(Later Ron) 🙂

The shed fairies have been busy again, working on making the Denbeigh mill a better machine. Bob is certainly very through! The vertical head has been stripped and greased, then re-assembled with a new drawbar assembly. The head has been set parallel to the table and the machine run for 15 minutes to make sure nothing gets too hot or stiff.

The drawbars took some work, with the rear of the machine sawn off by 2 inches to allow the shorter ones to be fitted and tightened. Spacers and locators made and in general, the machine is now much better and ready for use. We’re waiting for the steel plate to arrive, so we can bolt the enormous cases to various machines.

I love seeing this kind of work. Some of those items might not be required for 10 or 20 years, but one day in the future that will might save a load of time.

Just a bit of fun on a rainy holiday day. I should start taking requests!

The original idea of boring the cases would have worked, but using the boring head in that position would have meant we couldn’t see inside the bore. Blind operations are ok, but I prefer to be able to see what’s going on. It’s fair to say that your ears tell you a lot, but even so it’s good to have eyes on what you’re doing!

We looked at making an adapter plate to swing a vertical head through 90 degrees. (Sideways, so to speak!). When we dug out an old vertical head from under the bench, it turns out it’s adjustable anyway 😁 So with a bit of fiddling to get it parallel to the table, the boring operation is all worked out.