Thread: Patriot/Bridgemill Tuning

Hey banctecbobn, I can see it, not so muddy It seems like it would be hard to remove the backlash from the chain, so each direction change would cause slight racking, no? I have two more thoughts for improvement. Thought one is to combine some of the ideas here, and try to make a fifth column that runs on 2 linear bearings (see picture). Thought two is to fill the mill head, mill table, and lathe bed castings with epoxy granite. The only that...

Finally got the time to post some pictures of my mill lift. Threw in a picture of a bike I built using the Shoptask ten years ago.

That's what I've been toying with. Change the flimsy fifth column to a dovetail. The main problem is that the lathe bed is attached to the table and the table is not a rigid as I would like. Perhaps set the lathe bed on a plate at both the headstock and tailstock end, extend the tailstock plate outto the extreme edge of the table in the back and attach the dove tail back there. There have been a number of comments about the fifth...

Originally Posted by Ira I'd like to see a picture of that! Sounds very nice. To stop the table from flexing, I'm going to lift the lathe off the table and bolt two pieces of 2 x 3 tube steel to the bottom off it spanning the length of the table. Two more pieces of 2 x3 will run front to back at the ends and in the middle to support the long 2x3's and carry the load through the existing legs down into the floor. The extra...

When I bought my used quadra lift I spoke to JT quite a few times about building a bridge mill upgrade. He sent me this picture of one design he did in the 90's. Its pretty simple, using the tailstock as a support with 2 slotted plates. He said he didn't go with it because you couldn't remove the tailstock and the combo tailstock/steady rest would have had to been scrapped.

[QUOTE=dgapilot;681189]That's what I've been toying with. Change the flimsy fifth column to a dovetail. The main problem is that the lathe bed is attached to the table and the table is not a rigid as I would like. Perhaps set the lathe bed on a plate at both the headstock and tailstock end, extend the tailstock plate outto the extreme edge of the table in the back and attach the dove tail back there. There have been a number of...