Making a Stainless Steel Bedway Protection - Self Made Way Covers
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 20 พ.ย. 2024
- I'm still working on my new Emco mini CNC lathe to bring it back to work. One thing I wanted to install before really using the machine was a proper protection for the machines bedways. They are still in very good condition and I wanted to preserve this state as good as I can. And frequently cleaning the bedways is no fun. In addition to that this is a CNC machine meaning it will work mostly on its own so I wanted a reliable way of getting the chips off the bedways during machining.
The common concertino bellows or fabric way covers as on my other Minilathe are not what I wanted here on my CNC machine.
Instead I designed a solution from pieces of stainless steel sheetmetal strips. The way cover consits of 6 rooftop shaped individual parts which fold into each other. The whole thing is sealed with felt strips and is pretty solid overall. As far as I can tell from the first test it seems to work quite well and gives the whole machine a quite professional look which I like as well.
As I haven't seen this approach here on TH-cam I thought this might be interesting for you as the idea can be applied on different machines.
I hope you enjoy this episode and my work. Feel free to comment and ask your questions.
If you want more of this content, please subscribe to my channel. I highly appreciate that. Thanks!
![PASULOL รามเกียรติ์ ตอนที่ 4 นนทกพบรัก [Ramakien Ep.4: Nonthok in love]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/tMUQgmZzf_A/mqdefault.jpg)
Genius. Way better than an accordian!!
Thank you very much. Yes, I think it is way more convenient.
Yeah....No Music too !!!
Very nicely done sir. Looks like a factory component. The magnetic ' break-away ' was the perfect solution. Keep up the great work!!
It’s super cool if he wants to make it longer for something later he could easily just make a second or third cover with a flat coming down on the cross slide side. It’s then just a modular cover that’s easy to extend by hand.
Thank you very much for your kind comment! I really do appreciate that!
@@WeCanDoThatBetter Yeah I was speculating myself on how to solve this problem but couldn't think of anything without annoying compromises. Then you brought out the magnets and I felt stupid. Absolutely genius!
I think about accordian way cover for my lathe. Now i got inspiration from one of the best TH-cam lathe Improver. Big thanks 👍🏻
I'm humbled! Thank you very much. I really do appreciate that!
@@WeCanDoThatBetter Excellent work my man.
The magnetic attachment so it can pull free for extended travel is a great idea!
Thanks! I didn't want to risk destroying the whole thing accidentally :)
indeed. When I saw this idea i was impressed. simple, smart, and 146% efficient.
Brilliant idea! You did a fine job constructing the bedway cover. I might build something like this for my mini lathe. Thank you for sharing this project.
Thank you very much for your kind comment and feedback! I really do appreciate that. Good luck for your project.
My opinion of a teacher always goes up greatly when they demonstrate their failures. The end result is something to be proud of!
Thanks for you comment! Yes it was a rough way here. But if the endresult pays off, everything is fine.
I knew that it will be a melticulously engineered project, when you threw the garbage press brake back to its box and got another press brake just for the sake of continuing the project. And yes, I was correct, everything was DYI, perfectly machined and crafted. Well done!
Thank you very much for your kind words!
That is absolutely incredible. I definitely want to make those for my mill and lathe. Even though felt is typically used for oil retention and generally is installed with a rubber wiper in front of it, I think the fact that it only uses felt is better because you only have to replace the wipers every couple years depending on use and I've found on our industrial machines that even 2 years of time is enough that the way wiper manufacturer no longer makes the wipers your machine needs and you are ship out of luck on getting new ones leaving your machine to just slowly collect more and more chips. With adhesive backed felt they have been making it for the past 50 years at the bare minimum and you'll be able to replace it later on down the line when they wear out! I have seen it so many times on our industrial CNCs that the wipers will wear out and they no longer sell replacements and instead of protecting the ways or linear rails from chips, it just hides them under where you can't see and slowly destroys your machine without you knowing. I am 100% sold! I shall start designing some now!
I wonder if using coolant the adhesive would come unstuck.
Take a cheapest paint brush that fits your bedways,cut handle off and cut bristles to match bedway shape.Mount brush to lathe carriage with L brackets and you are done.Put those infront of wipers and wipers will last years .
just buy 10-20 extra sets of wipers when you buy the machine, then you won't have this problem.
What a brilliant solution to a common problem and masterfully executed. Congratulations!
Thank you very much for your kind comment! I really do appreciate that!
Well done, very nice upgrade for your machine. That cheap press brake was hilarious, I've not seen one that bad before - you were right to send it back.
Magnificently executed sheetmetal work with billet machining precision on the fasteners.
