[mike_Kilroy]

darn, looks like you missed on a lot of the fun with that laprostuff and no ice cream! besides good ice cream, I got to go home with 6 metal staples along the 5" gash they cut to get to mine. Guess technology is making surgery better all the time.

[pete from TN]

Jeez man yeah it really sounds like I missed out there with that. Don't worry tho I got the big six inch scar from my thoracotomy two years ago plus the bonus extra hole from the lung cavity drain tube. Good times man good times.

Right now I am trying to find a good deal on a replacement garage door that we accidentally destroyed when we took it off. Hoping to find the same kind used or something .....peace

Pete

[uli12us]

mike_Kilroy; I think you had tonsilitis, for this is typical, that you get icecream.

Chivo; You should remove the sticky chips with water, because the emulsion is watersoluble simple water works best.

Pete, hope you'll be better fast.

[pete from TN]

Okay guys I am feeling a little better this morning. Still sore as hell from my surgery but not too bad. I thought I would make a post showing my progress thus far and the move to the shop we made.

I will start by saying that I have never moved anything this large before and it was quite intimidating doing it the first time. I learned a lot about this and maybe I can share some knowledge for those who intend to try this themselves. I called around quite a bit for forklift sources and found it cost quite a bit of money to rent them and more importantly get them delivered. SO after talking with the rigger who initially moved my machine to the previous owners shop he said he would not even use a forklift. He gave me some advice and I took it.

We wound up renting some Machine skates or dollies and a rollback wrecker to move the machine. The machine was only a few miles from my shop so that was pretty reasonable rental fee of $150.00. The skate rental we got from united rentals and it was only $28.00 a day which wound up being two days actually. I did wind up buying a Porta Power unit from Harbor Freight tools for $109.00 to help me lift the machine with but I intend to keep it as I can use it for other thing for sure. This turned out to work quite well and the little porta power ram can fit in some very tight places. It does have some disadvantages tho that we found out using it.

My plan was to basically go over there with some poplar hardwood cribbage and jack the machine up off it's six adjustable foot pods and then slowly lower it down onto the machine skates in stages until it was able to be moved. Well what I thought was not exactly how it turned out. I started initally by jacking each corner of the rectangle of the base of the machine using the 3/4 inch blocks to stack under it in case something shifted. It actually did shift on me a bit and thankfully it landed on my cribbage and the machine did not fall over or hurt anybody. In doing it this way I came to realize that there was a flaw in my plan. You see if you take a large rigid cube and jack one corner at a time starting with a corner the moment the corner comes up all of the weight of the machine is now resting on the jack and the opposite corner. This is probably fine if you have a very stable jack but with the porta power and it's very small foot base what happened is that the machine decided to shift side to side basically swiveling off the porta power jack since it could not hold it's position despite the massive weight on it. Again thankfully I had the wood blocking stacked underneath the base all around the perimeter so it only fell maybe 3/4 of an inch and moved maybe two inches sideways. That does not sound like much but it sure as hell scared the crap out of me. It was kind of a slow twisting fall so no damage occurred and it was actually almost a gentle albeit unexpected movement. We all stood around with eyes as wide as watermelons when it happened. That is when I realized it would be much safer to jack up the machine in the middle of the front and back basically jacking the entire back of the machine at once so the weight is on the jack and also both front points which is enough to keep it in position. We did the same from the front as well. If you had a low profile jack that could fit underneath that base but is lower than your machine skates you would probably be better off using that if it could lift it. My heavy duty floor jack can lift it but it is too tall to go low enough to get out from underneath the machine skates. The skates we rented were only three inches tall. I had cut a 3/4 inch piece of six inch wide poplar board into six inch wide pieces but in retrospect it would have been even safer if they had been maybe a foot long and turned sideways under the base in case of a big sideways shift issue. These machines are amazingly heavy and while we managed to move it okay it was pretty damn dangerous in reality and a bad mistake here could have easily been catastrophic. I am not at all recommending my methods here as any sort of guideline as to how to move a machine like this, rather just telling you how I moved mine. If you do decide to do this and can afford to pay a rigger at all I would recommend having a pro do it. Unfortunately for me that is just not in the cards and I am lucky to even have this machine so I have to do everything myself to be able to afford this at all. Besides I have always done things myself anyways, sometimes I think I am a bit crazy but hey I resemble that.... hehehe

