Saturday, 12 February 2022

Tree CNC lathe - machine shifting party games!

The coast is clear


I reckon I can JUST get the thing past this little lot


...and into this "larger" area where I can work on it


Looks inviting enough


Finally, at 10am on Saturday morning, the machine arrives from its last home near Gretna, just over the Scottish border.



Luckily the forecast rain didn't accompany it




Unlike The Shiz, it hasn't tried to invert itself


Figuring out where the centre of gravity is doesn't seem to be within their grasp, something the other company also demonstrated. Took a while to balance the thing on a couple of pallet trucks....


I've skipped out quite a few steps along the way, including a lot of unplanned shuffling around of the "stuff" that was lining the passageway. Almost there now. I learned a few new Scottish swear words, so this was a cultural event as much as a logistical one.


As often seems to be the case, I omitted to take pics of the machine in its final position. By the time of these photos at the end of the day, I'd actually removed quite a few parts to have a look at what I'd bought. This is what confronted me the next (Sunday) morning:


There are several covers that hide the undergubbins and the nasty, bare (but painted) castings, most of which I've removed here - let the dog see the rabbit etc.


The exposed base structure you can see is cast iron and there's also an RSJ (rolled steel joist) framework at the back of the machine. The vast control cabinet hangs off the back of that massive framework. Between the RSJ framework and the control cabinet, we must be looking at in excess of half a tonne, almost all of which I will be removing and taking down to the scrapyard.


This is the beginning of another conversion episode. What have I done?

No comments:

Post a Comment

TIG welder up and running - after some fault diagnostics and repair

Finally got some time to connect up the flow meter and argon hose. Plugged in the torch and ground cables and the torch hose etc. Powered it...