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fp2 table overhaul

rimcanyon

Diamond
Joined
Sep 28, 2002
Location
Salinas, CA USA
I spent the day today pulling the Deckel FP2 table apart, separating the X/Zsaddle with all the gearing from the X axis table. It is quite ingenious, and seems to be quite over designed. It has 4 gibs for X axis and 3 for Z. Mostly the ways are box ways (there is one internal box way which uses a tapered gib and one internal dovetail way that uses a tapered gib, but the rest of the gibs bolt on and run up against the back side of the box ways.



There are two box ways for X, two for Z, and one dovetail way for X.

There was a lot of cleaning involved to prepare for scraping, since the last thing I want is contaminants on the surface plate. Its amazing how much swarf can collect inside the casting of an fp2...


This is a big project. Each part is too heavy to lift, so I organized a work area that consists of surface plate (on a cart with wheels), workbench (same height), hoist and scraping tools and straightedges. My preliminary checks show that the saddle’s Z axis way has about ½ a thousandth wear in the ZX plane, which is better than I expected. The X axis has more, but I haven’t measured it yet, need to get the back side done first so I can sit the saddle on the surface plate to check the front against the back.


The small surface plate is to check the surface where the gibs attach. That will be the reference surface for the rest of the saddle.



While I have the table/saddle apart I will be looking at installing a DRO. The hole for the X axis table lock would make a perfect place to install a Newall slide.



The day was not without its fair share of Deckel problems to solve. Getting the Z axis trip lever off was one such. After removing the threaded taper pins, the shaft could be driven in almost enough to allow the trip lever to come out, but not quite. After playing with the shift mechanism a bit, I found that if the Z axis drive gear was shifted down and engaged, the Z axis trip lever shaft could be driven in another 1/8" so would just clear the trip lever. barely.


Getting the shift lever off was another. The ball is held in the socket with a 14mm locknut, and limited access and visibility. After trying every 14mm and 9/16" wrench I own, a crows foot was the right tool.



-Dave
 

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Nice work
It always surprises me how little wear those 50 year (or so)old machines have
Now it also is the time to check if some previous owner ever used any grease and clean the lubrication holes

BTW isn`t it the saddle you took apart


Peter from holland
 
It always surprises me how little wear those 50 year (or so)old machines have
Peter, you nailed it. 48 yrs. old to be precise. The inside of the table had a 1963 date in the casting. But considering how much swarf was tucked into every hole, its amazing how little wear it has. Fortunately no grease in the oil passages. I sprayed solvent into the lube holes and they are much cleaner that when I started, but I'm not convinced I got all of it. So as long as I have it apart, pulling the alum. plugs and cleaning all the oil passages sounds like a good idea.

BTW isn`t it the saddle you took apart
Saddles don't include the slides, when you have the slide off, what's left is the saddle. I'm sure others will disagree :stirthepot:

-Dave
 
Saddles don't include the slides, when you have the slide off, what's left is the saddle. I'm sure others will disagree :stirthepot:
Regardless, I presumed by your title you had taken apart one of the tilt swivel or universal tables ! Not sure what the official name would be for what you overhauled but I would have called it the vertical table mount slide.
 
Dave:
Good to see you at it...
Deckel went through several design changes to the vertical table slides.

Your system hangs the weight of the slide on to a relatively small flat way at the top of the slide as i recall. That same section is used to control the slides "tip" using a plate gib on the back.

Later machines moved the flat section that carried the weight to be at the bottom of the slide ...Also eliminated the square way and its gib.
Retained the plate gib for tip at the top....
Pretty much the entire slide was carried on the lower surface of the slide (vertical table) and the dovetail just above it.
Advantage the later system offers is a wider support for the slide....
Latest manual machines (Aktive) extended the width of the saddle at the point of contact with the flat bottom slide to give further support....

One must be careful on your style to get everything balanced between the square gib and the dovetail....

Thanks for sharing

E-mail me , i have some parts for your FP2NC....and i lost your shipping address....
Cheers Ross
 
As to DRO...On my FP2 i modified the relief at the bottom of the table to allow fitting a Heidenhain scale....Made the relief a bit deeper and wider as i recall...allowed the trip dogs to still be used.

Cheers Ross
 
One must be careful on your style to get everything balanced between the square gib and the dovetail....

Yes, I had been thinking about that. It seemed to me that the design requires one to tighten the upper front box way gib first then the lower, dovetailed gib to pull it flat against the lower part of the saddle. One would think that in use, the plate gib on the slide, at the rear of the top box way, would need occasional dressing on a surface grinder to keep the table plumb.

I haven't completely figured out the order of scraping, and how it reflects the design of all of the ways. My initial thought, which I have not systematically verified, is that the design has no "impossible" constraints. i.e. its not a Moore jig borer, where you have two vee ways that have to be scraped in tandem.

There are two flat ways in the same XZ plane: the one below the dovetail and the one at the top on the front of the top box way. I think its important to keep the two surfaces on the front of the slide in the same plane, so even though the slide below the dovetail has the most wear, I will remove the same amount from the front of the top box way (or perhaps a bit more - It should have enough clearance not to drag and to allow the gib on the table to be adjusted). That also means that the alignment of the end castings and the X axis screw may need some adjusting.

I think the weight of the slide is taken by the top surface of the upper front box way. The box way on top of the saddle does not make contact with the slide on top, just on the sides.

However, most of the force transmitted from the table is due to cantilevering, so the slide on the back side of the top box way, and the slide below the dovetail get the most wear. Which is corroborated by the wear patterns I see on the lower front of the saddle and the plate gib on the slide.

