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New to me Bridgeport introduction

SimoH

Plastic
Joined
Aug 28, 2021
Hi. My name is Lee and I just picked up a new to me Bridgeport. I live in northern WI and they're a little hard to come by locally. It's a tracer mill with manual controls. I've never run or owned a mill before but I want to get some experience and this one seemed cheap enough that I could afford to learn on it. It seems in decent shape. Runs quiet etc and came with a dro and a VFD. Clearly, being a tracer mill I'll be a little limited as far as nodding the head and swivel, but I figure I can buy a nicer one once I learn the basics on this one.

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I do have a couple questions for those here who are more knowledgeable (everyone). The machine is a little dirty, shavings and general yuck accumulated over the last how many years. I'm gonna clean it up before I run it here. What kind of lubricant should I use in the giant dovetail where the arm/head mounts to the body of the mill?

It also came with all the tracer hydraulics and whatnot. I am thinking those are probably worthless nowadays. Am I correct in that assumption? The guy I bought it from was buying a real CNC and I think he considered running stepper motors to control the mill using the tracer wheels/belts but I'm guessing that was more trouble than it was worth.

Anyway, thanks for reading and if anyone has any advice for me I'd appreciate it. For now I'm gonna get cleaning and hopefully get this thing set up sometime this week. I'm sure I'll have more questions in the future.
 
Last edited:
I tried to add photos but they don't seem to have uploaded. I'll try to fix that shortly.
 








 
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