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Thread: Moving the ram on a milling machine.

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    Supporting Member tonyfoale's Avatar
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    Moving the ram on a milling machine.

    I was just discussing moving the ram on a Bridgeport with a friend. A while back he had problems moving his and about a week ago I needed to move mine, which is an unusual occurrence. I thought that my solution might be of interest here.

    The ram just didn't want to move and I was fearful of shearing a drive pin (just guessing that there was something like that in there) between the external lever and internal pinion. I placed a bottle jack between the ​table and the head and took the load off the slide. That let me squirt some very thin oil in there, It had been lubricated with grease. I then switched to the rear end, where I added a long lump of wood to the jack to reach from floor to slide, and repeated the oil squirting. It still didn't want to move after removing the jack so I jacked up the front again and managed a small movement with the jack in place and the load off. Then I removed the jack and the ram moved OK, albeit a bit stiff. I cycled it fully several times washing the old lubricant off and putting new on. Smooth as silk now, but for how long? If the ram is not moved for a long period the weight gradually squeezes the lubricant out.

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    olderdan (Jan 4, 2018), Paul Jones (Jan 4, 2018)

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    Supporting Member olderdan's Avatar
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    Good observation on lubricant displacement due to weight, not something that is always considered.
    I am in the habit of rotating my lathe chuck a few times by hand before powering up (plain bearings).

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    Supporting Member tonyfoale's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by olderdan View Post
    Good observation on lubricant displacement due to weight, not something that is always considered.
    I don't know exactly what the weight of the ram and head is on a Bridgeport but guessing I would say near 200 kg. which is supported on an area of 0.032 m^2 so the pressure is g * 200/0.032 = 61.4 kPa. which is very low and hence surprising that it matters in terms of squeezing lubricant. I guess when you apply that pressure for a few years the effect builds up.



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