[N4NV]

This will be my 5th CNC project. The first project was a CNC mini mill from scratch, a Brute from the crankorgan guy. Then came my Bridgeport J-head to CNC, followed by a Taig lathe, then a 4,500 pound Yamazen knee mill. Now I am taking on a Hardinge CHNC.

I made a terrible purchase, by a total lack of communications. I thought I was getting a HNC on the stand that had been stripped, and also a complete CHNC minis the stand. Well, it turns out the CHNC was stripped as well. It is missing all the motors, timing belts, resolvers, tachs, air motor etc. About the only thing it has are the ball screws. Oh well, what do you have to do? Caveat emptor.

I decided I would go ahead and bring it back to life. One picture shows the HNC on the stand (the stand was also mostly stripped). The other picture shows the CHNC on the ground, waiting for cleaning.

Vince

[N4NV]

I removed the HNC from the stand and stripped everything that was on the outside of the stand so I could paint. The stand had about 20 gallons of water in the coolant tank. I spent a couple of days cleaning and sanding, then started painting. I have 5 coats of primer and 2 coats of finish color. I will add another finish coat after I mount the CHNC on the stand.

Vince

[N4NV]

The coolant pump that came with the stand is three phase. I found a nice three phase VFD that is 1/2 HP to run the coolant pump. The pump is only 1/6HP, but I am feeding the VFD with single phase so I have to derate the VFD. The stand and HNC came with a variable speed belt drive system, minus half the components. I removed the rest of the drive system and plan on driving the spindle with a 3 HP motor and a VFD.

I worked on cleaning up the CHNC and stripping off the hoses and wiring that had been chopped off when the lathe was removed from the stand. For the most part, the bed way is pretty clean with only a little staining and no big score marks.

Vince

[N4NV]

Another day, more cleaning. I worked on the spindle and some of the cross slide, turred, and the bed way.

Vince

[N4NV]

I decided I had to take the entire lathe apart to get it clean. When I started stripping the cross slide I found about a cup of dirt in the limit switch compartment. It was starting to looked like the lathe had been buried before I picked it up. I vacuumed up the dirt and proceeded to remove the ballscrew. To my pleasant surprise, it showed little wear and operated smoothly over the entire travel.

Vince

[N4NV]

Today I finished up removing the cross slide. When I removed the indexer, I found more dirt. I was begging to wonder what I would find in the cross slide ways. Luckily, they looked really good. All the original scraping was visible except for a small section on one end. Tomorrow I think I will remove the saddle ballscrew and maybe the saddle itself. I read that you have to be really careful about removing the saddle because it has a Teflon bottom which can be easily damaged. I need to remove it to completely clean the oil channels for the ways. From the top side they looked clogged.

Vince

[N4NV]

It's a tool room size lathe so it does not have that big of a capacity. A 6" chuck would be the biggest I think you could get on it. The X travel is only about 4". The Z is about 10". The spindle is made to take 5C collets without an adapter. They are one of the most accurate lathes of their time. The only other lathe I can think of with the type of accuracy is the Monarch 10EE. They both are belt driven so the finishes are supposed to be exceptional. We shall see.
The lathe on the stand weighs about 3,500 pounds.

Vince

[Ken_Shea]

Vince,
Ditto on what Dave said, "Thats a sturdy looking hunk of iron"

The stand looks great, dontcha just love the weight of these old things.
The doors on a DV-59 base that I started a CNC conversion on are 3/16 inch thick

With the other conversions under your belt and the associated confidence should make this a much less complicated task for you.
The DV-59 conversion I started is now bogged down with complexities, maybe your efforts here may serve to get me enthused again.

Keep us posted.

Ken

[N4NV]

You can see some of my conversions here:
http://www.cnczone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=18178
and here:
http://www.cnczone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=31601
This is a video of my Taig lathe:
[ame]http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8975430568789772373[/ame]
My Bridgeport mill (don't worry, I took the handles off):
[ame]http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8373124975244896791[/ame]
and my big mill:
[ame]http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3686030068739958567[/ame]


Today I was able to finish removing the saddle from the bed. I'm glad I went ahead and did it in spite of the warnings in the maitenenace book. There was still a little water trapped under the saddle in the channels of the Teflon. Did I mention that the saddle rides on Teflon. When I got it off the Teflon looked really good. There is only some very minor scoring from chips, nothing that will effect performance.

I found the lathe bed had some minor rust stains from the water that was in the Teflon channels. I cleaned it off. Other than looks, it should not have any effect on performance.

Vince

[N4NV]

I spent the day stripping off most of the rest of the items that are attached to the lathe so I can get to painting it. I then started cleaning. I found more dirt and rocks under the parting tool assembly. I also found the saddle limit switches under all that dirt, which got me thinking, where were the cross slide limit switches. I did not see them when I took the cross slide apart. I think they might have been missing as well. I need to take off the saddle limit switches so I can fix the wiring, then I can start prepping for paint. There are some big chips in the paint and I was thinking of using Bondo to fill them in unless someone can suggest something better. Compare the first and second pictures with the first pictures I posted to see the difference in the dirt.

I also installed the rear shield support as seen in the third picture.

Vince

[N4NV]

Today I removed the saddle limit switches on the bed, there are three of them. I then sanded the lathe and added a little bondo to the badly chipped parts, then more sanding. I applied a coat of rustolium enamel primer with a roller. It's funny, no matter how well you think you have the prep work done, as soon as you apply some paint, your errors glare out at you. The plan is three coats of the rust colored primer, followed by two coats of white primer with some sanding in between coats. Finally a couple coats of the enamel finish color. I will spray the finish coat.