3 small suggestions.
Use a flat top to minimise the loss of radial clearance.
OR
6 break away magnets on the right hand side to allow removal when larger diameter part needs to be machined
I was watching with the sound off so not sure if I missed it but many other owners would be happy to have your dimensions to recreate the same or similar covers though improvements in this style of design would be hard to achieve.
Thank you for taking the time to document the process so well.
Very nice! I tried something similar several years ago for a larger milling machine. It took several tries to get it right. I ended up spot welding pieces together because of the distortion the tig welding caused. Had I watched your video before it would have been much easier and saved me tons of time. Where were you 4 years ago when I needed it! Great video.
Absolutely brilliant! Better than any diy way cover I have ever seen before.
Thanks a lot!
It might be the best work I've ever seen
I'm humbled! Thank you very much!!
Impressively accurate folding and a great product review !
Thank you very much!
Nice Job. I have spent many hours working on this type of slide way cover on full size CNC machines.
Many times I have arrived at work to find covers like these folded up , bent and poking out of machines in inappropriate spots. Mostly due to 40 meter rapid travis speeds and lazy operators who have walked on them bending them just enough to catch and cause a problem. Admittedly these were much larger and run at higher speeds but its all the same in principal. There is a real art in getting the drag just right so they expand and contract evenly at any velocity.
I thought they had an accordion folding 'steel' lattice underneath to achieve evenness?
Nicely done! I'm facing the same challenge on a CNC mill conversion, where, like you, I don't want the cover getting caught in any spinny bits. I really liked the adhesive felt strips idea. They solve guiding as well as sealing elegantly, hopefully without scratching the covers up too badly.
Thank you very much for your comment! The felt strips have proven to be the best material. Rubber or something has to much resistance in my experience.
Fantastic job, well done! Instead of brazing stainless steel i suggest you try spot welding it. You can buy a spot welder or do what i did and remove the transformer from an old microwave, cut out the secondary windongs and wrap a couple of looks of welding wire through it and make a clamping mechanism to fix some rods to and connect the wire. I made one to spot weld two haves of a heart together for our wedding. Worked perfectly on stainless ateel. Not ao much on any other metals
I was thinking of adding something like this to my EMCO Compact 5 (manual) lathe, but was struggling with some of the details. Thanks for showing me how it's done.
Thanks for your comment!
You have done what every lathe needs 100 percent. Good job. I liked it. Thank you. Good luck to you.
Thank you very much for your kind comment! I really do appreciate that!
Haa haaaa hhaaaaa, that carpenters rule!
Seriously though, what a fantastic cover, getting those individual elements to fit together so well takes some skill. I can never get bent metal to work correctly. A brilliant bed cover.
Thank you very much for your comment! I really didn't like sheet metal work that much as you never know exactly how the bends will end up. But fortunately I managed to get 6 elements with more or less right dimensions. But I made quite some more while testing and prooving the design.
The use of felt and boltheads for locking and alignment is brilliant. Most professional covers are far more complicated.
Thanks for your comment! I tried to keep it as simple as possible. But still a lot of work and trial and error to get it finally to work.
Beautiful work! Your implementation of the telescoping covers was awesome. I've filed that one away for later!
I made the mistake of learning TIG welding on thin stainless steel. Well maybe not mistake as I learned a crap ton, but it sure wasn't easy. :) You won't get a result you will like with any type of flame soldering/welding or MIG. You need a TIG machine for the thicknesses you're working with. You also need chill blocks. The goal is to put heat in hot and quickly and remove it as quickly as possible. Clamp chunks of aluminum or copper near the weld to draw the heat away fast. I ended up machining fixtures for clamping corners that had a bunch of holes for back purging the corner joint.
Very elegant! This inspires me to make an attempt at metal way covers! You made it look so easy! And the magnetic attachment is genius!
I will mention on my Emco Compact 5, it's easy to hit the tool on the carriage when indexing the turret if the sticks out too much so your method for attaching the cover to the carriage does sacrifice a tiny bit of tool length. I feel like I've wanted an extra 0.040".
Very interesting project and nicely executed. I would like to see a follow up demonstrating how well the protectors keep the chips at bay. Although you only talk about protecting the ways it should also be very beneficial in protecting the lead screw and carriage drive shaft.
I think in following videos you will see how well it works with chips.
Напоминает рыцарскую латную рукавицу времён средневековья.На станке с ЧПУ выглядит очень футуристично.Прекрасная работа.
Very nice build, and a nice adventure in misadventure with the soldering bit. It does look like it could have came with the lathe.
Thanks a lot for your kind words!
