Another Jones & Shipman 540P Surface grinder post

[Pawcu]

Making good progress!

I wonder how that chuck got damaged. It looks like an angle grinder cut but it is very straight.

It is good that your chuck has got an oil filler hole.
My chuck is greased and I had to open it to regrease it. Allegedly, the magnetic chucks lose magnetism if you open them up.
I have not noticed the loss of magnetism but I have not used the chuck in anger yet.



I am missing the dust extraction piece on my SG. I will need to cobble something together at some point.

Thanks hehe

I think it was damaged using the grinder itself. As I had mentioned in my earlier posts, the seller also gave me a box of assorted wheels, and I did notice some of them have like a V profile and the tip is only a couple of millimetres - I believe this is how it was damaged but I don't know for sure.

The problem with the oil is that it ends to leak slowly - I've already started noticing it leaking slightly from the on-off handle... :/
But yeah I guess it's better than having to re-open it - I did make out a somewhat faded and rust pitted message on the bottom of mine saying not to open it so I didn't even bother trying to see the internals.

Regarding the dust extractor - it's only a piece of pipe that comes at an angle - I don't seem to have good photos on how it mounts - but maybe this will be sufficient to give you an idea for now:

 

[Pawcu]

Managed to get some more progress done on the SG - first priority was to get the table off and cleaned - I had already remove the bulk of all the old grinding dust and metal flakes from the t-slots before but I knew that I will have to remove it to clean it properly and also inspect the ways.

Before - there was some left over gunk/sealant on the top from where the dust cover/guard was after I had removed it:

My wonderful wife was generous enough to come lend me a hand - not sure how I would have managed to remove it by myself and carry it outside:

After stripping away the old sealant from the top I started cleaning it with some degreaser - didn't take a lot of photos while cleaning as I was filthy:

It started raining half way through but luckily it stopped after a few minutes. All clean:

I used some scotchbrite with lots of water and soap and light pressure to clean the ways. I also made sure to properly dry it up so it doesn't rust again. With the help of my wife (again) we took it inside and I sprayed it with GT85 to protect the metal from rusting:

Not very visible in the photo above but there is some slight scraping marks left on the ways so hopefully that's good

I did the same treatment to the table cover/guard - I managed to carry this by myself

Seems like I have forgotten to take pics of it clean - but it is clean now

The saddle is really filthy as well:

I wasn't planning on removing the saddle but after seeing all that I decided it's better to give it a good clean and make sure nothing is clogged up.

 

[Pawcu]

I started by removing the cylinders and gave those a good wipe as well. That's when I noticed that the rods seems to have some light scuffs and surface rust - couldn't get the camera to focus properly:

I will be trying to clean them up with some Autosol polish - will see how that goes.

I still didn't have any idea how to remove the saddle yet however I figured if I remove the leadscrew assembly then the saddle should lift right up.
Started dismantling:

Box of parts (hopefully I remember how everything goes back...

Will need to give everything a good clean - I found some copper grease on the ratcheting mechanism - not sure if that was intentional by the factory or the previous owner used copper grease by mistake? From what I can see all the other nipples don't have grease packed in them so the owner seems to have correctly used oil on those. Will need to investigate further but the manual only says to use oil on the 2 nipples on the wheel.

Unfortunately that's as much as I have managed so far. I did get some other small parts cleaned (such as the stop guides) but forgot to take photos of those as well..... On other news however, my VFDs arrived (forgot to take photos of the smaller one for the power up and down feed - seems like I forgot to take photos of everything this week...):

Quick trip to the hardware store and I bought a new enclosure to house them in:

Not yet sure if I will be mounting the enclosure vertically (door opens side ways) or horizontally (door opens downwards)... but I guess I will see when I get around to mounting them. I would like to get everything cleaned up before focusing on the electronics.

 

[awemawson]

Will you be OK for heat disipation in that enclosure when it's all closed up?

 

[Pawcu]

Will you be OK for heat disipation in that enclosure when it's all closed up?

I've never had any issues in the past with excess heat (my mill VFD is in a similar sized metal enclosure). To be fair I don't normally run my mill for prolonged periods and I doubt I will be running the SG for lengthy periods as well. That being said, I do plan on putting some vent holes so that the air can circulate as a precaution since I will have 3 VFDs all in 1 space.

 

[Smouser]

I've never had any issues in the past with excess heat (my mill VFD is in a similar sized metal enclosure). To be fair I don't normally run my mill for prolonged periods and I doubt I will be running the SG for lengthy periods as well. That being said, I do plan on putting some vent holes so that the air can circulate as a precaution since I will have 3 VFDs all in 1 space.

