Another Jones & Shipman 540P Surface grinder post

[Brad93]

Thanks.

This was the photo I was referring to.

View attachment 478412

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.

Cleaning them is a flipping nightmare.

The filter paper method is much better although does have a consumable cost.

Other method is to get a very fine sieve mesh, and make a sieve where the coolant flows over a weir, and onto the sieve mesh angled at say 30° from vertical.

This would take out all particles over say 40-50 microns. Magnets in a tube will remove a lot of the ferrous material.
You can then use the 10" water filters with a mesh filter first, then progressively finer filters.
Again a consumable cost.

 

[Pawcu]

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!

Cleaning them is a flipping nightmare.

The filter paper method is much better although does have a consumable cost.

Other method is to get a very fine sieve mesh, and make a sieve where the coolant flows over a weir, and onto the sieve mesh angled at say 30° from vertical.

This would take out all particles over say 40-50 microns. Magnets in a tube will remove a lot of the ferrous material.
You can then use the 10" water filters with a mesh filter first, then progressively finer filters.
Again a consumable cost.

Wow really sounds like it going to be a fun process to clean mine out then xD
Considering this is for hobby use, do you think it is worth it replacing it with water filter system like @Brad93 mentioned?

 

[awemawson]

I’ve got the Weir version like yours on my 540 and the paper roll style on my 1300 EUIR J&S cylindrical grinder. The later is more convenient. The roll of filter material advances across a mesh of steel that effectively weighs what its caught, and if enough to clog the filter it presses on a microswitch that again advances the mesh conveyor belt dumping the used filter material into a bin.

If I had to completely clean out the Weir one again it would get trundled outside and attacked by my steam cleaner

 

[Pawcu]

The paper filter one does sound more convenient. Do you really need to clean the weir one frequently? Considering that this is for hobby use I think I have a bigger problem with the coolant going bad rather than having to clean the tank because of the grit...

 

[Pawcu]

I had some time over the Christmas holidays to continue working on this (albeit not as much as I had hoped - got sick and couldn't find the energy to go down to the garage)
I first sorted out the items needing paint:

I know I said I wasn't going to paint the head guards ... I guess I lied

That's how far I decided to paint them. Was tempted to give them a black top coat but the matte finish will look weird with the shiny blue finish of the machine (I think and that's what I'm telling myself)

I managed to somehow get main frame clean (or at least as clean as possible) - to be honest this doesn't need to be exceptionally clean as the oil that gets on this is not recycled but rather drained:

I decided that this did not need any painting so I left it as is.

Dumped the leadscrew nut in the USC and it came out shiny

The only other items that needed removing were the column rise and file wheel assembly and switches and the electronic enclosure boxes - decades worth of caked oil and griding dust:

 

[Pawcu]

The hand wheel did have some rust and was a bit stiff:

I took it all apart and cleaned the individual items in the USC:

I also cleaned the switches and housing for the power rise and fall (unfortunately cannot seem to find individual photos of them cleaned but this is how they were):

Once these were cleaned, all that was left was to continue cleaning the rest of the machine. I tried cleaning it as best as I can while leaving the rise and fall shafts in place. I think I got it pretty well but not going to lie it's not squeaky clean. There are a couple of corners that there might still be some old grime that didn't want to come off and there are certain hard to reach areas which either are not that visible or won't have any impact on the functionality of the machine where I left them as is. Not going to lie, it does bother me a bit and I feel like I'm half assing it to be honest but I guess it's better this way if I ever want to get this up and running ASAP.

 

[Pawcu]

With the machine as clean as it's ever going to get, it was finally time to start the assembly. Below are a couple of pics of the majority of the parts (I took this pic after some of the assembly that I have done xD) that need to go back in the machine... my whole workbench is used up:

I put some caulking on a gap between the bottom piece of the machine and the column - I will then cover it with RTV as well for extra protection - not sure if it's really necessary but hopefully that will last longer:

Head rise and fall was first to get put back together:

Followed by the motor for the power rise and fall:

I was supposed to get the main spindle motor installed (got my friend all over and what not) but as soon as we started trying to put it in, one of the mounts snapped So no will have to source 4 new ones (might as well replace all 4) and try again.
That's it for now Will try and keep assembling some small items in the meantime till I get the mounts and get my friend to come over again
Happy new Year all

 

[Pawcu]

Managed to get some more progress on the surface grinder this week.
While I got the mounts sorted out, I focused on getting the power rise and fall electrics sorted out. I wanted to use the existing control box so got that cleaned up. I'll be using a cheap 0.75Kw panel mounted VFD for powering the motor and was planning on mounting it on the outside. However due to the positioning of where the wires enter the box, the only place I could mount it and be useful would be facing upwards. This would make it susceptible to all the oil and any grinding dust to fall on it. Moreover, to get it facing the right way, the fan would be on the inside, which means less airflow. I'm not really concerned about this heating up as it only gets used for short bursts but would rather not block the fan. Moreover, the width of the box is barely enough the width of the VFD (VFD fits just fine as the lid is pretty deep) so I would end up having to cut a bit from the lid to fit it well. Due to all of this, and the fact that I don't technically ever need to touch the settings of the VFD again (hopefully) and/or alter the speed, I decided to just mount it inside and keep it safe. This way I kept the box enclosure mostly untouched (apart from some small mounting holes).
For mounting I cut a piece of angled aluminium channel and created a few L brackets - not perfect but gets the job done just fine:

At first I left the VFD for free deceleration of the motor however I noticed that with the inertia it kept spinning for quite a bit, which means that unless I stop it early, it could cause a crash. So I decided to give it a 1second deceleration and so far it's working well. I don't have an external resistor hooked up to it but considering the motor is only 0.25hp, and there isn't a lot of mass, I think I'll be ok - only time will tell.

After that I got the column panels installed:

And the head stop for the power rise and fall:

I wasn't really happy with how the red oxide contrasted with the rest of the machine. After talking to a some friends and @Smouser, decided it's better off to paint them a different colour so off they came again. Went to the hardware store and got Gunmetal blue. On the paper it looked very close to the current colour of the machine:

Unfortunately however the colour is a bit off (could be maybe I didn't mix the paint really well) - the actual colour is much lighter/brighter:

That being said I think it is still a better choice than the red oxide... will see once I fit them back on.

In the meantime my friend managed to source some generic mounts for me (I found similar ones on aliexpress). They are unbranded and I have no idea the load capacity and rating for them. Thank you once again @Smouser for getting me paranoid on this
Old vs new:

Due to a slight difference in length, had to put some washer spacers and cut the excess thread so it doesn't hit the back of the column:

All installed:

They do seem to be a bit stiffer than the originals - hopefully that won't have a huge affect on the finish... and hopefully they will hold up for a while as well.

Friend was kind enough to come over and get it installed again - not sure how you're supposed to get it installed by yourself but I guess people have done it. It is definitely much easier with 2 people

 

[Pawcu]

While my friend was over, I also decided to abuse his generosity and asked him to help with with getting the hydraulic tank installed. With the motor, mount and pump, the tank became really heavy - easy job between 2 people however. To get it installed in place we used 2 pieces of wood so we could slide it up on them and then removed the wood to get it inside as it's a pretty close fit. This went in really easily:

I then turned my attention to the saddle. I first got the guards installed on the machine:

The part I was regretting was getting the valve block installed. I knew I had to do this before I put the saddle as there is a drain bolt on the back and I remember I couldn't easily reach it while the saddle was still on the machine. Unfortunately this meant that the saddle was going to get much heavier. Moreover the front cover also requires a gasket and once again this would be much easier to install while the saddle was off. So more weight got added to it. I don't have any photos of the fitment but I used the gaskets I made earlier together with gasket shellac for a good seal.

When I installed the front cover, I did forget to install one of the washers. I realised immediately when I put the cover on but the gasket shellac had already started sticking and I didn't feel like removing the cover again and potentially ruining the gasket so I decided to leave it as is.