The intro shots are a peak of satisfying machining content :D Beauty!
Thank you very much!
That is really nice. Well done. I am sure you will get soldering perfect one day.
I worry about the glue, but I think it will survive quite a bit of time. Just make sure to inspect it from time to time. I think the industrial covers usually use a spot welded profile sections to hold a rubber wiper seal.
Super great work!! I’m a huge nerd for sheet metal work! When done right sheet metal is the best!
Hi from South Africa Brilliant design and beautiful fabrication
Thank you very much for your kind comment! I really do appreciate that.
Great solution for a way better look! Might incorporate your techniques for a way cover on my Bridgeport. Thank you!
Thank you very much and good luck for your project!
That looks awesome. Professional results. Well done, well don. 👍👍👍👍
Thank you very much!
Very nice build! I would like to suggest that there are soldering compounds that let you tin solder stainless steel and other metals, also with different metals. It doesn't have a great strength but it works to hold two plates together :)
That sounds interesting. Thanks for the hint. It would have been probably strong enough.
great work!
you don't see much of those covers on youtube mainly for two reasons:
1. nowadays most machines which need covers are small CNCs with not much space on axis so accordeon covers are better.
2. most of machines which really needs metal sheet way covers are already have them by default.
As usual you do great work, great design and looks cool.
I always look forward to your videos. I learn a lot from your work.
Thank you very much for your kind feedback! I really do appreciate that!
“Pretty good”?
I think it’s very good, great & professional!
love it! my only concern would be how well the felt+adhesive will hold up over time.
might want to add those stopping screws in the other direction as well, so you're not relying on the adhesive so much
We will see how well it hold up. I'm hoping the best.
@@WeCanDoThatBetter thin oil is a pretty good solvent for this type sticker glue, i suspect it will depend on your cutting fluid
Hello. Congratulations. Very good result, I hope the felt or gasket does its job.
Thanks! Time will tell how well it works.
Great work, as always. I like how neatly designed and constructed it is, very well done!
Thank you very much for your kind comment! I really do appreciate that!
Damn, after watching you and inheritance machining do sheet metal work using manual tools, I'm a lot more appreciative of the hydraulic guillotine, cnc press brakes and big slip roll I have at work 😅
Oh yes. Would be great to have those machines ;) But I have to use what I got :) Luckily it worked for this project.
awesome, ive seen high end machines with the same type of cover. just amazing.
Thanks! Yes, this type is standard on professional machines. Off course a little bit more sofisticated.
I,ve been thinking of one of these for a while now, you just motivated me to make my own, very nice work keep the projects coming, Subscribed and liked.
Thank you very much for your kind comment and your support! I really do appreciate that!
A trick I use when bending, put an angle finder on the over hang. Then, if you want a specific angle, you can bend to half the angle as measured by the finder.
Thanks!
Looks awesome! I hope it proves to work just as well as it looks.
Thanks! I has to prove on the long term. Until now it seems to work quite perfect.
Looks great. A lot of work. I made a pan attached to my slide. The pan is always under cutter.
Thank you! A pan under the cutter will collect most of the chips. On a manual machine I wouldn't put that much effort into building a cover but here I thought I should :)
Super cool modification. Like an Armadillo!
Thanks!
Excellent job...looks professional like a large cnc lathe .
Nice job, looks like a part made by the original factory.
Thank you very much!
Hope the felt adhesive and tolerances serve you well. Very nice build.
Thanks!
what an incredibly well executed project!
That looks so nice and professional!
Thank you very much!
Great design and manufacture! well done.
Thank you!
They make flux specifically for soldering stainless steel. It works very well and you need less heat to get the silver solder to flow.
That's good to know. Thanks.
What a satisfying mechanism and build
Thanks!
Beautiful design and will be quit helpful for my tormach! Thanks for sharing.
Looks like it did come with it, great work.
Thank you!
This is the kind of brilliantly over-engineered perfection we have come to expect from WCDTB 😃
If I was to be REALLY picky could elements 1-2 do with a bit of clearance to stop chips getting pushed against the head stick and fouling the action?
It's still more than 10/10 though 👍
Very cool, It reminds me of a scaled down version of an expanding aircraft hanger used for fire fire suppression ETC. Used at X locations.
Thanks! Interesting thought :)
I wish I could do such a clean job as yours
Thanks!
Top notch work!
Thanks!
Very tidy job.👍
It might be best to flip the sliding way protectors the other way around, as you'd lose less swing over the protectors when the tool carrier/capstan is close to the spindle nose.
Yes I know it's a small machine, but when you need to make a funky flywheel or large diameter spur gear with the lathe as an indexer...?