Anyways, Once I realized that I was able to use the toe jack feature of the porta power and the wider base supplied in the kit to jack the machine quite easily this way and we got it down onto the machine skates. Once it was on the skates we found another problem. I was told by the rigger that using three machine skates in a triangle would be safer because if the floor is out of level a very little bit four skates can wind up unloading one of the skates and then the machine can possibly fall if it shifts onto that skate that is now not under the base if you know what I mean. Well the problem here is that you gotta have one skate on each rear corner of the machine since it is by far the heaviest part so I was planning on putting the third skate in the middle in the front of the machine. However on the Cincinatti arrow the front of the base is a 3/8 inch wide welded plate that is far too narrow to keep a good purchase on the machine skate safely I felt so we wound up using four skates one on each corner under the approx three inch wide welded flat bottom of the two rails that run from the front to the back of the machine's base. We DID have to be very careful and actually had a person monitor EACH skate continually so four different people watching a skate to make sure that they never creeped out from under the base while we slowly moved the machine across the floor. We had to move the machine about six feet forward then turn ninety degrees to the right and then move it another twenty feet or so to where the Rollback wrecker could reach it with his winch. We went VERY SLOWLY and Carefully and there was quite a few times when one of the skates had no weight on it at all but we could use the little pull bars to keep them underneath and in position. I found I could push the machine by myself so we did not actually pull the machine with the skate poles rather we just used them to insure the skates stayed put under the base of the machine. It was actually quite easy to do it that way and other than some initial drama when we realized how easy it was to get a skate unloaded it was no big deal. So we slowly worked our way to the turn where we used some small sledgehammers to tap the skates around to make the turn and get it pointed in the right direction. Incidentally the skates we rented were an odd combination of a tank track and several wide roller wheels so they actually worked quite well going over small imperfections in the pavement. If the wheel encountered a burr in the concrete it would stop rolling and the tank track part would take over and it would roll like a tank over that part until there was no further obstruction. Interesting design altho they were quite small.

Once it was in a position that we could get the rollback in there to hook to it I decided to try to make getting it on and off the rig a little easier and safer. I bought a pair of 4x4x8 pressure treated posts and cut 45 degree angles onto the ends to kinda make a sled base and removing the six level adjusting bolts from the base of the machine used some large lag bolts to bolt the wooden skates to the machine's base thru those same holes. This made it easier on the rollbacks bed and winch and also made the physical footprint of the base a few inches wider. Then it was a simple matter of lowering it down onto the sleds and then wait for the wrecker to arrive.


Anyways here is the other part that was kinda scary. I had thought I could just have the rollback driver hook his winch to the machine somehow but after taking off the chip trays and the front cover I realized quickly that on the front of the machine there is simply NOTHING to hook to. After pondering it for awhile I decided to drill a pair of 1" holes into the front 3/8 inch plate of the base of the machine using a holesaw near the welded boxed ends on each side and bolt in some VERY HEAVY DUTY eyelets that the rollback driver could use to winch to. This turned out to work quite well and watching him winch that large machine onto the truck bed I realized that the low pulling point also aided in the machine's stability by counteracting the tendency to want to fall backwards since the column and millhead are so damn heavy and tall in the back. It went on the trailer with the operators panel first and the column last. I also found that there was a large hole in the back of the base that had a metric thread so we found another large eyelet that we could thread into that hole to hook the tie downs to once it was on the truck. I added some 10k lb tie downs to the setup and then we used the previous owners forklift to load all the sheetmetal chip trays and stuff onto the rollback and we were on our way down the road.

Following it down the road it seemed to roll pretty well and despite it's size and height it did not rock too badly or anything and the driver was quite careful so I was pretty pleased with the slow leisurely drive to my house.

