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Table resurface

Tool maker

Plastic
Joined
Jan 5, 2008
Location
North Carolina
My BPT table needs to be resurfaced. Anyone know if I can just pull it off and put it on a large surface grinder and go to town. Its a 9 by 42 table. It appears as if the previous owner resurfaced it with a large fly cutter. Yes lots of tool marks on the table. And one nice spot where a end mill drifted down a little far. Thanks.
Tool Maker
 
that should do it, although you may consider shimming the back of the table .001 to raise it up during grinding to compensate for any droop at the knee under cutting pressure.
 
I asked this question as a newbie a while back... and almost got shot for it :)

The way it was explained to me...

The table is likely drooping at boths ends - mine is, a lot. Planing/grinding the top will potentially make the table worse, and not do much other than cosmetics unless the bottom ways and dovetails are also done... and then hand scraped to fit. Oh, you likely need to do the saddle as well!

Put straight edge on your table and see how badly it is bent...



Here's the thread where I asked the question:


http://www.practicalmachinist.com/vb/showthread.php?t=117235
 
Lakeside, thanks for the post and info. I to just bought a machine and I was thinking every thought posted ! You answered alot of questions for me , thanks, Mark
 
Scrape,grind or plane the table top straight, then lay table, up side down, on a surface plate larger than the table. Scrape the flat ways parallel to table top. Scrape positive dove tail,of the table ,parallel to the key slots in the table. Make gib side dove tail way paralle to positive side.

John Fahnestock
J&L Scraping Service Inc
www.j-lscraping.com
 
Table

Thanks to everyone for all the great info. It looks like I may just leave it alone untill I can send it all out to be rescraped. I dont have any kind of precision straight edge to check the sag with. Thanks again.
TM
 
Scrape,grind or plane the table top straight, then lay table, up side down, on a surface plate larger than the table. Scrape the flat ways parallel to table top. Scrape positive dove tail,of the table ,parallel to the key slots in the table. Make gib side dove tail way paralle to positive side.

John Fahnestock
J&L Scraping Service Inc
www.j-lscraping.com

So John.. assuming it did want to do this (sadly, I do...), and assumping I'm detail oriented and skilled (will develop..) enough to pull it off, have the tools, and adding in the learing curve, how many man hours (over months) do you think it would take? Seriously...
 
Thanks to everyone for all the great info. It looks like I may just leave it alone untill I can send it all out to be rescraped. I dont have any kind of precision straight edge to check the sag with. Thanks again.
TM

A really good scraping straight edge is really expensive... Like $1000-1200. I just got one on ebay for less then $400 to my door (freight sucks East to West coast ) - from a guy that bought everything to do his own BP. Then there's scrapers - 70-120 each.. surface plates plates - I don't have one that big.... jigs, other tools, etc etc... sending it out (but here is Nobody local to me..) suddenly seems like a good idea!
 
So John.. assuming it did want to do this (sadly, I do...), and assumping I'm detail oriented and skilled (will develop..) enough to pull it off, have the tools, and adding in the learing curve, how many man hours (over months) do you think it would take? Seriously...

I can not even guess how long it would take YOU to rescrape your Bridgeport table.It too years before my dad would let me work on somthing like that.

JOHN FAHNESTOCK
J&L Scraping Service Inc
 
ha! I have a dad like that... But it's my metal so I'll learn on it (o.k., I'll do something less ambitions first.... ). I'm figuring ing the best part of my spare time for a year, but...

O.k.... so.. how long does a typical worn out BP take you (or your Dad) to grind/scrape/fit.
 
Just scraping time. i plan around 60 hrs to scrape a Bridgeport. Table size matters, longer tables take longer than short ones. Then there is still assambly, disassembly, cleaning, machining time,and answering the phone.....
John Fahnestock
J&L Scraping Service Inc
 








 
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