[PROJECT] New to me "Ferro" Bridgeport clone mill.

[johnnyc14]

Thanks Kenny, here's todays installment.

One of the bolts holding the head on was broken off and when I removed the head I found the other 3 were badly stretched. They were 12mm metric bolts but I just bought some 1/2" by 7" square headed bolts and they fit perfectly. I cleaned up and re-lubed the worm gear system for tilting the head sideways. 







The screw that holds the power down feed forward/reverse handle was broken off in the shaft. It is only a 4mm screw and it did not have an easy out small enough so after carefully drilling a small hole in the center of the screw I used a small Robertson screw driver bit as a screw extractor and it came right out. I cleaned up the threads with a 4 mm tap and made a new handle from 303 stainless.









I bought a 4" cast aluminum hand wheel for the manual downfeed and bored the center hole to fit the shaft on the mill and then drilled a 1/8" hole to match the one in the hub on the machine and installed a 1/8" roll pin so the handwheel can drive the downfeed hub.



The original draw bar was very beat up so I made a new one using 7/16" CRS and welded a 1/2" nut on one end and threaded the other end to 7/16"NF. I made the shaft and spacer 2  separate pieces. I added a small shoulder to the bottom of the spacer to help center the drawbar in the spindle.







I'm on a roll! This thing is going to be a nice mill I think. I think it is worth investing more money in it and installing a DRO. More on that next time.

Cheers,

John