Unfortunately I got quite a bit of squeeze out from the top of the valve block and saddle and this got me a bit concerned. The saddle has a few grooves and passages which are only on it and not the valve block that one of them for sure is used to get oil to the bed ways. I made sure not to cover them up but I got worried that the squeeze out could have potentially blocked these passages. I don't seem to have good photos of the passage but it would be this:

There is also another passage which seems to be some form of drain on the valve block? I have no idea what use it has:

Hopefully they didn't get blocked and the only way to know for sure would be to test it out. Thank you once again @Smouser for not making me overthink
The passage on the saddle I can test by confirming that the ways get oil to them. If I'm not mistaken, oil does take a while to come out from there so will need to keep it running for a bit to see. As for the passage on the valve block, I guess as long as everything works, it should be ok?

With the help of my amazing wife we got it back on the machine. This was not an easy feat considering that this thing weighs quite a bit and we are both relatively short people so getting it on top of the machine was not as easy as we would have hoped - thank God my wife goes to the gym as otherwise I would have had to call my friend over again

Got the front and rear wipers installed - I cleaned as best as possible and reused the same wiper material:

 

[Pawcu]

Because of the concern I had with the gasket shellac, I decided that it's best I turn my focus on testing the hydraulic components of the machine. I got the hoses installed:

I then proceeded to fill the hydraulic tank with some Tellus 32 oil. The machine calls for Mobil Vacuoline 1405, which according to google should be either Shell Tellus 32 or Tonna 32. The Tellus 32 was cheaper and readily available from my local supplier so decided to go with it. I believe @Smouser is also using Tellus 32 so I can blame him if it doesn't work as I am following in his footsteps
These are the tanks in which the oil came in:

They are not very easy to pour out of and I don't have a big enough funnel to use but luckily I didn't make too much of a mess (only spilled oil once or twice). I wiped the spills and the sight glass and was about to go up for lunch when I noticed that I hadn't wipe the sight glass properly so I wiped it again, went to wash my hands and noticed that I missed a spot, so I wiped it again.... I guess you know where this is going. Turns out the sight glass was weeping oil
I knew when I removed it to clean it that this was going to bite me back, although I was hoping that with the gasket and the shellac it would have sealed well. Oh well nothing to do but drain the tank and seal it again. Out came the pump, the battery and the charger (battery isn't strong enough on it's own):

This time I used a much thicker hose for the pickup side that the one that comes with it (this pump is actually advertised as a sump pump and the pickup hose is designed to fit through the dip stick tube). This worked really well and much faster than the first time I used it to drain the dirty old oil - will definitely use this set up to pump the oil back and not having to faff around with trying not to spill any oil.
I was a bit concerned that I wouldn't be able to remove the sight glass without breaking it but it seems that the shellac didn't bond very well to it so it came off pretty easily. Got it cleaned up and then put a generous amount of RTV to make sure it doesn't leak again:

It's not pretty but if it doesn't leak I'm happy. If it does, you might find a surface grinder for sale soon on marketplace

This meant that I could not test the hydraulics yet as I needed to wait for the RTV to dry up. I installed some more bits on the saddle:

Handles temporarily installed on the valve block in case I need to dismantle it again... (fingers crossed I don't need to)

Other than that I started getting the main enclosure box set up. Drilled and tapped new mounting holes in the SG for the box and also started laying out and preparing some of the wires for the VFDs:

Unfortunately this is how much I managed to progress.

Hopefully tomorrow I will try and find some time before work to fill the tank again, test for leaks and ideally also get the hydraulic pump running with a temporary setup to test it out... Will see if I start the week on a positive note

 

[Brad93]

I have to ask, why not just use the proper colour? Available from Paragon / Stationary Engine Parts

 

[Brad93]

The oil for the surface grinder hydraulics, due to also lubricating the ways, has a small amount of tackifier. It is available from companies like Pennine lubricants under their own name brand.

I've used ISO 32 though as well. I think for hobby use, no tackifier will suffice.

 

[Pawcu]

I have to ask, why not just use the proper colour? Available from Paragon / Stationary Engine Parts

I didn't know that also I'm based in Malta and I don't think we have those shops here.

The oil for the surface grinder hydraulics, due to also lubricating the ways, has a small amount of tackifier. It is available from companies like Pennine lubricants under their own name brand.

