Millrite NVM getting the complete make over..

Saw this on CL and I knew I had no business going to look at it. But I did . The mill is a 68, dirty and grimy as holy hell. table has a couple drill spots not to bad, X axis is smooth threw all movement. Y is to full of shit.
Quill feels smooth no ruff markings. some play on screws but I have used worse. The Bad missing quil handle and knee handle. The appears to be factory power X is missing some parts. The quill does not have a power feed I am going to miss that. Even worse, I have not heard the machine run. I am going to have my left hand man come take a look at it tomorrow, OH DENNIS. PLEASE...


Goals are to turn it back to as new or better hopefully just needs some touch up scraping. I love wasting time and repairing junk, this this is a great project to add to my now mint Sheldon EM56 ( Rich u still have a extra power scraper) I can handle the paint work no prob. Any one here know why there is about .125 in of bondo all over the castings??





And cause every one always asks," how much you pay for it?"

I paid $650 with a collet set and a huge mill vise,( china made swivel base) I told the guy I friends with Rich King, and it was a done deal.

I watch Ebay quit a bit, and complete garbage goes from 1500 to 3500, that for over seas machines. Bridgeports are 2500 to 23,000 with a 3 axis CNC conversion.If it junk, one of you are welcome to purchse it!!

bmikkalson said:

Any one here know why there is about .125 in of bondo all over the castings?

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So to make it nice and shiny all over. I wet sanded mine down to the Bondo. Rather quick and turned out quite well.

Yep. It's called "casting finishing" and all quality manufacturers did it until WWII when the "War Finish" was required.

http:// [URL=http://s28.photobucket.com/user/bmikkalson/media/Mobile%20Uploads/IMAG0498.jpg.html][/URL]

Got some of the trim parts of today.washed them up in my friends hotzy machine,a must have.
http:// [URL=http://s28.photobucket.com/user/bmikkalson/media/Mobile%20Uploads/IMAG0499.jpg.html][/URL]

A bit more detail on the Hotzy machine if you dont mind?

Charles

Ben,

I hate to embarrass you but. It sucks you didn't read the email I forwarded you, would have saved you $649.00. My friend Peter told me about it in the email I sent to you and Daryl said $ 1.00 to haul it away. To everyone else my friend Peter emailed me and said he saw this machine on CL, went and looked at it. Here is a copy of the email:

"The owner wanted a drill press and somehow got this in a trade. Wants $1.00 for it.
> It is 3-phase and he does’t want to rewire his shop. Supposedly it ran when then current owner got it. He does mechanic work, but is not a machinist and wants it gone."
>
I emailed Ben and Daryl (Uglydog on here) but Ben seldom reads his emails also saw it on CL and and went up and bought it after reading....LOL. That will be a great project for you and Dennis...lol.... You would be money ahead to clean it up, paint it and sell it and buy a Rung Fo...lol...or a round arm Bridgeport....lol.... Oh I rent Scrapers now.... -) Love the pictures showing your shoes...LOL I got to get back to wrapping xmas presents....lol....Rich

All kidding aside...give me a call tomorrow and I'll come over with a scraper and some blades. but you can't sharpen them on your hand laps.

CBlair said:

A bit more detail on the Hotzy machine if you dont mind?

Charles

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Hi, a hotzy is like a huge dishwasher for greasy parts. Works amazing with no solvents. I putzed around cleaning my vise in a parts washer with solvent. No compare.

Richard King said:

All kidding aside...give me a call tomorrow and I'll come over with a scraper and some blades. but you can't sharpen them on your hand laps.

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Hey, rich I fell in love with the mill. Now I have to make it super special. Hahaha. I'm restoring a long lost child hood dream, so money is no issue.haha Yes please I would love to borrow a power scraper as my straight edge is just about done at my friends. He cut the surface on a rotary broach using a cbn tool. Says he has the surface at 15ra.
I am thinking of having the mill table cut also.
You should see the cross slide Dennis has helped me with. I pat my self on the back every time I look at it. B-)

Cross slide that Dennis D has been giving me scraping 101 class on. I've also learned about cigars.haha

Looks high in the middle, do that on purpose? ...how does it hinge? Let me know when I can come and check it out...

Richard King said:

Looks high in the middle, do that on purpose? ...how does it hinge? Let me know when I can come and check it out...

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It's usually high on the ends and wore out in the middle!

It's perfect in every way.

http:// [URL=http://s28.photobucket.com/user/bmikkalson/media/Mobile%20Uploads/IMAG0529.jpg.html][/URL]

Thought I'd make it look new. The original manufacturer spent a lot of time smoothing the castings. Nothing fancy on the paint, went cheap with oil base. Going to repack 4 of the bearings but replace the big spindle bearing.

Please be specific, what kind of oil based paint, what prep did you do what products for filler. How did they work, would you recommend using them again or was something more of a pain than you thought.

These are the kind of things you need to be including in your posts. Remember to read the stickys at the top of the forum. It specifically mentions that these posts are expected to have educational value. Not just here is my pretty paint job.... I am not trying to jump on your back but I want the posts in this subforum to be useful to others in the future as well as now. Please make an effort when you are composing your post to include some useful details that you think another person would want to know or ask.

I think you have a great looking machine there and I cant wait to see how it all comes together for you. But please try to remember some of my suggestions. Like I said I am not jumping on your back, even though it may feel like it, I just want to see more useful content if you dont mind sharing.

Charles

I guess i dint think any one would care about cosmetics.
But, I have about 12 hours into stripping it down cleaning and mudding. By mud I used Bondi,plastic filler,etc. As I noted earlier, the factory spent a good deal of time smoothing the castings.

I painted with some cheap oil base. On my lathe I spent $$ on some Sherwin William. To me it did not hold up.cutting oil chewed it up.
I can say this is a lot of work. Probally too much for a 2k mill. I haven't even got to the scraping and alignment part.

Ben it would appear that you painted over the original paint? Did you do any prep other than the Hotzy or what? What kind of plastic filler did you end up using? I am not sure how many different types there are available now. What grit paper did you end up stopping at before you painted and was that good enough or would you recommend using a finer grit or did you go too far and feel you could have stopped sooner?

These are examples, think about the kind of questions people would want to ask or might want to know and try to put down something about the process. I hope you are getting the sort of thing I am trying to coax out of you? Cash had a very nice short posting about painting one of his grinders. It was short and sweet but it had good useful content about the products and procedures he used. You have said almost nothing except I bought cheap paint and here it is painted.

You have a nice project going here, I would like you to try and think about how your thread will add to the collective knowledge on this forum. How will someone else wanting to do the same think about what you have posted? Will they walk away informed? Of course you are not a journalist but I feel you can do better. Also this is a good example for others to learn from and follow in the future.

Yes getting a good paint job is a lot of work but it is only worth it if our final results are better than what you started with. Otherwise it is a waste of time. The old paint although dirty and probably missing in a few places has survived many years of use. How effective do you think your efforts will be in the future?

Charles

I'm not much of a writer, but I can give it a crack.

bmikkalson said:

I'm not much of a writer, but I can give it a crack.

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Fair enough Ben, I just want people to think about the quality of what they post when posting projects. We are not just here to have other people tell us how good we are...or are we? But to share useful information, you have gotten a lot of help from others both here and in person so give back a bit and try to contribute something useful. The description of the use of the Hotzy machine is good, I am sure others have thought about whether or not that machine would work on machine tool components.

Charles

Still hacking away on the mill, learning lots from a old giant :-). Darrell has been helping too, Darrell what's your screen name? New aluminum scraper has been smooth.