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Scraping long double V-ways

ArdanWildan

Plastic
Joined
Feb 5, 2021
Hi, it's my first post here in this forum. I'm from Indonesia and planning to start machine reconditioning business here in Indonesia. I would like to ask some questions regarding reconditioning big machine with long ways, in my case plano milling machine (I'm not sure what it should be called here) because I couldn't find any thread discussing about what I'm going to ask.

There is an ad selling this plano milling machine for very affordable price (I attached the pictures from the ad but I need to blur the watermark of the company). I'm planning to buy it and convert this machine into surface grinder to grind lathe's bed. The problem is that this machine might need to be reconditioned itself. One part that looks bad is the bed. I'm concerned that it might need to be re-grinded or re-scraped to make it flat. But the option to re-grind it seems to be imposible to do it here.

The T-slot bed's length is 3 meters, and the v ways are 5 meters.

So my questions are, is it possible to manually scrap the long v ways? Do I need 5 meters straight edge to scrap it? Is it doable? Where to start to tackle this? Any suggestions are welcome. Thanks.

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Hi, it's my first post here in this forum. I'm from Indonesia and planning to start machine reconditioning business here in Indonesia. I would like to ask some questions regarding reconditioning big machine with long ways, in my case plano milling machine (I'm not sure what it should be called here) because I couldn't find any thread discussing about what I'm going to ask.

There is an ad selling this plano milling machine for very affordable price (I attached the pictures from the ad but I need to blur the watermark of the company). I'm planning to buy it and convert this machine into surface grinder to grind lathe's bed. The problem is that this machine might need to be reconditioned itself. One part that looks bad is the bed. I'm concerned that it might need to be re-grinded or re-scraped to make it flat. But the option to re-grind it seems to be imposible to do it here.

The T-slot bed's length is 3 meters, and the v ways are 5 meters.

So my questions are, is it possible to manually scrap the long v ways? Do I need 5 meters straight edge to scrap it? Is it doable? Where to start to tackle this? Any suggestions are welcome. Thanks.

View attachment 312783View attachment 312784

When you say the bed " looks bad " what exactly do you mean ? I presume you mean the ways. Have they fired up due to lubrication starvation ? A few photo's of how " bad " it is would help. What you think " bad " looks like and what I think " bad " looks like might be two separate issues. If there are enough holding down bolts and jacking screws you can usually correct a worn bed to a certain extent. Worn ways on the table are another story. I've converted a few planers and plano-mills into grinding machines in the past and just one of the things you need to consider is providing a supply of coolant and dealing with it on the table. You don't want a tidal wave of coolant splashing onto the ways when the table reverses direction for instance.

Are the two outer slots tee slots or just coolant run off slots ?

If I was setting up a company to grind lathe beds I would have thought a 3 metre capacity was a bit limiting.

Regards Tyrone.
 
When you say the bed " looks bad " what exactly do you mean ? I presume you mean the ways. Have they fired up due to lubrication starvation ? A few photo's of how " bad " it is would help. What you think " bad " looks like and what I think " bad " looks like might be two separate issues. If there are enough holding down bolts and jacking screws you can usually correct a worn bed to a certain extent. Worn ways on the table are another story. I've converted a few planers and plano-mills into grinding machines in the past and just one of the things you need to consider is providing a supply of coolant and dealing with it on the table. You don't want a tidal wave of coolant splashing onto the ways when the table reverses direction for instance.

Are the two outer slots tee slots or just coolant run off slots ?

Yes I mean the ways. It looks rusty. To be honest I haven't checked the machine in person. The reason I asked the question is to make sure that if I buy this machine and turns out it has bad enough ways, whether there is any possibility I can recondition the ways without grinding it (but only by manual scraping).

Do you have any suggestion if the ways need to be manually scraped?

I haven't think about the coolant at the moment, but the best I could think of is to add enclosure to contain the coolant.

If I was setting up a company to grind lathe beds I would have thought a 3 metre capacity was a bit limiting.

Regards Tyrone.

I agree it might be to small but right now I'm targeting small to medium sized lathe to start with.

I really appreciate your reply Tyrone, thanks for your input.

Regards Ardan
 
When you say the bed " looks bad " what exactly do you mean ? I presume you mean the ways. Have they fired up due to lubrication starvation ? A few photo's of how " bad " it is would help. What you think " bad " looks like and what I think " bad " looks like might be two separate issues. If there are enough holding down bolts and jacking screws you can usually correct a worn bed to a certain extent. Worn ways on the table are another story. I've converted a few planers and plano-mills into grinding machines in the past and just one of the things you need to consider is providing a supply of coolant and dealing with it on the table. You don't want a tidal wave of coolant splashing onto the ways when the table reverses direction for instance.

Are the two outer slots tee slots or just coolant run off slots ?

Yes I mean the ways. To be honest I haven't come to look the machine in person. But the reason I asked the question was to make sure that if the ways need to be reconditioned after I buy it, I can do it without grinding it in bigger machine (but only by using manual scraping or other way that I couldn't think of).

Do you have any suggestion if it needs to be scraped manually?

I haven't think about the coolant systems at the moment, but the best I could think of is to add enclosure to contain the coolant.

If I was setting up a company to grind lathe beds I would have thought a 3 metre capacity was a bit limiting.

Regards Tyrone.

