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Acier F5 Vertical Table in Use

rklopp

Diamond
Joined
Feb 27, 2001
Location
Redwood City, CA USA
I have the vertical table accessory that fits my F4 and F5. I have rarely used it, but recently had a good opportunity when boring the cylinder on a 1/2-scale Olds hit-and-miss engine. The neat things about the table are that its mounting is highly repeatable and its top edge is parallel to the machine's X travel. This means that work can be mounted on the table sitting flat on a bench while using the top edge as a reference. The pictures tell the story.
IMG_4115.jpgIMG_4116.jpgIMG_4118.jpgIMG_4165.jpgIMG_4176.jpg
 
Very jealous. Making some.kind of vertical table is on my todo list. Thanks for the motivation.

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Yeah being where I am out in the boonies its easier to just get a local foundry to cast a block and just machine it. If I had a job that needed the low table I would spring for getting the real deal though. Maybe one day.

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Hi Rich,

The pictures tell the story.

I can't see your pictures as well as I would like, because they are so small. For a while, I had the same problem with the pictures that I uploaded here, but I was eventually told how to solve it. Here is an example. This is the "raw" picture jpeg file, which is 1.9MB:

attachment.php


If I first reduce the size of the file (exporting it on my mac as a reduced quality jpeg of 0.5MB) BEFORE uploading it to PM:

attachment.php


Bottom line: before you upload a photo to PM, reduce the quality/file size to about 500kB. Paradoxically, that makes it larger and easier to see here.

Cheers,
Bruce

PS: photo shows the spacer block for a Deckel 6017 rotary table. When I bought this, I discovered that the casting had never been finished machined. The T-slots were about 11.7mm wide. Here I am widening them to 12mm.
 
Love you for doing that. Now you can attach tools directly to the spindle and go horizontally for all it’s worth. In today’s VM craze this soothes my soul. Frankly, I hate long Y axis milling machine tables (my back) and I despise to mill lots. Total misunderstanding of manufacturing by all those who do not prepare cast blanks that need much less hogging off. Some Aciera, Schäublin, and Sixis milling machines have cast steel main frames. That’s high tech.
 
IMG_4115.jpgIMG_4116.jpgIMG_4118.jpgIMG_4165.jpgIMG_4176.jpg
15854cfbda5c9915dc73b3710b592ed9.jpg



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk. Maybe posting vis Tapatalk is better. It’s easier because the photos are on the phone anyway.
 
Last edited:
Rich, if you want the images to show up big, just change the filenames. I.e. if the filename ends .jpeg it will show up small, but if it ends .jpg it will be large. This is all due to a config file that is part of the BBS software in use.
 
I used Dave's instruction to change jpeg to jpg in post #11, and it worked. I would never have guessed. How did he know that? :willy_nilly:

The usual answer. "It's PM, dammit!"

EG: Somebody who knew something told the rest of we chik'ns.

Damned good job we ain't a pack of thugee thieves.

Habitually ratting out the secrets of the tribe could land the lot of us in jail.

:D
 
Rich:
Was there a reason you did not just use the Horizontal with the standard table?

Cheers Ross

This shot, from his first post, was the actual part that triggered the use.

https://www.practicalmachinist.com/...3683-acier-f5-vertical-table-use-img_4118.jpg

It illustrates the challenge of not enough travel to even get a useful setup when arranged horizontally.

Even if the swept area of the bore might not need anyhere near as much travel, one has to be able to get tooling "into it" past the "approach barriers".

Not the ONLY way.

Just a workable one made easier by a table option few of the rest of us with "conventional mills" have any handy counterpart to.

Surely "we have our ways..." but they can be a tad "awkward"?
 
Ross

I looked at horizontal boring, but it presented problems. I first looked at using the overarm to support the outer end of the boring bar. Due to work features in the way, the bare length of boring bar would have needed to be nearly double the length of the whole engine, and my overarm, long as it is, would still have been too short. Even using a cantilevered bar like I did, the work would have had to overhand the front of the tilting table in order to be able to back the boring bar out of the hole. I don't have those fancy T-slotted parallels like you can borrow from your Berco to support overhung work. I suppose I could have used the big fixed table that I have, but it has a bit of droop* and is a hassle to install.

The vertical method worked a treat, as you see. The Z travel is long and gave plenty of clearance to back the bar out of the hole to take a measurement. The method also had the advantage of allowing the chips to just fall out of the hole, so no issues with chip clearance.

Rich

*Not that droop would matter much. Unless I shimmed the base, it would result in a tiny amount of "desaxe," or the cylinder axis not quite parallel to the base bottom. I am using the base bottom as a reference surface, and even scraped it to good bearing before I started machining.

Rich:
Was there a reason you did not just use the Horizontal with the standard table?

Cheers Ross
 
Ross

I looked at horizontal boring, but it presented problems. I first looked at using the overarm to support the outer end of the boring bar. Due to work features in the way, the bare length of boring bar would have needed to be nearly double the length of the whole engine, and my overarm, long as it is, would still have been too short. Even using a cantilevered bar like I did, the work would have had to overhand the front of the tilting table in order to be able to back the boring bar out of the hole. I don't have those fancy T-slotted parallels like you can borrow from your Berco to support overhung work. I suppose I could have used the big fixed table that I have, but it has a bit of droop* and is a hassle to install.

The vertical method worked a treat, as you see. The Z travel is long and gave plenty of clearance to back the bar out of the hole to take a measurement. The method also had the advantage of allowing the chips to just fall out of the hole, so no issues with chip clearance.

Rich

*Not that droop would matter much. Unless I shimmed the base, it would result in a tiny amount of "desaxe," or the cylinder axis not quite parallel to the base bottom. I am using the base bottom as a reference surface, and even scraped it to good bearing before I started machining.

+1 Your overall results are probably BETTER than factory-new!

I cannot as easily "get there from here" even on the Quartet H & V combo mill with the K&T all-angle head on the Horizontal spindle.

It has roughly twice the mass of a BirdPort, (5205 Avoir) has seriously stouter build all-over, but.. but.. but ... has a tad LESS traverse, each axis, than the Bee Pee ...in keeping with that extra rigidity, wider support basis, for stiffer working and high resistance to wear or table sag.

I'm au fait with that compromise, but still..

TANSTAAFL
 
+1 Your overall results are probably BETTER than factory-new!

That kind of goes without saying for hit-and-miss engines from the 1900-1915 era. A lot of them were cheaply and crudely built. The Olds (Seager-Olds) 1-1/2 HP apparently was a last-gasp effort to stay in business. The fact that the base, cylinder, and hopper were all one piece, and the main bearing splits are aligned in the direction of loading instead of ninety degrees to it, suggests cheapness. Similar Associated brand engines apparently were shipped from Iowa to England by the shipload. The English viewed them similar to the way we might view a lawnmower engine made in India today.
 








 
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