I've used ISO 32 though as well. I think for hobby use, no tackifier will suffice.

Yeah i believe Tonna has tackifier in it if I'm not mistaken. Might try to source some tackifier but pretty sure mine won't get too much use anyways. Thanks

 

[Smouser]

Friend was kind enough to come over and get it installed again - not sure how you're supposed to get it installed by yourself but I guess people have done it. It is definitely much easier with 2 people
View attachment 480458

Lucky you. I had to do it myself.

I wedged the motor with a piece of plank and even then it was not easy.

You have cleaned your machine much better than I did mine

Good work on the rest of the machine!

I have to ask, why not just use the proper colour? Available from Paragon / Stationary Engine Parts

I didn't know that also I'm based in Malta and I don't think we have those shops here.

We are lucky that a company in the UK has got a load of the old machinery colours.

Workshop Machinery Colours

However, I think if you bought it and shipped it to Malta, it will become VERY cost-prohibitive pretty soon.
The paint you used will be fine. After all, all it needs to do is stop corrosion and look better than red oxide.

 

[Pawcu]

Lucky you. I had to do it myself.

I wedged the motor with a piece of plank and even then it was not easy.

View attachment 480569

You have cleaned your machine much better than I did mine

Good work on the rest of the machine!



We are lucky that a company in the UK has got a load of the old machinery colours.

Workshop Machinery Colours

However, I think if you bought it and shipped it to Malta, it will become VERY cost-prohibitive pretty soon.
The paint you used will be fine. After all, all it needs to do is stop corrosion and look better than red oxide.

Yeah i was thinking of using a piece of wood but tbh I barely managed to get it out the fist time... Not sure I would have managed to prop it on the wood and not drop it XD hats off to you for managing!

And thank you. It came out ok I think. Let's hope it actually works haha and it doesn't become a museum piece xD

I'm not even sure it's easy to ship paint with all the chemicals and what not? Never tried to be honest. I'm not sure if the courier services we have actually allow it but like I said I never checked. And yeah I know it might bother me for a bit but like you said it's better than the red oxide for sure and atleast it will protect the metal. Thanks for your help btw

 

[RobCox]

Alas, Paragon Paints state "Please note that paint sales are open to UK mainland customers only due to the restrictions placed upon us by our delivery agents."

 

[Pawcu]

Alas, Paragon Paints state "Please note that paint sales are open to UK mainland customers only due to the restrictions placed upon us by our delivery agents."

I just checked one of the courier services and I think if I use the standard delivery (trucking not air transport) it might be OK to ship paints.
https://www.maltapost.com/Sendon/en/Home/ProhibitedItems?hubServiceCode=UGT

However that means it will take a long time to get over here anyways. I guess if I knew better I should have planned this before xD

 

[Pawcu]

So I woke up early this morning (around 5:45 AM) to try and test out the machine. As mentioned yesterday I opted to use the oil pump to get the oil back in the tank to reduce spills. Unfortunately this did not go as planned... The output hose is coiled and a bit stiff and as soon as I started the pump and oil started flowing, it immediately spat out of the tank and started spewing oil all over the floor. I turned it off immediately but this still made a bigger mess than when I was pouring the oil from the container
Out came the paper towels and I wiped as much as I could from the floor to stop it from spreading. After making sure that the hose was properly inside the tank and I was holding it down, I continued pumping. I was almost ready and I went to adjust the hose inside the container as it had started to pick up some air... not sure what went wrong maybe I was still a bit sleepy but somehow the output pipe got directed at one of the side slits that the SG hydraulic tank has (not sure what's the reason for it ... maybe for lifting?).... so yeah you guessed it, I filled up the inside of the SG as well with oil now.... things were really not looking great for me this morning.... nothing to do... more paper towels:

Good news though - after wiping down the outside of tank, it seems that the sight glass is holding oil. Unfortunately though it's very hard to deduce if it's leaking from anywhere else, considering I managed to fill the outside with oil as well.... But I'll take that win for now.

