Hi guys, I'm new in the forum and this is my first post here. I live in Estonia (small country not far from Finland), and I work with WS2 from Sir Meccanica. WS2 itself isn't bad, but its not excellent though. Somebody told on some forum - entry level machine. Of course this is an exaggeration, but compare to RayF's (Hofmann) equipment, or to devices from Climax, there is some truth in the phrase. But I love my WS2 and I want it to become better. Some opening remarks: When the distance between bores is small and the diameter of the hole is 70-80 mm, then everything works fine - like in this movie ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bctGqTnH90c ). But when the hole is let's say 200 mm? Then you adjust the ring to the center of the bore and the ring is ready to fall down. And it falls when you trying to center another one that is 2 meters from the first one. The boring bar (some 20 kg) is already inserted into these rings. So for up to 100 mm holes I use centering cones The next picture shows how flimsy all assembly is with three legged bearings where each leg is just 14 mm diameter bolt. And because of the legs it's difficult to manipulate with cutting tool, or dial indicator.
Then I made Climax like bearing supports. It's even possible to make small centering adjustments so I don't use centering rings. View attachment 106768 Looks strange, but works fine and no vibration as it used to be. Of course they are heavy. These will be heavier. When the distance between the holes is up to three meters, I have the situation like in the next picture. The bearings are just 10 cm "pipes". I can align two nearest bearings between each other and then another pair. To align first pair of bearings to the next pair I need something like piano wire. I follow RayF since lineboring.org forum and I know he uses piano wire, but he explains the method in general. I am going to make this tool for myself and need some details. May be there are some other ways to align bearings? Last time the distance between the holes was some 7 meters and I was afraid to take the job. Like the forum very much. Very few places in the internet with this kind of information. Sorry for my English.
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RayF is also on this forum. Send him a Private Message (PM) and ask him to communicate with you directly by e-mail. He did this for me and was a great help in determining the specification of our new machine (Climax) that we bought a while back. We were offered a Sir Meccanica machine by a local agent. I took one look at one that was already working in country and dismissed it as far too light for the job. My first thoughts when I saw it were actually POS (piece of ****) but then I realized that not everyone needs such a heavyweight machine that we need working with mining equipment.
Hi, Nige I agree with you, Climax's the best (sigh). Though Hofmann may be better, at least it is more expensive than Climax. Sir Meccanica made a discount for me (don't know why) and I got "WS2" and Miller "Migmatic 250" for 12500 euros. I think it is one forth of price for a good package bundle of Climax. So money was, and still is the main barrier for me in buying such good stuff as Climax. Hope to buy something better than WS2 one day. Climax will work for you for years I'm sure. I believe RayF read the forum. If not I'll try to communicate with him the way you told me.
I do lighter boring than you are talking about with a home made unit and manuel feed, light weight and modular to assemble by myself and compact to fit in tight places. That being said I use spherical bearings in a shell and a larger shell with 4 adjusting screws that I tack to unit to be machined. Usually get by with 1/2" or less travel for alignment, make it more stable than hanging on threaded rods that long. Just my thoughts any way.
Hi, Iron@Dirt if by spherical bearings in a shell you mean this, View attachment 106809 then I already use it also - inexpensive and comfortable. For mounting WS2 drive unit I must use Sir Meccanica's bearing, but I'm going to change the design of the bearing. It will look like this (just my drawing) View attachment 106810 Threaded rods - I don't use them any more
Still can't understand how to attach pictures
Alex,I'm not 100% sure of what you are asking? Are you wanting to now how to adjust your bearing to be in line? This will depend on your bearing housing.If you look at my line boring pics thread you should be able to get a few clues on how I do it. Different line borers have different methods depending on personal preferences and what type of gear they are using. The principle of the piano wire set up is extremely simple. To make one requires some very precise machining if its to be accurate. If you are doing jobs that require close alignment with bores 7 metres apart you need a piano wire set up or a laser alignment set up. I'm happy to answer whatever questions you have either here or by email. There are other Line Borers here who could have some valuable input as well.