👍
Thanks for your comment! For now I will leave it as it is. Time will tell if this causes problems.
Excellent solution !
Nicely done! But, as I am thinking, I would have tried put the slide guard the other way around. The tallest piece under the chuck! Thanks for sharing!
Thanks for your comment! Don't know if flipping it around would have some benefit.
@@WeCanDoThatBetter
No benefit machining small parts. But you can machine a part with a little bit larger circumference near your cutting tool by rotate it. Excellent performed and a great thought out upgrade! Thank you!
Very slick.Job well done!
Thanks!
Nice work. Looks like the real deal.
Thanks! It is the real deal ;) :D
It looks fantastic impressive work!
Thank you very much!
Clean ! Just lets hope it wont disturb or interfere with the surface finish . not sure how strong your spindle motors are to balance that out . but knowing the C5 size...this would be the first thing that comes to my mind. realy well done
Thanks! You mean the cover will cause a bad surface finish? I don't think so. There is very little resistance in the cover, so not much force is needed to fold it. The steppers are astonishingly strong.
@@WeCanDoThatBetter ok that was my only concern! but if u say sop...it should be fine. how is G code Learning going so far :) ?
This was VERY interesting to me, I really appreciated the video.
How much larger/longer did you make each piece?
Thank you for sharing!
Thank you very much for your comment! The felt strip is about 1mm thick so I added to each position of the bend 1mm +0,5mm which is the thickness of the sheet metal.
Very very useful and nice, lathe looks a beauty.
Thanks for your compliment!
Magnific work and idea! 👏👏👏
Thanks!
nice job. I wish I had these on my cnc mill instead of the plastic bellows
Thanks!
Looks awesome, I'm sure it will work great.
Thanks! So far it does :)
Very nice solution!
Thanks!
Promising for sure. I bet this could be 3d printed all in one piece.
High chip temperature will be a problem
@@tehnar_dima High temperature paint and coolant fluid and it wont.
Oh.....you mean Lathe, chuck, bedways, tailstock and the Mains Cord.....All IN ONE with this way covers ???!!!! That would be a Miracle ! ( Joking, Of Course ! ).
I have no 3d printer yet. But this build is something I wouldn't trust 3d printed parts. Sheetmetal is the way to go here as the parts have to be very thin and durable at the same time.
Very well done!
Thanks!
Great exercise in iteration design. Thanks for sharing!
Thank you!
Very nice project. This is why I am subscribed.
Thanks a lot!
Отличная работа! Успехов в творчестве!
oh yeah, im here again sat nite watching. Thanks much.
Thanks!
Very elegant, congratulations
Thank you very much!
Really good work!! Amazing 👍
Thank you!
Attila in the Shed did a version of this for his bench lathe. Less bends and thicker aluminium sheet metal, worth comparing notes.
Thank you very much for the comment and the hint. I looked it up. Pretty interesting. I haven't known his channel and this proejct. Thanks for showing me.
Looks awesome. Good job 👍
Wunderschön, as you say!
All my projects looks like total crap in comparison!
Thank you very much! Don't let you take down from my work ;)
That looks awesome!!
Thanks!
It looks like a piece of medieval armor.
Indeed it does :)
You could use a surface roller to make a crescent or bow shape on the protectors, that would be cool too
Sounds complicated ;)
Beautiful work.
Really nice build.
Nice work!
Thanks!
A fantastic solution!
Thanks!
Nicely done
Thanks!
They look great but will not hold up once they get used. I have repaired, made and sent some to be rebuilt from manufacturers many times. The felt you have in there needs to be replaced with steel strips resistance welded, most have seals on the face and are manufactured with it. At the back of each cover should be a steel bulkhead cut out to match the ways. At the bottom and top of each bulkhead Delrin is used to support it and slide on the ways and support the next cover. Hope this helps.
Hi and thanks for your detailed comment! In harsh industrial environment my way cover would not last that long I guess. I had to make compromises regarding the size and how complicated it is to make. As I have very little space on my machine I had to make that thing as compact as possible. That's why I came up with the small felt strips. I will see how well it works when in use. But thanks for your hints.
That’s an awesome ideA. Amazing fine work bro 👍. Will the chips stay when retracted til the end as the last segment touches the chuck wall? Probably leave a segment for manual brush down. V-Slanted top is also genius👍. Thanks for sharing your creation❤
Well done you gave me a idea as I have that same problem
Thanks
Thanks!
nice bild !
cheers
ben
Thank you!
Very nice job!
Thanks!
This looks so cool and elegant! Like from yiron man. 👍👌
Excellent job.
Thanks!