Same here. I have never had any problems with overheating of VFDs in those enclosures (even when completely sealed up).
In a hobby shop and the UK weather, I just don't run the machines long enough for the VFDs to get too hot.

 

[jmp49]

The machine electronics cabinet on my bridgeport interact cnc gets warm, and it has top exhaust vents and a intake fan at the bottom of the cabinet, but its got everything in there not just the spindle vfd. Do you have a way to monitor the data from the vfd's? My vfd monitors its temperatures and auto shuts down and throw a error for the monitoring.
I think the longest job I've ran on it took 4 hours to complete but it was far from unattended operation (I have no toolchanger, and swarf control is done by vaccum cleaner in cnc pauses)

 

[Pawcu]

The machine electronics cabinet on my bridgeport interact cnc gets warm, and it has top exhaust vents and a intake fan at the bottom of the cabinet, but its got everything in there not just the spindle vfd. Do you have a way to monitor the data from the vfd's? My vfd monitors its temperatures and auto shuts down and throw a error for the monitoring.
I think the longest job I've ran on it took 4 hours to complete but it was far from unattended operation (I have no toolchanger, and swarf control is done by vaccum cleaner in cnc pauses)

Yeah mine is also housed in the cabinet of my Bridgeport (manual so I only have a transformer, a couple of contactors and the drive board for the x-axis power feed) but I never noticed it getting any significantly warm. To be fair I never really bothered to check
I think the VFD internally does have auto shut off based on temperate and current - but I'm not a 100% sure on the temperature part.
I think the max I ran it for without stopping was maybe for 30 mins to 1 hour? And I didn't notice any issues (still runs so far :P). Like @Smouser said, it's a hobby garage so it doesn't get much heavy use so that is why most probably we can get away without any ventilation

 

[Pawcu]

Update for this week - not a lot of visible progress has been made - most of the time spent cleaning and repairing the parts I took off the saddle. After taking off the 4 bolts holding the lead screw in, the latter came out and can confirm that I can now remove the saddle - haven't done so yet as I will need help lifting it... wife wasn't too thrilled
Removed Leadscrew - lots of gunk and old grease:

I put most of the stuff in the ultra sonic cleaner to clean them up however I noticed that the ratcheting mechanism for the saddle seemed to be a bit worn out so I decided to dismantle it - I was right:

To be fair I could have left them as is as I doubt I would ever use them to the extent of doing any noticeable wear but I decided that since it was out, might as well repair it.
The current teeth seem to be hardened and I was afraid that with welding I would ruin them. After talking to my friend he told me to put them in water so as to soak away the heat.
Bit of a janky setup but I think it worked (the piece of wood was to stop the lid from tilting back from the weight of the clamp):

After welding (i know the welds are far from pretty and pretty sure a pigeon can form better sh*ts:

After filing down:

There is still a slight ridge where your nail clips (my filing game is still pretty weak) but I didn't want to go further as I started filing away some of the original material. To be fair it won't affect the function as the teeth never engage in the area of where the weld ends.

All clean and assembled:

Also confirmed that previous owner had put copper grease in the front nipples so it was a good idea that I took it apart to clean it properly.
While I was at it I also cleaned up and painted the housing of the saddle knob:

 

[Pawcu]

I also cleaned the leadscrew... and then proceeded to drop it on the ground and get all the bearings dirty again cleaned up with some air and loaded them with oil and I think it will be fine

Cleaned as best as I could the front housing:

Not sure if I should spray paint the fine feed knob? Just don't want to loose the markings so I think I will leave it as is.
I also noticed that the fine feed leadscrew was missing a bushing in the bottom as the bottom thrust bearings were free.... not sure if it had them and I lost it but I'm pretty sure I kept all parts before cleaning... stupid me forgot to take pictures before disassembling. Anyways whipped one up 'quickly' on the lathe (broke 3 parting inserts before giving up and used the bandsaw to cut it off):

I also cleaned up some of the rust from the cylinder rods:
Before:

After:

Finally my rotary switch for the auxiliary (coolant/dust extractor) arrived so got that installed. It didn't come with a decal so I designed and printed one - my printed doesn't support multiple filaments so I fiddled around by pausing the print mid way so I could manually switch the filament to get the dual colours. I think it turned out well-ish:

That's it for now. Hopefully next weekend I will get around to removing the saddle and cleaning it. I am not planning on removing the valve block but rather removing the saddle as a whole unit so I need to be careful not to get old gunk/oil/degreaser in the holes that lead to the valve block. Will try and plug up the holes as best as I can. I also won't have the luxury of washing it water and degreaser so most probably more effort will be required to clean it properly and slowly.