Hi Ray, Glad you've read my post. The main problem for me is to align bearings that are on a relatively long distance from each other. You method of alignment with piano wire looks very attractive to me and I understand the whole idea, but I've got some questions. -What is the diameter of wire you use? -Piano wire, or like in one book: "The best material for the wire is stainless steel "down rigger" (fishing line) wire, rated at 150 lb. test strength"? -How the wire is centered in the first and in the last bearing? I imagine the procedure this way (may be wrong): I adjust, let’s say the leftmost bearing, then the rightmost one to the center of hole I'm going to work with. Then the wire must come out from the very center of one bearing and come to the very center of another one. If I am right, then there must be tiny holes in some kind of plugs that are inserted in those bearings. If it sounds stupid, I have an excuse - never seen the stuff in my life. -Found only one "Wire sag table" in the internet, it was in txt. format. You can see it in attachment. Does it resemble your table from Hofmann? These are not all questions I have, but enough for today. Will be glad if you answer me. It is very interesting for me; does anybody use wire, optic or laser? Would be great to hear about such experience. ATTACHMENT (my internet investigations) https://www.dropbox.com/sh/5wn46qejk7f05ui/sWMsmwIeHm
Alex, have a look at these links. http://www.hofmannengineering.com/products_10_7_alignmentgauge.php http://www.hofmannengineering.com/pdf/alignment_tech.pdf There are some pics of it being used here Most of the pics are self explanatory. Have a look and come back with some more questions. What diameter boring bars are you using? If its 2 inch maybe its worth considering buying off the shelf. A friend of mine uses a Climax machine with the 2 1/4 inch bars and he uses my kit with some adapters he has machined up. I will check on the diameter of the wire. We use 40 Kg tension to take all possible sag out of the wire.
Ray, diameter of my boring bar is 40 mm. I consists of three parts and its total length is almost three meters. Today I sen a request for price to Hoffman - hope they'll answer, though not sure - the item's too small for such a company, and you country is on the other side of the globe from me. Some guys in the Net discussed the prices for Hoffman's alignment gauge - if my memory doesn't fail, they spoke about 3000 $, but I can not swear. So I will wait for the answer from Daniel Holbrook from Hoffman. Ray, tell me please, how can you know the specs for pins and bushings for machines from different manufacturers? " Mate,every manufacturer has their own ideas on bearing interferance. On the low end of the scale Liebherr will run .08 to .100 mm crush on a 200 to 300mm bearing.On a similar size bearing Hitachi will commonly run .35mm to .5! Cat will vary depending whether the bearing is metric or Imperial. Their metric pins on 300 series digger are .15 down on size.And on D10 rippers 4 to 6 thou crush is OK but the pivot in the tool carrier 2V0447 ? runs 9 thou." (That is you Ray. From previous forum) When I come to do the job - I usually have the machine itself (excavator, backhoe or any other), several pins and bushings and if I ask for specs, the owner of the machine doesn't care - "just put the b..y thing in". If I phone to dealer, they don't give any useful information also. So where did you get all that specs from? S.
Alex with bore size specs its best to get it from the manufacturer but as you say it can be impossible to get them. With Cat you can usually get info out of the SIS system if you have access to it. Failing that just measure. With bearings you will always find that the crush on the bearing is built into the size. For instance you measure a bearing and it reads 150.2 mm. The 0.2 is the crush they want on the bearing. Cut the bore at 150. Its the same with Imperial sizing. A Cat bearing, Bearing measures at 4.254, you cut the bore to 4.250. If in some instances the sizes don't make sense,measure the ID of the bearing and the OD of the pin. e.g.ID of bearing is 4.012 and pin measures 4.000. You can see that you can put 0.006 crush on that bearing and still have 6 thou fitted clearance. So it becomes a game of calculating sizes and seeing what will work and over time you will build up a knowledge base so that it all becomes easy.
Sometimes when you press a bearing in a hole even though its to size the hole will gaul and shrink the I. d. giving you another problem. I usually bore to higher side of tolerance. Even .001 or so taper(bigger) is not always bad, it helps you start the bearing in the hole better. Your first picture imho shows tendacy to chatter because of the way your bolts can flex. With spherical or self aligning bearings they are easier to line up also imho.
I always suggest to install the bearing by freezing and/or a combination of freezing and pressing. That overcomes the galling problem. In these circumstances liquid nitrogen is your friend ......!! Dry ice is almost as good. LN will shrink a bush/bearing by about 002" per inch of diameter. In most places if you can't get one you can get the other.
Galling is often caused by bearing misalignment as its being pressed in. I use liquid nitrogen everytime but sometimes its not an option for some. Some manufacturers are starting to machine a "starter step" on the bearings which helps get it started straight. Check and see if you have the bearing the right way round. Another thing you can do is cut a diameter for the first few millimeters of the bore that is size to the bearing OD. And of course always bevel your bores.
How you guys adjust your boring tools to the final cut? Is there anything better than this?
I had a similar problem with my Elsa unit until like you I made my own plates. Mind you your look a lot better than mine. Mine have all been cut from 20mm plate or bright flat. This stops flexing that happens with manufactures mount supplied. Most of mine that came with the unit are machined out aluminium. Like you alignment on a long bore still concerns me. But I am trying to sort my own wire method, as nearly got in trouble this week on a wheeled loader. I am having some bushes made that fit inside the bearings with a hole the size of the wire. Once made I’ll get some pic’s up of it. Do any other line bores suffer with this problem, get it aligned with the bar and put the machine on its mounts only to find the alignment as changed fractionaly.
Alex2, looks like you have all the help you will ever need, bye, gone.