Once we arrived at my house we ran into another little problem. The machine was so heavy and solid on the 4x4 skids that it did not want to just roll off the back of the truck. The driver tho being a clever fellow hooked some chains to the flat tow ram on the back of this truck and using the hydraulics was able to slowly jockey the chain pull and the winch cables in front to bring the machine to the very back of the rollbacks bed. He also put a chain tie down on top of the eyelets in front of the machine to keep it from falling backward as he did this and with some patient lever tweaking on the control panel and a careful eye he was able to get the rear end of the skids hanging off the back of the trucks rollbed. Then he tilted the bed down which the trucks hydraulics did not seem to enjoy too much but he lowered it down to where the back end of the machine was on the edge of the floor in my shop just over the threshold. Then he would slowly winch down a tad and try to jockey the bed back and forth until the machine was mostly inside the shop on the wooden skids. Once he got it fully inside the shop he was then able to remove the winch hooks and proceeded to use the flat tow ram on the truck to push the machine about eight feet into my shop which I was very happy about. I had thought he would have trouble with this but he did a great job and was a real nice old fellow. Then all I had to do was jack up the machine a couple more times onto the machine skates and me and my wife rolled it back to the back of the shop and set it in place. This was a LOT more work than it sounds and we started at about 7:30 AM and finally got the garage door closed and everything from the machine into my shop just before 9pm. So it was a very careful and somewhat stressful day that was quite successful with no damage to anyone and the machine safely moved. If I had to do it all over again I would probably get some larger heavier duty machine skates but these actually worked fine. I would also either get a much wider base for the porta power or find some kinda very low profile jack for a more secure jacking position. Other than that it went quite well and I am very pleased my machine is now in the shop and ready for me to get to work on cleaning it up and powering it up soon.

SO now I am trying to decide what kinda wiring to use and where to get it to power this monster and that is not gonna be too cheap I am afraid. We shall see tho. I managed to take a few pics of the move here for you guys to see so I am gonna post them now. Sometimes I think I am a bit crazy but again whatareyagonnado? Peace

Pete

[pete from TN]

Spent most of the day yesterday working on getting the machine setup and managed to make some good progress. I got the bad z drive boxed up and shipped out to emerson control techniques and they are saying seven to ten businesses days to get it refurbished and ready to ship back. Also managed to get down to the local electrical supply house and pick up all the wiring stuff. I went with number four service entrance cable with two conductors and a ground for the single phase side. Also got a pair of heavy duty cable connection ends for going into the rotary converter and the breaker box to protect the wires. Then for the three phase side I got a number six three conductor cable with a ground and some plastic flexible conduit with rubber sealed ends to go from the rotary unit to the machine. Total cost there was just over $200.00 and that was for 30 feet of the number four stuff and 25 feet of the number six stuff and the conduit. I am gonna try to get some of it wired up today and then run the rest tomorrow with my wifes help when she is off work since I gotta run it under the house. Once I get it powered up I will start to reload the parameters and wait for the z drive to get back here. I am also gonna try to source some new spindle belts before I run the machine and just do a general cleaning up on it. Still gotta clean out the nasty chip trays but I am supposed to take it easy after my surgery so that may have to wait for my wifes help too. They're not really heavy but don't wanna hurt my stitches..... hoping to be running this machine in a week or two.....wish me luck guys....peace

Pete

[FannBlade]

Holy Cow I missed a bunch here. Glad you are doing OK.
You get a real sense of size sitting on the truck...thing is huge.

Great price on the wire also. Take it easy while healing up. Running the wire will undoubtedly take many trips under the house.

[pete from TN]

Yeah I keep trying to tell myself that it is not that big but who am I kidding here. It is pretty huge at least compared to everything else in my shop. The good news is the footprint is quite small for a machine like this. It is only like 74 inches across the front and around 84inches front to back. I can actually still pull my fiero into the shop and close the garage door and it is not even all the way back against the wall. My shop is 25 feet deep tho....

Woke up this morning feeling pretty good and it is supposed to be in th 50s this morning and the 80s this afternoon so a nice day on tap. Got some lathe parts to machine and then work on the cnc a bit. Still gonna take it easy tho.....getting closer and closer to having a full blown toolchanger equipped vmc running in my shop. Can't wait to start using it.....peace

Pete

[Fastest1]

I thought you were going to get your wife to go under the house to pull wire. If you did that, a gunshot wound would be the next thing you would be healing from LOL!

[pete from TN]

I cannot believe you would think I would EVER ask my wife to go under the house hehehe... I would however ask her to hand me tools, help me pull the cable thru the wall and up into the crawlspace while I move around under there getting spider bit and covered in mud and crap and having all sorts of fun like that. Honestly the wire run should not be too bad. I have already done it twice for other wiring for the shop and I will actually be removing one of the runs maybe to replace it with this one if I find I cannot get this HUGE cable up into my breaker box. I know MOST of the wires that go to it run down into the crawlspace and around to various spots in the house and that may possibly be a problem. We shall see here. My wife is amazing, she is my best friend and we are a great team together but there are some things I would never ask her to do. I will just have to wait til I heal up enough to get down there and run the wires. That is unless I can talk my stepson into doing it for me.....not likely!! Maybe I can give him a few greenbacks? Who knows.....peace