 

[Pawcu]

Some further progress has been made on this during this week. I first got around to assembling the ratcheting drive mechanism completely for the saddle. Can confirm that this should fit as a whole unit (definitely needed as otherwise was going to be a pain to align everything

Mechanism is working beautifully now really happy with that

I then proceeded to remove as much parts as I could from the saddle to make it easier to remove - off came the trip lever and the top plate cover:

Was greeted with a lot of grime... as mentioned in my previous post, I wasn't planning on remove the front cover and valve block (mostly due to laziness and don't really feel like doing new gaskets for it) however after seeing this I decided that the best course of action would be to actually take them off and clean them 'properly'.
Took the front cover off:

Apart from the four bolts/nuts in the front, there was also a sneaky bolt in the rear....

Considering the state of the oil and grime, I'm really happy I decided to remove it.

Valve block came off after - this also had another sneaky bolt at the back (I think this would be the drain port?) However I would only remove this once we removed the saddle as I couldn't get a spanner to fit. Luckily a friend came over to help as I wouldn't have managed to lift it up by myself:

With the valve block completely off, this made cleaning the saddle a tad easier. Same setup as last time:

This thing was caked with decades of grime, oil and grease.... First sprayed it down with degreaser, left it for a while while scrubbing with a plastic wire brush, then rinse with water and repeat till it was decently clean. Finally wiped it down with a rag and sprayed with GT85 (more pics in the next post)

 

[Pawcu]

After cleaning and drying (friend's foot for size reference ):

Unfortunately seems like there is white a bit of wear on the saddle ways, and there is also some light surface rust - will try and remove as much of it with some rust remover next time:

I'm really glad I removed the saddle as the underside is completely filthy:

Next step was to get the valve block as clean as possible (without dismantling it) - used WD40 to get as much off as possible. Didn't want to use harsh chemicals like brake cleaner as I didn't want that to get inside the valve block. Turned out reasonably well I think - it's not perfect but it will get dirty again anyways:

My brother can over from Scotland yesterday and I decided to use his generosity to bring me over some parts that were going to cost an arm and a leg to get them shipped over here - one of them was the new belt

That's it for this week. Hopefully next time will focus on getting the rust removed from the ways, new gaskets made for the valve block and front cover, and hopefully get cracking on cleaning as much of the parts that I have removed from the saddle (front cover, top plates, levers, bolts.. etc)... USC will definitely get used.

 

[Smouser]

Great work!

I should have probably gone to the same level of work and stripping on mine.

I am now chasing all sorts of little problems which would have been sorted if I stripped it further.

You must be close to reassembly?

 

[Pawcu]

Great work!

I should have probably gone to the same level of work and stripping on mine.

I am now chasing all sorts of little problems which would have been sorted if I stripped it further.

You must be close to reassembly?

Well not really.... I still need to clean all the parts I took off as well as the bottom of the machine and potentially also stripping down the head lifting screw assembly... Depending if I find grease in them.... Will be removing those plates you removed to fix those oil leaks. I also need to get rid of all the old wiring control panels and such to make room for the new control box. Once all that is removed will give the machine a good clean from the outside and potentially a bit from the inside (but won't waste too much time on the inside) and then I can get back to assembling slowly.
It is taking a bit longer than I anticipated but i guess I've got no rush... Except for the inner child in me wanting to see it running xD

 

[Pawcu]

As mentioned in my last post, my saddle had some surface rust on the bottom ways:

Used the trick Inheritance Machining had used - used a paper towel that was dipped in rust remover solution and then covered it with cling film/plastic wrap to preserve the moisture and not let the towels dry up:

I let those sit for a couple of hours and you can see that the rust remover turns brownish:

Removed the paper towels and wiped it down thoroughly with brake cleaner to make sure to remove the solution completely - right side turned out pretty good I think:

Unfortunately it seems that the paper towel on the left side wasn't making good contact on all the surfaces and it ended up staining the metal:

It's only superficial and I'm pretty sure it will get 'polished' up once it's being used.