Vince

[Zoni]

Hi, I have an old hardinge CHNC4. I am having problem with collet closer. there was alot of air leakage so I replaced air with Hydrolic system. Now I have problem that the oil leaks so i am going to replace to bearing with rubber seal bearing.


1.Please can you tell me what is the part number for the rubber seals ?
2.does that package also contains the rubber seal for turret assembly?
3.Do you think it is good idea to replace air with hydrolic?

thanks

[kipdidit]

Looks like I will be looking at this thread alot. I've got the same machine (in about the same condition but without a base) that I'll be starting on shortly, so don't spare the details!

Kip

[N4NV]

I think I put the last coat of paint on the lathe today. I might need to touch something up if I scratch it during the installation.

I got to thinking about all the other castings and things that will also need paint. It seems like the painting will never end. I cleaned up the lathe bed end casting (the one that holds the carriage ballscrew). It will be ready for paint tomorrow. I started on the cross slide end casting, cleaning it anyway. I don't think I will paint it yet. This lathe had the servo motors stripped off and unless I can find some original, I will have to drive it with servo motors I have. This will require me to mount the motor on the right side of the cross slide, which will then require me to machine a slot in the side of the casting for the timing belt to get to the motor. The motors I have are too long to use in the original position. If I mount them 180 degrees to the original they will hit the enclosure I plan on building.

Anyway, I removed the cross slide limit switch and rod (picture below). This is where I found a lot of sand and gravel earlier.

I received some Boeshield T-9 today and plan on coating all the parts with it until I can get them installed. My Caswell blacking kit came today as well. Hopefully I can try it out tomorrow.

Vince

[BobWarfield]

Looking good, Vince!

I love your paint and body work. Did you ever consider powder coat for more durability? Seems readily available, though it won't shine like your paint does.

Are you sticking with the turret changer, or are considering a gang plate?

Best,

BW

[N4NV]

Looking good, Vince!
I love your paint and body work. Did you ever consider powder coat for more durability? Seems readily available, though it won't shine like your paint does.
Are you sticking with the turret changer, or are considering a gang plate?
Best,
BW

You can't powder coat it because the spindle has permanently sealed bearings. I have read and been told you can't take the spindle apart and get it back together. It takes special tooling. The 400 degree bake for the powder coat would certainly ruin the lubrication of the bearings.

The CHNC I have only has a 4 1/2" X travel. That is not much for gang tooling. I really hope I can get the turret working.

Vince

[BobWarfield]

Vince, unless there is something peculiar about this particular Hardinge, you can definitely take the spindle apart. See Gunner's article, for example:

http://aafradio.org/garajmahal/Hardi...eplacement.htm

I've read several accounts of folks who were 100% successful following his approach.

With that said, the paint looks great, you're past that point, pray continue.

WRT gang tooling, there's might be more gang tooled Hardinge conversions that anything else. If I were going to attempt it, I would create an AccuSlide-like axis. What they did is to build a linear-slide + ballscrew stage that just clamped to the Hardinge ways. The dovetail ways are perfect for it. In this case, you don't need 2 axes (I assume), so you'd build it to attach to the saddle. Pretty simple to construct, the linear slides give good performance, and you get the extremely fast tool changes inherent in a gang lathe without the complexity of an automated turret.

I have some information on this on my site:

http://www.cnccookbook.com/CCLatheCNCGangSlide.html

I know the manuals for the Accuslide are available somewhere on the net and have exploded diagrams, but I don't recall where.

Just an idea to consider.

Cheers,

BW

[jholland1]

Very nice restoration and explanation. Please explain application of Boesheild and Caswell product. What brand of coatings are you using? thanks
jackson

[N4NV]

Very nice restoration and explanation. Please explain application of Boesheild and Caswell product. What brand of coatings are you using? thanks
jackson

Boeshield9 is a anti corrosion spray that looks like thick WD-40. It was developed by Boeing. I coat anything that is metal and not painted with it. Caswell makes plating products:
http://www.caswellplating.com/
Their black oxide treatment coats bare steel with a black oxide. It is an anti rust treatment and it looks good. A lot of steel products are black oxide treated.

For the paint I am using Rustoleum enamel. I used it on one of my mills and it is holding up well.

Vince

[BobWarfield]

Boeshield9 is a anti corrosion spray that looks like thick WD-40. It was developed by Boeing. I coat anything that is metal and not painted with it. Caswell makes plating products:
http://www.caswellplating.com/
Their black oxide treatment coats bare steel with a black oxide. It is an anti rust treatment and it looks good. A lot of steel products are black oxide treated.

For the paint I am using Rustoleum enamel. I used it on one of my mills and it is holding up well.

Vince

Good stuff!

I use Break-Free, which is similar in purpose to your Boeshield. Anything new arrives in the shop I clean the cosmolene of with a little kerosene and then apply some Break-Free. I live right in Santa Cruz by the ocean and don't see any rust on my tools.

RE the oxide kit, Caswell makes great stuff. If you want something a little smaller and more convenient try the bluing creams available from Brownell's. I've tried Dicropan T-4 and Oxpho Blue. Both work well--you just apply the cream to the part, wait a short time for it to take effect, and then wash it off. The Dicropan created a blacker more even finish, but it was also kind of dull. Oxpho Blue had more blue and seemed to be a deeper finish, but it was not quite as even. It probably requires nicer part prep to get there.

There are many other interesting industrial coatings and finishes that I'm fascinated by. I've corresponded with Davo727 on these boards to learn about a few of them. He is an aircraft mechanic and uses some of them in his work. He particularly recommends a baked on Teflon finish for sliding parts including machine ways. Seems to make a real difference. There is also a spray on molybdenum lube. He's less enamored of that unless your application lets you reapply it fairly frequently.

Finishes like this can help protect parts as well as making for a more interesting and professional looking part.

Cheers,

BW