube time to drain-back and form a sediment layer.

IOW - BCP as SOP = no real problem. Operational "good habits" vs bad ones issue, not a technical issue.