I agree with your suggestion, but I'm targeting small to middle sized lathe to start with.

I really appreciate your reply Tyrone. Thank you so much.

Regards Ardan
 
I agree with Tyrone. Many machines are scraped in place or machined as a matter of fact. I will link you to some places showing it done. One thing you can think about a Plano mill as is a surface grinder is a single point envelope. So if the part being ground or milled and the bed is relativity straight above scored areas of the bed the machine can mill / grind OK. Also if the machine part your grinding is terrible you can be much assured it will be better then before you grind it. Tyrone is so right on when he says you need to fabricate waterproof guards and attach a flood coolant system or the machine part being ground will get hot, expand and get screwed up. I would consider coming to help you scrape and set up your machine or I can recommend some of my Taiwanese Students too.

These guys have real way grinders.
Dynamic Industries - Medium to large machining, fabrication build and rebuild


This company has a converted planer:
Daniluk Machine tool grinding and way grinding, Cincinnati Cinturn way grinding, lathe way grinding
 
I agree with Tyrone. Many machines are scraped in place or machined as a matter of fact. I will link you to some places showing it done. One thing you can think about a Plano mill as is a surface grinder is a single point envelope. So if the part being ground or milled and the bed is relativity straight above scored areas of the bed the machine can mill / grind OK. Also if the machine part your grinding is terrible you can be much assured it will be better then before you grind it. Tyrone is so right on when he says you need to fabricate waterproof guards and attach a flood coolant system or the machine part being ground will get hot, expand and get screwed up. I would consider coming to help you scrape and set up your machine or I can recommend some of my Taiwanese Students too.

These guys have real way grinders.
Dynamic Industries - Medium to large machining, fabrication build and rebuild


This company has a converted planer:
Daniluk Machine tool grinding and way grinding, Cincinnati Cinturn way grinding, lathe way grinding

Thanks for your reply Richard. When we scrap the machine in place, I thought we still need a master to compare with. How do we know that our machine is flat after scraping. Do you have any video or documentation that show the step scraping big machine? The only one I found was a job done by Knife Maker Kinetic, but it's not showing the steps in detail: Scraping with a Biax Power Scraper - YouTube

Let say we have worn ways in the middle, or worn in both ends (convex), won't it makes the bed rocking? Even though heavy worn like this case is unlikely.

Although I can make a machine part I'm grinding better than before using this plano-mill/grinder as it is, I was thinking on how to make it as good as possible by flattening the ways. So after I'm sure the ways are flat enough, the machine can grind it's own bed.

I was so hyped when I heard you'll come to Australia, and I was planning to go there to attend your class, but the event seems to be canceled or postponed. I really hope I still can attend your class there as it kinda close to Indonesia.

Regards Ardan
 
Planing machines, by the nature of their design are pretty forgiving regarding slide ways that are in less than perfect condition. A really good stoning to remove any high areas on the slideways could be the answer to " bad" ways. As long as the lube system is working as it should be of course. Using a cup wheel you won't be travelling particularly fast.

Regarding the coolant supply - we usually drilled a large hole in the side of the table at one end. The hole breaks out into the relief at the end of the table. We fitted an elbow and pipe into the hole. The pipe emptied into a long trough set up at the far side of the table. The trough emptied in a coolant tank via a filter. The coolant was then pumped back up to the grinding head. You need a decent coolant pump to get the coolant up to the level of the top of the planer up rights and then back down to the grinding head.
You also need a system to keep the coolant on the table. Even a slow reversal of direction will send a small wave of coolant sloshing over the end of the table.

Regards Tyrone.
 
Lubrication is very important on a grinder
The differense between a good and a not so good grinder is often the lube system Especially if you use a lube pump
That pump pumps oil under the table and then lifts it You have to controle that in some way
Another overlooked aspect is the water nozzle That needs to be as close to the stone as possible to inject the water into the stone sort of
It must reach the spot where the action is

Peter
 
Hi, it's my first post here in this forum. I'm from Indonesia and planning to start machine reconditioning business here in Indonesia. I would like to ask some questions regarding reconditioning big machine with long ways, in my case plano milling machine (I'm not sure what it should be called here) because I couldn't find any thread discussing about what I'm going to ask.

There is an ad selling this plano milling machine for very affordable price (I attached the pictures from the ad but I need to blur the watermark of the company). I'm planning to buy it and convert this machine into surface grinder to grind lathe's bed. The problem is that this machine might need to be reconditioned itself. One part that looks bad is the bed. I'm concerned that it might need to be re-grinded or re-scraped to make it flat. But the option to re-grind it seems to be imposible to do it here.

The T-slot bed's length is 3 meters, and the v ways are 5 meters.

So my questions are, is it possible to manually scrap the long v ways? Do I need 5 meters straight edge to scrap it? Is it doable? Where to start to tackle this? Any suggestions are welcome. Thanks.

View attachment 312783View attachment 312784

Not the expert here, but I have scraped things longer than the reference. You have a 3m table, if you can get a 1.5 to 2m straight edge, you can scrape the table ways to that, then use the table as the reference to scrape the bed ways. The trick is to manage the overlaps, and use some measuring tool to measure overall flatness if you have access to an autocollimator use that if not use the most precise level you can get your hands on. Getting a planer within 0.04mm/m will get you a useable machine.
 








 
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