Lifting Mildred's Spirits

[cutter]

Poor Mildred has such a hard time keeping her spirits up in the face of the snide remarks she hears from the knee mill professionals about mill/drills, "really just a drill press" or "you'll soon hate that round column".

Hell, I really can't blame her. I dislike hauling on that crank myself, so much so that I often fudge on doing it & make her stick her neck out 3 or 4 inches instead of lowering her head when I ought to drop it down. But I dislike raising it much more than lowering it when I need to switch to a chuck from a collet.
And I know she picks up on my attitude even when I don't say anything out loud.

Well, I've thought about it for a long time - long enough to either do something about or just admit to Mildred that I don't really care as much as I say I do.

I saw one picture over on that project aggregator site where the guy mounted a 120v gearmotor on top of his mill and that cemented my notion that I really didn't want to do that. I'm not sure just how he mounted it but he had to remove the shroud & it surely didn't improve the appearance.
So I didn't want to do that to my old girl. She has had a hard life as it is; I can't afford to make her feel uglier than she already does.

Besides, I have a nicer motor in store for this.

1. Not all journeys begin with a single step. This one began with a 1 inch hex.
Cut to length, faced on both ends.

2 & 3. Drilled through, 5/16ths, if I remember correctly.
That's because I happen to have a long enough drill in that size.

4. Next, Mildred went to work on it, drilled out to 5/8ths.
Then I broke out the Christmas-past boring head (thanks, Mark & Stacey).
I'm still always surprised when it works so nicely.

5. So we hollowed it out to fit nicely on that bolt. Something around .675".
I figured I'd need a little slop to make this work so later we took it out to .70 even.

[cutter]

1. Fact is, we made a pair of the little hex things.
See that nice, shiny mill vise? Oh, I guess it's a mill/drill vise.
Thanks, Wilton.

2. Then after a whole lot of figgerin' & fittin', I cut a piece of 1/2 x 2 inch flat bar & prepped it for surgery, facing the ends for square & to length.
See that nice F clamp? Thanks, Wilton.

3. Tacked that together & tried the new thing inside the back of Mildred's head where it will be mostly concealed by her motor mount.
It seemed to be up to the mission.

4. Then just welded the crap out of it.

5. I tell you one thing: it's a trick to keep sliding these two bolts in & out of there with the motor mount swung as far back as it will go and I had to have as much space as possible for my left hand to jiggle the new Thing around while I manipulated the bolts with my right.
The bolt heads have to be turned one way to clear the motor mount (bottom bolt), then there is barely room to rotate the bolt 90° before it can seat in the cavity (top bolt).

I had to do this often enough to get good at it, if there was any good to be gettin' but I never did improve very much.

So that takes care of the first step and by this point Mildred knew I was actually committed to this relationship.

[cutter]

So, on to the marvelous motor to be used in this endeavor.
It is a 90volt dc Bison motor I bought off ebay well over 10 years ago, maybe closer to 15 years, for another project involving a little Belsaw planer, which I later decided to skip.

1. Data plate
As you can see, the motor itself is rated at 1/5 hp, 2000 rpm and of course, it is by nature, variable speed and reversible.
Then it is geared down to 139 rpm max at 90v dc and rated to 106 inch pounds.
Not counted the shafts (both ends) the case is about 12 inches long & she weighs in at about 16 pounds.
I thought it might do the job. Mildred said it was worth a shot.

2. There were some problems to be over come at every step along the way.
In the first place. there was an odd round collar on the output shaft that would not pull off. I finally had to dremel it into 2 halves to dispose of it because the end of the shaft had a bad mushroom on it.
That took some filing and emery cloth to get it back in useful condition.

3. The back end of the little guy was not so much of a problem. It has 4 evenly spaced screws that used to hold an electronic brake and the hex on the shaft was also part of that.

4. The motor face plate was more interesting.
You can see that there are 4 bolt holes where you would hope they would be, in the corners. But then there are 3 more which extend almost 1/4" from the end plate surface.
And there are a pair of other raised surface to contend with as well as the bearing housing for the output shaft.

5. Thus there were all of these lumpy things to deal with in making a motor mount because I wanted to use the 4 corner bolt holes.

[Shade Tree Welder]

I think Mildred will be very happy with
the attention you are showing her.

[digr]

This looks very interesting !!

[cutter]

Well after all Ted, Mildred is the Most Interesting Mill in the World.

[SmokinDodge]

Rod I don't have a damn thing constructive to say but I am watching intently.



Sent from my ipotato

[dubby]

Great write up, and that'll be a lot of help. She'll be going up and down all the time now.


However, I did notice my own failure...why didn't you remind me that the boy and I were going to adjust that TV?!? I'm ashamed of myself but flat out forgot.

[Dave Lee]

Very cool job, Rod. YOU, are the "most interesting person in the world." That guy that kayaks out the back of an airplane's got nothin' on you, my friend. Well done.

I know what you mean about the cranking up of those heads. Down isn't quite as bad but up, ugggh. If I used my mill/drill more, I'd consider that modification.

What brand of chili, or do you make your own?


Dave

[cutter]

I would be remiss if I failed to mention that dubby is indeed a man of his word.

Originally Posted by dubby

However, I did notice my own failure...why didn't you remind me that the boy and I were going to adjust that TV?!? I'm ashamed of myself but flat out forgot.

1. That statement from a week or so back was prompted by this picture in which I inadvertently showed that one of the corner posts from the shelving unit was still blocking the tv screen because when we hurriedly installed it over a year ago we failed to prop it up high enough to clear.

We had talked about how much to raise it a month or so back but ... there it was.
And he noticed it.

2. So sure enough, along about Thursday last here came dubby & Coleman.
He wisely also brough Lily and she played frisbee with Wilson the entire time they were here. I don't know if that was the result of a command or of a bribe or if she actually wanted to do that.

3. However it went down, Wilson stayed out of the way and the Christmas 2012 television is finally at a proper height.

Thank you, dubby
Thank you, Coleman
Thank you, Lily