Mill lubes

Discussion on all milling machines vertical & horizontal, including but not limited to Bridgeports, Hardinge, South Bend, Clausing, Van Norman, including imports.

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elewayne
Posts: 42
Joined: Fri Aug 29, 2014 4:10 pm
Location: Houston

Mill lubes

Post by elewayne »

Hi guys I have a Zay 7032G round column, gear head mill. Chinese. I have finally started taking it apart, cleaning it up, and re painting it. Its from Harbor Freight and it's a maroon color. I hate maroon. I fine it depressing to look at. (Just me, I know).
Anyway as I suspected when I bought it, I don't think its seen much use at all. Its not so much abused but aggressively neglected. I'm in Houston so it's covered with rust and dirt from spending it's life in the corner of the shop. I don't see any real wear on anything. So I'm slowly soaking everything in rust remover and re polishing everything, and painting parts, before re-assembly. I can't wait.

So my questions are.
What do I lube the column with to keep it from rusting, like next week.
What type of oil do I use on the ways? i have way oil for my lathe, will that be good?
Where do I use grease? I believe some parts should not be greased?
I'm going to need a new rubber chip guard. any information for that?
Is there a guide or you tube for lubes on a mill? I found such a guide for my south bend lathe.
Oh, one other thing, I saw a great you tube about using an epoxy paste to level and tram the column to the tables.
Any idea if that material is easily available here in the states? The one the guy was using was German.
Thanks, wayne
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SteveHGraham
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Location: Florida

Re: Mill lubes

Post by SteveHGraham »

I use Vactra 2 on my mill, just like the lathe.

I have been using lanolin dissolved in mineral spirits to prevent rust. Seems to work. One thing that does not work: WD-40.

Don't know about the other things.
Every hard-fried egg began life sunny-side up.
John Evans
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Location: Phoenix ,AZ

Re: Mill lubes

Post by John Evans »

Best rule of thumb is do NOT use grease anywhere on a lathe or mill unless specified for that location by the manufacture.
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pete
Posts: 2518
Joined: Tue Feb 10, 2009 6:04 am

Re: Mill lubes

Post by pete »

Way oil is obviously way oil no matter if it's a lathe or mill. Almost NO manual machine tools will use grease anywhere for exceptionally good and logical reasons. Grease tends to hold chips and wear particles the machine creates just from using it and then continuously runs that back through the mechanical parts creating even more wear. Oiling properly and regularly applied tends to wash out that contamination. Very few areas outside a machine tools head that might use spindle or possibly gear oil would be harmed just using way oil for lubrication. Try automotive wax for reducing rusting, as long as you can keep the metal sealed it won't rust. Museums use it all the time on ferrous and non ferrous metals. But for that column it needs oiling anyway, so just keep it oiled. It won't rust if your doing what your supposed to.

"Re polishing everything" ?????? I surely hope you haven't been watching a bunch of those "restoration experts" metal butchers on Youtube. Almost none of those fools know when and when not to use wire wheels and polishing compound. If it's a machined, ground, or critical locating surface then lightly scraping the rust off using a single edge razor blade, a soak in a de rusting solution is the most you should do. Non critical surfaces like hand wheels etc are ok to polish back to remove the rust pitting. You can do a lot more harm than good if you don't know precisely what your doing. Going by the glowing comments about craftsmanship on just about any of those YT wire wheel channels very few seem to know what's been done correctly and what hasn't.

Stefan Gotteswinter's channel was where you saw that epoxy. I've no idea where the same could be found in North America, but that's what Google is for. Getting that mill column aligned in 2 dimensions isn't optional. It's a lot of heavy work and lifting as well as very time consuming, but I'd scrape the paint off the factory applied to where the column joins the base as a first step. Then bolt the two together and check your tram not only in the Y axis but swing the head parallel to the X axis and check the tram that way as well. The column needs to be correct in both the X and Y directions to how the machine's table is aligned. Since the table alignment is fixed by it's own way surfaces you align the head and column to it.Shims could be used to get it correct, but using another mill to re machine both parts would be much better. At the end of the day it's still a Harbor Freight round column mill, but you'll learn a lot if your willing to put the time in. I know of at least one owner of a Chinese round column mill who accomplished some exceptionally well done work on it. But he was also a very accomplished professional machinist to start with. That round column and constantly losing X,Y position when moving the head would quickly drive me insane tho.

What rubber chip guard do you need? Without a person having the same machine in front of them it's impossible to answer that. Be descriptive about exactly what parts of the machine and where there located your talking about. But I'd start with a Google images search until I found something that would work.
jcfx
Posts: 713
Joined: Sun Aug 09, 2009 1:24 pm
Location: NY

Re: Mill lubes

Post by jcfx »

Hi Wayne,

I tend to like Mobil Vacuoline better on vertical surfaces like columns, it has tackifiers so it doesn't drain off
vertical surfaces, I use it on my PM 932 vertical column ways. I get it from BRW Technologies, but they no longer have a
web commerce site, but they are on eBay now , a pint will set you back $13.00 plus shipping.
As SteveHGraham said Vactra 2 is good too but I use that on flat ways, once I run out I'll be using Vacuoline only
on all surfaces.

Boeshield T9 seems to work well for me for preventing oxidation and rust, I have a Maximat mill that I'm refurbing
and used it on and the column, it's still shiney as the day I cleaned it. Only caveat is it's kept indoors so Boeshield may not
work for you depending on where your mill resides. McMaster carries it.

I'll assume that your Zay is similar to other round column mill drills, so there should be lots of info available.

Diamant is the epoxy you're looking for, that's what Stefan Gotteswinter used to square his mill,
it's distributed in the US by Devitt Machinery
https://www.moglice.com/dwh.html

Jim
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SteveHGraham
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Location: Florida

Re: Mill lubes

Post by SteveHGraham »

I found a spot of rust on a vertical surface on my mill, so maybe it's time to look into Vacuoline. I have also read that adding STP to Vactra will make it stick better.
Every hard-fried egg began life sunny-side up.
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SteveHGraham
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Location: Florida

Re: Mill lubes

Post by SteveHGraham »

I have been reading up on Vactra and Vacuoline. I read that Vactra was made less sticky in the Nineties, and that the reason was that it used to cause problems when used with synthetic coolants. Apparently Vactra is what you want if you use these coolants. Read up and form your own opinion.

Also read that Haas had problems with sludge in Vactra, and that they now recommend 20w motor oil!
Every hard-fried egg began life sunny-side up.
elewayne
Posts: 42
Joined: Fri Aug 29, 2014 4:10 pm
Location: Houston

Re: Mill lubes

Post by elewayne »

i THINK THEY USED A BIT OF GREASE ON THE SCREWS THAT CONTROL THE TABLES AND THE QUILL,. WHAT WILL WORK WELL THERE?
SteveM
Posts: 7763
Joined: Mon Jun 27, 2005 6:18 pm
Location: Wisconsin

Re: Mill lubes

Post by SteveM »

I used Boeshield to prevent rust and my results are very good. I have stuff I have sprayed more than five years ago and there's still no rust.

From what I have been told, vactra 2 is for horizontal surfaces and vactra 4 is for vertical surfaces like mill columns.

Steve
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