Pete

[Connor]

Spent most of the day yesterday working on getting the machine setup and managed to make some good progress. I got the bad z drive boxed up and shipped out to emerson control techniques and they are saying seven to ten businesses days to get it refurbished and ready to ship back. Also managed to get down to the local electrical supply house and pick up all the wiring stuff. I went with number four service entrance cable with two conductors and a ground for the single phase side. Also got a pair of heavy duty cable connection ends for going into the rotary converter and the breaker box to protect the wires. Then for the three phase side I got a number six three conductor cable with a ground and some plastic flexible conduit with rubber sealed ends to go from the rotary unit to the machine. Total cost there was just over $200.00 and that was for 30 feet of the number four stuff and 25 feet of the number six stuff and the conduit. I am gonna try to get some of it wired up today and then run the rest tomorrow with my wifes help when she is off work since I gotta run it under the house. Once I get it powered up I will start to reload the parameters and wait for the z drive to get back here. I am also gonna try to source some new spindle belts before I run the machine and just do a general cleaning up on it. Still gotta clean out the nasty chip trays but I am supposed to take it easy after my surgery so that may have to wait for my wifes help too. They're not really heavy but don't wanna hurt my stitches..... hoping to be running this machine in a week or two.....wish me luck guys....peace

Pete

You best take it easy for a few more days... My wife would KILL me if I had a surgery like that and then started trying to work on projects. Heck, you should have seen me when I just had some teeth pulled. First time I had to go into work RIGHT AFTER the extracts to fix the mail server. Was still high from the Nitrous and numb from the locale. Anyway, Take care!

Thanks, Connor

[pete from TN]

Hey thanks man.. Yeah I WANT to take it easy but my lazy butt needs to get doing SOMETHING before I go nutz... I think I will TRY to run the number six wire inside the conduit and get it plugged into the machine and the rotary converter as that is all just inside the shop stuff. Then leave the under the house stuff for another day soon. Peace

Pete

[pete from TN]

Well today my next door neighbor was kind enough to crawl under my house and help me run the number four heavy gauge wire from my breaker panel to the shop so I can start getting this monster wired up. We got the new breaker installed and everything went very well. He had apparently worked as an electrician before and had some tricks that really helped. Anyways I ran it into the shop and finally removed the panel from the Rotary phase converter and there is some confusion as to what goes where. I am looking into the manual right now to see what gives but there appears to have been some rewiring from the previous owner of the rotary. Should not be a problem but I am gonna have to figure it out.

In the mean time the Z axis drive is getting refurbished at Emerson Control techniques and should hopefully be back in a week or so. I have been cleaning the living crap out of the machine inside and out and it is really cleaning up nicely. Basically all of the crap that has coated the machine on the inside and the outside is coming off with liberal applications of some cheap mean green degreaser I got at the dollar store. I am hoping to get everything nice and clean and lubed up before I try to crank this baby up for the first time. Still much to do here and I am hoping all the hints I gave to my family and friends about my birthday will take and I will get a whole buncha toolholders for this baby soon hehehehe... Wish me luck guys it is coming along slowly. Baby steps and soon it will hopefully be running. Peace

Pete

[pete from TN]

Honesty while I would NEVER ask her to do that for me I do not mind saying that knowing my wife if I DID ask her to do it she probably would have at least tried. She is awesome and beautiful and I am lucky to have her. I would ask her however to help me bring the wire into the machine out in the shop as we are planning to do that tomorrow.hehhehe Peace

Pete

[Fastest1]

;-) Any more pics? Not of your wife (possibly next to the machine?)

[pete from TN]

Was out in the shop today trying to figure out how to wire up this Rotary Phase Converter I bought to run this machine and I think with the Help of my pal Art we got it sorted. While I was out there I took some more still pics of the machine so you can see how it looks after I cleaned it up a bit. I think it looks quite nice for it's age and you can see your reflection in the paint on the enclosure in most places. It was FILTHY with gunk and crap and tapping fluid from the knee mill that was parked next to it for years. It took some work to get it all cleaned up but I am happy with the outcome. Still lots of tweaking and cleaning to do on it but now that I have power here and getting it wired properly I should be able to get things rolling along faster now hopefully. Anyways some of you asked for pics so here ya go... I am pleased with my machine so far...hehehe peace

Pete

[pete from TN]

