Shop Fox M1006 Mill

[John Evans]

Shop Fox strikes me as a funny/strange name for a mill but, I guess ain't any worse than a Balding "Beaver" !! Anyway my machine tool dealer friend just got a new one in today ,was making myself useful in un-crating it and cleaning that horrid shipping goop the Chinese slather on everything. Kinda impressed 2900lb ,VS,box ways,one shot lube ,10X54" table ,X axis PF ,and 3 axis DRO for $7995!! Only thing I saw not so nice was the quality of the paint job. I was thinking this thing must be close to $10,000 when Tom came out of the office and ask me if I were in the market for a new mill would I pay $7995 for it ! I think I would. He just sold a 12X36 Gunsmith Shop Fox lathe that also looked to be a decent machine. Shop Fox is part of Grizzly ,but seems to be of better quality than the green Bear stuff I have been around.
PS Did I say how NASTY that fish oil or whatever they slather on is ?? UGH!!!

[pete]

Yeah that red goop was liberally applied to both my lathe and mill as well. One from China the other from Taiwan. They must make it in super tanker sized quantity's. I stripped my mill down to it's basic pieces and washed it all outside with white gas and a paint brush. That cuts it fine. Due to the flammability Diesel might have been smarter tho. All of this off shore equipment needs stripping down for a proper cleaning since you will find a small bit of grinding dust so it's worth doing.

[Harold_V]

and washed it all outside with white gas and a paint brush. That cuts it fine. Due to the flammability Diesel might have been smarter tho.

Oh, yeah! Big time. If there's anything I speak loudly against, it's the use of gasoline for cleaning. There are solvents that are much safer, and do the job equally well. I don't count diesel or kerosene as one of them, by the way. While they do dissolve grease, they're not solvents--they're light oils. You're much better served by using mineral spirits (also known as Stoddard Solvent).

Many years ago, when I lived in Utah, a man was cleaning parts in his basement, using gasoline. The house was equipped with a gas water heater. Need I say more?

Harold

[pete]

Yep I agree with you 100% Horold. I also remember very well when I was maybe 9 or 10 a guy filling a Coleman camping stove inside his travel trailer and the pilot light on his main stove apparently caught the fumes. The place had to have been fully on fire end to end in less than a minute. I'm unshure if he survived or not, but he was very badly burned. That's why I did it and always use and even store it outside. I am ultra careful while using white gas. There are much better products as you've mentioned. One thing I didn't know about the stuff is even if the part is fully submerged in it in a sealed container it will rust parts. I had the nice shiny surface on a quite expensive Emco lathe chuck get damaged because I'd forgotten to remove it for about a week. Couldn't believe it when I pulled the chuck body out and it was covered in rust.

We use that Stoddard solvent to clear frozen air lines on equipment in the mines in the winter. It's surprising just how fast it works even at -40. I really need to start keeping some around for the shop. I promise that's what I'll use on my shaper and Atlas mill when I get to those.

[Jawn]

WD40 seems to work pretty decent for removing that red grease.

[pete]

Yep I used some of that as well Jawn and it does cut whatever that red stuff is. But I started noticing a bit of grinding dust so decided I wanted to wash the parts down. WD would get a little expensive with the amount of parts I had to wash. I may be wrong but I seem to recall reading somewhere that WD is mostly diesel with some aromatics added. But maybe somebody else knows for sure.

[NP317]

To clean the protecting gunk from my new milling machine, I used a plastic scraper (old credit cards are great for this), followed by WD-40 as a solvent cleaner. 'Made quick work of the cleaning job, and left some protecting film until I could properly oil the cleaned surfaces.
~RN

[pete]

Yep but that only gets some if it unless you tear it down. I stripped mine to it's basic parts and pulling the knee off as well. And then washed everything including the feed screws and flushing out the nuts. I had to pull it apart anyway just to get it into my shop. I certainly didn't find huge amounts of grinding dust, but there was certainly enough and even a few chips showing in the bottom of the solvent container that I thought the effort more than worth it. It made a huge difference in how smooth everything then worked compared to what it was out of the crate. I think most of the issues were being caused by that red goop on everything including the feed screws. Whatever it is it doesn't seem to be a good sliding surface lube. That cleaning and fresh way oil made all the differance. Sitting on the skid before I cleaned it I had about .012" for backlash. After the clean and adjusting the nuts and the gibs I managed to get about .004" on the X and Y with no tight spots on the slides.

If I remember correctly that's about what a brand new Bridgeport will do. Mine will never be one, but it's ok for a home shop, but maybe I got a bit lucky. After seeing the difference I'd do the same again if I ever bought another new mill. My best guess is the manufacturers of these off shore clones just blow off the parts with an air line before they slap the red goop on and put them together. And the gibs and nuts are probably adjusted a bit loose so that everything can still move ok. The stuff seems to do it's job pretty well as a rust preventitive since I've never found any rust on any surface that has it, and that's all it's designed to do I guess.