I quickly wired up one of the VFDs with the hydraulic motors (CE certified I swear ) and made sure that the valves for the table left and right traversal were shut. I on purpose left as much stuff off from the saddle in case I have to remove it again to fix any blockage issues. I turned on the motor at around 25Hz (didn't want to go full speed at first in case of any issues) and for some reason I decided the most important thing to check was to see if oil was coming out of the chain lubrication point. Unfortunately that means I missed all the oil coming up on the saddle and only realised when I saw it pouring down the hose
So now I also filled up the lid and top of the hydraulic tank with oil... at this point it seems I was bent on getting the oil everywhere except keeping it inside the tank

At first I though I had somehow either cross threaded the hoses or had ruined the mating surfaces but I knew I had started tightening them by hand at first. It was only when I got up and noticed the saddle filled with oil that I realised what had happened. Even though the cylinder valves was shut, oil still slowly comes up it seems and because there were no cylinders, it meant that the holes that would normally be occupied by the bolts for the cylinders were now just through holes for the oil to freely flow through and down the SG At least it was nothing serious.

I got the cylinders and hand wheel installed - made sure to use a bit of thread lock on the bolts for the cylinders so hopefully they won't leak:

After more wiping of the tank, I decided to try another attempt and turn it on. This time there were no dramatic leaks.
I started fiddling around with the controls and confirmed that the cylinders cycle left to right and also confirmed that the crank for the saddle traverse also works
I was starting to panic as by now no oil had started coming from the holes for the ways but then as soon as I was about to give up... success

It seems that oil seems to get pumped more as soon as you cycle from left to right - which makes sense.
Anyways you can imagine how thrilled I was. At least I know that the machine should work once I fully assemble it.
There was nothing left to do but turn it off and continued wiping up as much as I could from the mess I made. I left some paper towels to soak up the oil as much as possible and will continue wiping down tomorrow God willing. Most probably will also get a wet rag with white spirit to get rid of the oily residue as much as possible as other wise it's going to be impossible to check for any leaks.

 

[Pawcu]

Update for this week - so after last Monday's fiasco I spent a bit of time wiping the internals of the machine as best as I could using white spirit to get rid of the residue. I am happy to say that so far I haven't found any leaks from the tank yet so that is a good sign. I still need to see if there are any leaks from the saddle though.

I got the valve cover plate installed - originally this seemed to have some rubber washers or gaskets around the holes of the controls but these were super crusty and broke off when I tried to remove them. So I resorted to using some O-rings which I superglued in place (the super glue overflow does bother me a bit):

When I had taken the cover off the first time, I had found the top of the valve block filthy with dust and grime... so I decided to try and use some RTV on the plate to seal it as best as possible... unfortunately the plate is a bit warped so had to fiddle around after i installed it to add extra rtv where it was missing. There will be some gaps as the cover doesn't seal all the areas but hopefully will reduce the amount of grime that goes in:

I also added some left over door insulation strips for the hole where the park lever is (probably overkill but might as well):

I noticed that the way wipers were leaking a bit so I added some rtv there as well (probably for nothing as it might still drip from the ways themselves... time will tell):

Next I turned my attention back to the cabinet box - cut some holes in the front panel for some switches and the VFD displays:

VFDs and cabinet installed:

Not the neatest wiring but it's the best I could do without wasting too much time - still took the better part of Saturday working on it. Not very visible but I also installed a 3Phase 4 Pin outlet on the cabinet so I can connect the auxiliaries to it (Coolant pump or the extractor)

Wired up the front panel:

I went to turn on the pump and for some reason it wouldn't turn on. After some debugging I found that the front panel switches weren't making good contact - remove them and cleaned them - as you can see they had some rust and grime in the contact area:

unfortunately I forgot to take pictures of it fully clean but it works now

 

[Pawcu]

Yesterday my friend came over to help me with the table:

We also installed the belt and tensioned it:

This morning I also got the saddle handwheel installed:

Haven't had a chance to full it test it yet but we did run the x-axis controls yesterday to make sure the table traverses well.
Over the coming week will test it out a bit more, check for any other leaks and continue installing the last bits of pieces. Once those are sorted, hopefully all my parts for the auto-lubrication system would have arrived and I can get to focus on that before turning my attention to the coolant pump.

This is how the machine currently stands: