Round Column Mill-Drill Fix -3

Installed the rotation preventer yesterday. It stops rotation movements when the mill-drill worktable is raised and lowered.

The brackets and linear stage rails were bolted together after positioning the brackets on parallels on a machined surface table (from the now closed Ford factory).

Then attached the assembly to the column by bolting together the halves of the brackets. A bit of adjusting of tensions to get the slide working smoothly on the rods, then bolted the linear stage to the gear enclosure with 2 more cap screws. The Metabo drill provides plenty of power through the worm and gear to raise and lower the heavy worktable, and the drill electronic speed control provides excellent control.

When everything was tightened, No worktable rotation movement at all was detectable, even when pushing on it, and the raising and lowering movements were unaffected. It is a rigid setup.

So, how accurately is the position maintained during raising and lowering?

A laser pointer was set on a millimeter scale. Not super accurate, I agree, but should give some indication. The laser is only 40-50mm from the scale.

Then lowered the worktable about 300mm.

The laser dot is bigger at this distance but it is still centered on the same point.

This setup feels really rigid, and I feel pretty sure that it will work well.

Discounting the cost of the incorrect specifications of the first laser cut parts, the overall cost was about $AUD400.