Here is wishing all of you a happy and safe fourth of july celebration. Gonna be watching the fireworks with my family and eating some goodies. Peace

Pete

[pete from TN]

Well guys I made some more progress here today on the machine setup. I managed to get the GWM Rotary Phase converter hooked up to the heavy number 4 wire I ran from my Breaker panel. There was some issues with the lugs inside the rotaries electrical box that needed some attention. I wound up having to drill and retap one of the setscrews out that had lodged itself inside there. It was really in there so I had to remove it from the box and machine it in my vise. I picked up a replacement screw and reinstalled it into the box and finally was able to hookup the wiring properly. I checked and rechecked the wiring and my wife and I crossed our fingers as we flipped on the breaker. It made a loud click and the rotary motor quickly spooled up and started humming along quietly. No smoke, no heat, no vibration so I was well pleased.

Now I need to hook up some of the wiring to the Z motor I had removed to lower the millhead down. I will try to get that done tomorrow. Then I will position the rotary unit permanently hooking up the number 6 wires to go to the VMC. I am still waiting on the arrival of the refurbished Z axis Drive I sent to Emerson Control Techniques. Once it arrives and I can install It I will hook power to the machine directly and start trying to reload the parameters. At that point we will see just what I have here and I am hoping everything works well. No guarantees but I am optimistic. In the mean time I have been cleaning the machine and doing what I can to prepare it for running. It sure was nice to hear the rotary fire up and that it did not blow my breaker or anything silly like that. Anyways, baby steps, baby steps hehehe peace

Pete

[thefu]

thread needs more pictures! looking forward to tuesday since thats the day riggers will be dropping my new machine off

[pete from TN]

Must be nice getting a NEW machine hehehe.. I will try to take some pictures but right now it looks the same as the last pictures I took. Still a lot of cleaning to do and I had to replace my garage door and it is still not functioning due to the spring setup. I need to work on it so I can open and close the door. Then I can drag my damn coolant chip trays out and see if I can scrape and clean the crud off of them. Should not be too bad as they are actually not all that terrible.

Incidentally I have a question for the group here. I had found a way to lower the millhead without power applied where the machine was via removing the four screws and the wiring to the Z axis motor. I then was able to basically unscrew the motor atop the plate and lower the millhead down without actually disconnecting the motor from the ballscrew. Now that it is here and I am going to be hooking everything back up I am wondering if I screwed up here. Is the physical orientation of the motor to the millhead's position vertically on the Z axis critical. I had figured that once everything is hooked back up and I turn on the machine and get the parameters reloaded that the Z will somehow home itself and then the only parameter that may be in question would be toolchange height which apparently is a machine specific parameter that can be loaded manually. Is this correct or is there something I am missing. I am hoping that once I get the machine working that the first moves the Z makes are not a sudden crash into stops or worse the toolchange arm due to a height discrepancy arising from my unscrewing the motor and not actually recording the position of the height of the millhead and returning it to that point and then securing the motor? Any ideas here guys would be most appreciated. Peace

Pete

[thefu]

Must be nice getting a NEW machine hehehe.. I will try to take some pictures but right now it looks the same as the last pictures I took. Still a lot of cleaning to do and I had to replace my garage door and it is still not functioning due to the spring setup. I need to work on it so I can open and close the door. Then I can drag my damn coolant chip trays out and see if I can scrape and clean the crud off of them. Should not be too bad as they are actually not all that terrible.

Incidentally I have a question for the group here. I had found a way to lower the millhead without power applied where the machine was via removing the four screws and the wiring to the Z axis motor. I then was able to basically unscrew the motor atop the plate and lower the millhead down without actually disconnecting the motor from the ballscrew. Now that it is here and I am going to be hooking everything back up I am wondering if I screwed up here. Is the physical orientation of the motor to the millhead's position vertically on the Z axis critical. I had figured that once everything is hooked back up and I turn on the machine and get the parameters reloaded that the Z will somehow home itself and then the only parameter that may be in question would be toolchange height which apparently is a machine specific parameter that can be loaded manually. Is this correct or is there something I am missing. I am hoping that once I get the machine working that the first moves the Z makes are not a sudden crash into stops or worse the toolchange arm due to a height discrepancy arising from my unscrewing the motor and not actually recording the position of the height of the millhead and returning it to that point and then securing the motor? Any ideas here guys would be most appreciated. Peace

Pete

hey its old..just new to me! 1991 sabre 750