As mentioned in the first post, the wear on the vertical ways (back side of the saddle) is very even. i.e. it "looks" like there is .002" of wear (based on the way the flaking is nearly gone), but it is really flat and even, a tribute to the design.
 
Dave:
Later manual machines fitted "Turcite" to the back side keeper plate gibs on both the horizontal slide "X" and the vertical rear plate gibs on the "Z"....

The plates were milled with a relief where the surfaces slid together and the Turcite glued into that step...the adjustment was by grinding the contact area where the plates bolted to the slide....Iron on iron where they fit up....
Would do that to that machine if it were mine...Will reduce the wear and friction and make moving the table both in the "X" and "Z" easier.

Cheers Ross
 
"...not a Moore jig borer, where you have two vee ways that have to be scraped in tandem."

For the table, two v-ways AND two flat ways all in tandem. And not just
scraped.

The V's on the bottom are negative shapes, which are scraped in to alignment with
the flat ways. Then hardened steel square bars are mounted into the negative
Vs to make positive Vs. And then the hard steel ways and steel strips on the
flat ways are all lapped into alignment with each other.

Clearly a superior design compared with the deckel setup.

But a tad over-defined!

:)
 
Eleven years have gone by without an update, and some progress was made, but mostly the machine has sat in a corner of my shop, unloved and neglected ;<(

But my excuse is that other projects got in the way, and as Russ said when I bought the FP2, once I started using the FP2NC I would rarely have a need for the FP2. However, there have been times when having a second mill would have come in handy, and the long reach vertical head and 500mm X travels would definitely have been useful. So finally I am back to work on it.

About 90% of the alignment portion of the scraping is done. Still to do are the surface in the knee that controls side to side rocking (the surface on the right box way opposite the tapered gib) and all of the gibs and backing plates. And the final pass of flaking on all of the surfaces that have been alignment-scraped. And once the scraping is complete, I will be following Bruce's lead to clean out all the oil passages and add a one shot oiler: https://www.practicalmachinist.com/...-and-support-tear-down-and-reassembly.277534/
 
Here are some photos that show the current state of the scraping:


The X slide ways were worn at the sides about .003-.004". Once the remaining alignment scraping is done I will go back and flake all the areas that have been scraped.

IMG_1323.jpeg

IMG_1325.jpeg
The oval shows the surface that still needs alignment scraping.
IMG_1326.jpeg

All of the gibs need grinding, but that is a ways off.
IMG_1336.jpeg
 

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Just to be accurate think i was the first to fit a “one shot” to the FP2 ( at least on this forum)
Bruce added one after seeing my setup.
The grease cleaning however I never had to deal with.
Have never owned a machine used by a caveman🙂

Cheers Ross
 
Don't forget to scrape the plate gib mounting face flat and parallel to the scraped box face in the vertical slide..
Need to have the plate gib pull up flat and parallel to the way surface.

Cheers Ross
 
Sorry Ross, did not mean to say Bruce was first to install the one shot oiler, having seen your FP2 in person. Actually, I bought this machine from you just to keep the record straight.

The surface on the back of the saddle where the vertical keeper plates mount was the very first surface that I scraped, since I needed an XZ reference surface to do the front of the saddle, and the rear of the saddle gets no wear - it just had a few nicks. Second surface I scraped was the very top of the saddle, so that it would be the YZ reference surface for the horizontal and vertical alignment of the saddle. Both of those surfaces just required very light scraping. There is a dusting of surface rust on the back from sitting for all these years, but it came off in about two minutes with some scrubbing.

In addition to the side to side rock of the saddle on the column, I need to fix the front to back rock of the table on the saddle. The scraping on the front of the saddle is part of that repair, but the top keeper plates are both quite worn at each end, so the corresponding surface on the saddle also needs to be scraped. Then after the saddle is mounted I will scrape the X slide corresponding surfaces and grind and fit the top keeper plates. So there is a fair amount of scraping left to do.

I've been working this morning trying to get a reliable setup to measure the wear in the vertical slide circled in the photo above, prior to scraping. I tried lots of setups, but getting an indicator into the box way did not prove to be easy with my collection of indicators. I may go and buy an ultra small plunger indicator that reads to tenths, it would be a better solution. It turns out that I don't need to scrape this surface a lot, the wear is .0011 over the range I measured, which is 15".

IMG_1342.jpeg

IMG_1337.jpeg

IMG_1340.jpeg
 
I was not sure about using the top surface of the knee (the side sitting on the surface plate) as a reference surface so I decided to do another check. I installed the bottom gib on the front of the saddle and used a small jack to anchor it in the center, since it was bowed a few thousandths. Measuring the bottom of the gib, it was high about .001"+ on the right side (top, left side with the saddle upside down on the surface plate and the front facing me). So since both the vertical and horizontal readings agree, I think the top reference surface is about .001" +/- high on the left side, and there is no need to realign the vertical way. Both the vertical guide way and the gib need to be scraped for flat and flaked for oil pockets.
IMG_1343.jpeg
 
Hi to all,

I was thinking, there are two Z box ways and 2 respective slots on the carriage, so 4 sides (faces) that are to be considered. One is for the gib so it's tapered and one is the gib-opposing face. This is the one you showed in the red circle earlier. The other two face are not touching on the Z way (the left one on that FP2). I was wondering, are they well enough machined to be used as a reference? If so, not sure if it would be practical, but you could use them as a reference instead of trying to find a perpendicular face for the same job.

On the next generation machines, that's a bit easier to handle since the working faces are the two insides of the the Z ways so, if my theory is correct, you have a very nice reference face right next to the one you want to restore, you don't have to work off of the other way faces, if I am making any sense...

BR,
Thanos
 








 
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