Maybe because folk may wish to keep the horizontal milling facility? Or maybe I am missing something?

Andrew.

Hello Frank

If you have the time, trawl through the Photos section of the Yahoo Centec Forum and you will find several examples of home made raising blocks. Find it here https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/centec_milling_machines/info

The Centec Forum seems to have died since Yahoo made changes a year or so ago but the photos and other files are still there. It was/is a good resource for Centec info.

Good luck

Jon

I would urge you NOT to modify any of the original parts. If you want to sell the machine on at any time it will be far more attractive in original condition plus extras, than modified. Also, chopping the existing over-arm as you proposed would mean you could no longer use the machine for horizontal milling – why disable its primary function instead of adding a second?

I owned a Centec 2 for a while, and I did buy a raising block from Tony Griffiths. That pattern does not make any other part "redundant". because the original top-slide fits the block.

To allow horizontal milling while leaving the raising-block and vertical head in place, I made a second, deeper drop-bracket from steel plate, using a small boring-head to cut the bearing hole in-situ by connecting the work-piece to the table with an angle-plate, and with the top slide slackened just enough for free movement. If I remember correctly, I applied gentle hand pressure to the front of the raising-block to ease the strain on the cross-feed, and took very gentle cuts. The bearing itself was a bronze bush – I may have used n "Oilite" one.

If you have one cast, one company used to handling orders from model-engineers is Bridport Foundry, which now makes the Stuart range.

I would suggest fabricating one otherwise, not from a single lump of solid bar though! And make an extended bearing bracket as above, for the horizontal arbor.

Hello Frank,

Having the same problem with regard to the weight of the vertical head, I made a lifting block from a piece of 3" sq.

18" long mild steel. Having machined the dove tails I also drilled some lightening holes in the support.

I also fitted a separate motor for the vertical head driven thro a VFD . This set up removes the need to reset the drive belt.

Thank you amplifying things, Frank.

My own machine was indeed fitted with a lathes.co raising-block, and that was cast-iron though as it is rarely moved and then only to position it, there's no reason it can't be mild-steel or aluminium – but grease the joint well to guard against corrosion.

One way you can simply make dovetails, is to make the dovetailed part by chamfering the sides of a flat bar that is then screwed on to the main block. My Harrison lathe and Drummond shaper uses the same principle, altbeit for rectangular rather than dove-tailed slides. This need only ordinary end-mills.

Beware though that if you use a single, full-length BMS bar it could warp from milling along its length.

Why?

All the raising blocks I've made had only two cutouts.

Good point Gary, I was thinking you would push the head back and clamp it, but you can't. DOH!

PS My Centec2 has narrower dovetails than my late model 2A, but only a few thou.

Edited By Dave Halford on 03/04/2019 18:01:31

Martin,

You don't need a raising block if you don't have a Vertical Head.

These pictures show how the long block is used.

Gary,

Thanks for that and I have one more question, when I bought the mill it came with an electric grinding spindle which from memory fits, I say memory because it sits inside a stand I made and hasnt seen the light of day for a while,, where the vertical spindle fits, would this need a raising block.

Martin P