While this was going I got to cleaning the parts I took off last week from the saddle. First order of business was to get the hand wheel assembly clean - chucked up the main body in the lathe and gave it a good polish with a piece of scotchbrite:
Half way through:

All finished and assembled:

More clean parts - really making good use of my USC:

Medium sized jar of assorted bolts, nuts and washers that I took off from the saddle.... starting to forget where some of them go (especially the washers).... it's going to be a fun assembly -_-

 

[Pawcu]

No matter how much I tried to delay cleaning the bottom of the machine where the saddle sits, I couldn't push it any further. I started by trying to remove the saddle crossfeed nut... I had already removed from below 2 long bolts and the one that feeds the oil to it previously and I thought that was it. Turns out there are 2 more bolts in the back from below further in. For some reason they were really tight. My own brute force with a hex key wasn't enough. Tried the hex key in a vice grip for extra leverage... almost snapped it and still nothing. I then tried to use my small battery powered impact driver (the one used mostly for driving wood screws) - unfortunately I don't have imperial hex bits and tried to use some weird multispline bit that just fits. Unfortunately that also didn;t work and started spinning in the bolt - luckily i didn't damage the bolt too much. As a last resort I tried to heat up the brass nut from above to try and get it to expand and possibly melt away any thread locker - I only have a small blowtorch but that luckily seems to have done the trick (albeit after a long time trying to heat it up):

I also removed the 'fold-away' guards. Those had some rust and a lot of the paint had been scraped away so I have them a quick clean with the wire wheel on the grinder and spray painted them with some primer:

I still need to spray them with a black top coat. In hind sight I should have probably used red oxide and brushed it on with a brush to give them a ticker and more durable coat - oh well. I did however learn from this and used red oxide to paint the top valve block cover as this seems to get scratched quite a bit:

The head guards came off next:

I still need to give these a good clean - doubt will be painting them but will see. I don't want to get side tracked and start painting everything.

It was nearing end of day yesterday but I did manage to vacuum up the majority of the gunk that was sitting on the main frame:

Considering the state of how it is, I might give this area a bit of paint just to protect it a bit. However will need to clean it properly so will see how that goes first.
At the moment I am torn - I want to start assembling the saddle once this area is clean (as I'm getting worried about all the random bolts I have and want to get those out of the way) but at the same time I would rather remove anything else that needs to be removed (such as the head lift screw assembly if I am going to be removing it - and the electricals) so I can get full access to clean the rest of the machine - will see what mood I am next weekend

 

[Smouser]

Took some more photos of the dust collector:
View attachment 460756 View attachment 460757

Not much to see on that - seems to have a bag of some sort inside and and impellor with a 0.5Hp brooks gryphon motor:
View attachment 460758

And some more photos of the coolant tank - this is the back side (back panel is off because I was trying to see how it was wired up)
View attachment 460760

The coolant tank has the J&S tag (albeit very faded and worn out):
View attachment 460759

Front side:
View attachment 460763 View attachment 460764

This is going to require some deep cleaning - not really looking forward to this... most probably will keep it for last
View attachment 460765
View attachment 460766

How does that coolant tank work exactly?

I assume the 'compartments' are used as 'settling ponds' to keep the coolant as grit free as possible.

I need to make something up so I can run coolant on my SG.

I am pretty sure I have a coolant tank from a lathe (possibly Colchester) which I am planning to use on my SG as I can't seem to get good results grinding dry.

Besides, everything I have read so far suggests that coolant is the best wat forward on a SG. It keeps the dust down, removes the problem of parts getting hot while grinding and produces a much better surface finish. Some people even suggests that coolant makes a lot less mess compared to grinding dry...

 

[Pawcu]

How does that coolant tank work exactly?

I assume the 'compartments' are used as 'settling ponds' to keep the coolant as grit free as possible.

I need to make something up so I can run coolant on my SG.

I am pretty sure I have a coolant tank from a lathe (possibly Colchester) which I am planning to use on my SG as I can't seem to get good results grinding dry.

Besides, everything I have read so far suggests that coolant is the best wat forward on a SG. It keeps the dust down, removes the problem of parts getting hot while grinding and produces a much better surface finish. Some people even suggests that coolant makes a lot less mess compared to grinding dry...

Good question and hopefully someone will be able to better answer xD but like you said it has a lot of fins and settling areas for the grit to settle on and then you can clean them? I haven't gotten around to cleaning it and painting it yet so I don't have full knowledge of how it works

 

[awemawson]

I’m struggling to see your post with the coolant tank, but if it’s the standard J&S one the returning coolant flows into the top drawer and flows from section to section making its way eventually to the bottom drawer where the. Coolant and pump are housed. The fluid flows slowly enough that the particles have time to settle out.
Fun to clean out, ask me how I know!

 

[Smouser]

Thanks.

This was the photo I was referring to.

My coolant tank will be much much less fancy.

I am thinking of just putting in two baffles in a 'normal' lathe rectangular tank. Cleaner coolant will overflow the baffles until they reach the pump again.

I don't use my SG much so hopefully that will be sufficient.