A good choice.
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I have had good success using sand that was almost powder and oil and 80/20 to 90/10 sand to oil for vibration dampening. in a 10 HP gantry drill it also seemed to add a lot of stiffness we drilled a 2" hole near the top of the columns then filled the columns and the gantry cross beam a few inches with sand added a bit of oil then rinsed and repeat until the columns were full. Made a huge difference in the performance of the machine and lowered the overall sound level significantly, virtually eliminated and chatter when drilling with 2" and larger drill bits.
Video about column:
https://youtu.be/xCo_X3Lmj-w
Now I will focus on dovetail guides and movement mechanisms.
Update!
https://youtu.be/yEiRBF2DeE0
Hello
Some newest photos. Ton of hand scraping done in those photos :sweating: and still one of the guides (right one) is 0,2 mm wider on last 15 cm on the bottom. I found this defect after putting everything together, rest 70cm works perfectly. So more hand scraping is waiting...
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Oh and I screw up a backplate of the knee. It turned out that Y axis would not be square to Z axis of the machine. It was like 2mm of difference on distance of 530 mm. I tried to grind the backplate but I made it worse. I mean It was square vertically but got twisted. I had to cut off this piece and make, a new one (you can see it on photos above).
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You are getting an education that few people will ever have. Not good you need to do work two times. But you certainly are learning a great amount about how to make better setup and better welding.
Mark
Repairing knee is not that bad, it's like 2 extra hours of work. The worst is extra scraping. It will wait to christmas break. I'm back on university now.
New video.
Basically it's covers everything that you can see in my previous post with photos about machine guides.
https://youtu.be/97bBCnfTrm0
I bought a t-slot table for my milling machine. Table is from Polish Jarocin FWC25 milling machine. Dimension of the table are very simmilar to my drawings (20mm longer and 10mm wider)
Some photos before and after cleaning:
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I also managed to finish Z axis guide. Cause of problem was last bolt on the bottom. Bolt was twisting end of the right dove tail. This is why it seemed to be wider. I drilled bigger hole and now everything is fine.
More than month for sure :D
Also whole build plan has changed. Instead of making ram guides and lifting whole machine to vertical position I will make table carriage first. Then I will temporary weld it to main body then milling head will be attached to the knee and bang I have 3 axis milling machine to make other parts of final milling machine :cool:
Now I'm waiting for Christmas to implement this plan.
Chain hoist will be necessary...
As I said in previous post I managed to weld knee to the carriage and then attach milling head.
Attachment 46840
This is how current setup looks like:
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Spindle was squared to Z axis guides. Ready for table guides milling operation.
Soon you will be making parts on your milling machine! It is looking better and better. So many things you have learned to get this far!
Saddle of my mill is almost ready.
Top surface of the guides is milled parallel to the bottom surface of base plate. Ability of milling is huge improvement in comparison to grinding with angle grinder and scraping. I used rotary table as third axis of movement for the set up from my previous post.
Attachment 47033
I still have to make plates for mounting lead screw nuts and cut oil grooves etc.
Bearing brackets for table. One is bigger because I wanted extra space for installing an electric power feed unit.
Attachment 47034
Part 12 is out! :D
https://youtu.be/xVxEuB6O028?si=vDKZp5uipZkjGhEw
Madness of temporary setups continues. This time this is fully operational 3 axis milling machine which will make rest of parts needed to it's final form :D
Attachment 47081
Only downside is distance between center of spindle and the knee. It's extended very far and bends 0.15 [mm] under weight of my body. This is why 50 [mm] diameter face mill doesn't work well at this moment.
Ram and Y axis guides are almost ready. I wish I had machine like that in the beginning of the project :D
What left to do?
I have to scrape them and machine bottom surface of the Ram to flatness. After final assembly basically this will be the end of "mechanical" part of the whole project. Then the "electrical" part will start.
Attachment 47321
The worst part is when it's 2-3 day to finish another step and you have to leave all progress and wait another month to came back home and finish it.
Probably the most spectacular update so far :P It starts to look like milling machine :D
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Video soon!