Mate,get into it. If you have ever cut a bore you can have something to offer. Alex,that's a good way to set a tool. Can you mike that bore to see how much you have to take out? The only problem with that method is speed.If you have plenty of time and not needing to rush to the next job its fine. If you want to speed things up get familiar with top quality inside calipers like Moore and Wright brand. You can develop a feel with them.You can feel within a thou what size the bore is. You can then hold your finger against the cutting tool and tap it out with something like an allan key. You can feel the tool move a thou against the skin of your finger.Take a little trial cut and feel with the calipers again.They are set to your mike which is set at size You want a light brush fit in the bore. Have a go and it won't take long before you are setting up final cuts in a minute.
Dabsfabs will be great to have a look at the pictures of your alignment device. Long distance between bores is real problem. Last time, when I refused to bore the holes, the distance was 7 meters. The distance was big and the responsibility was big - they warned me, that if I fail, then new bushings will be for my expenses and there were 10 holes. To lose money is nothing against possibility to lose reputation. Rumors spread out very quickly here. Ray, thank you again. I don't use inside micrometer when the hole is small like in the picture. Sir Meccanica has a special device and I use it most of the time. It can be extended up to 400 mm. I just insert it in empty hole in boring bar, release the spring and then fix the length with that small screw. Take this tool out and measure it with micrometer.
There are small balls of some hard metal at the ends of the tool. And the tool itself is exactly the same diameter as the hole in borin bar.
Alex2 I also have a WS2 and have had good luck with it, I will be the first to admit it is no comparison to a hoffman or climax machine, But I am in farming country and dont do many holes over 5 inch. I have only used thoes stupid centering legs 1 time since I bought my machine. I also dont like centering cones, I have been turning out plates the size I need on the lathe with a 40mm hole in the center and turned to the proper OD. makes for a fast set up once the plates are made, and with some good machine work on the plates they are about as accurate as anything, and it seems like I do a lot of the same jobs so I just keep useing them over again. I have a few MFG companies around here that use lazers to cut out 3/4" plate and there scrap bins are full of 4" to 10" circles I just bore a 40mm hole in the center then tac weld them to a piece of 40 mm shaft then turn the OD to size. A half hour on the lathe to make these plates is worth a lot in piece of mind knowing that when I weld the bearing supports on, the bar is centered. I also bought some 40mm pillow block bearings that I use for support of the bar and when clearance is tight they will fit were sir meccania wont,a= and they are cheep @ $30us a piece I have 6 sets in the machine case to use. I use the same ID measuring tool that you use and like it as long as the holes are 50mm or bigger. I also use the same Dial indacator to set the tool and realy like it. I have been Buying Ingersal carbide incerts for the tooling as they are 1/2 price as sir meccania and work better.
Here are a few pics of a job I used my centering plates on it was a John Deere front axle were the King Pin races go in. Holes were bored to 2.525". I used some machinable cast rod as there was not enugh material around the OD to put a proper sleave in like I would normaly do.
SE-Ia Cowman, thank you for the pictures. I also work with the holes from 50 to 100 mm in diameter most of the time. WS2 is good for this kind of job, but 200mm and 350mm are also fine for it, if to have good solid supports and to keep the distance between bearings as small as possible. I used the method with round pieces of metal for centering twice or three times, it was good, but not very suitable for me because of different reasons. The main reason - I don't have my own lathe. So when the whole is small I use cones, for bigger ones I use Sir Meccanica's threaded rods (I made them 12 mm in diameter and those centering rings are thicker now also), then dial indicator. By the way, have a look http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8A2kpOad4VA . The only problem, the all above is good when the hole is in a good shape. When hole is worn, then it is not so simple for me. Cowman, do you have the facing device, something like Kit2000 from S.M.? If not, there's Morse cone connection at the end of boring bar, so what if to use boring and facing head from Narex, Vertex or Wohlhaupter, small sized heads can be used with Morse 3 connection. https://www.dropbox.com/sh/5wn46qejk7f05ui/sWMsmwIeHm They are not cheap, but it's possible to buy used ones http://www.ebay.com/itm/Narex-Borin...301?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2eca8ba24d Interesting, is it possible to use it at all with our machines?
yes Alex it is possible I bought a used criterion boring and facing head on eBay for $300 and it works pretty well I have used it to cut snap Rings grooves on equalizer bars for Caterpillar bulldozers. I had a lot of chatter but it did get the job done there's not many options on small holes because the sirmeccina kit will not fit between the bearing support and because you're working off of the end of the bar instead of having both ends supported in the bearings. a friend of mine from Pennsylvania who bought a new Sirmeccina got the kit for facing and said its such a pain in the b*** he hardly ever uses it. sorry for the poor grammar I'm using my android phone I will post more tomorrow when I'm at the shop
SE-Ia Cowman, thank you now I'll buy boring and facing head. About the grammar - in Estonia we speak Estonian; in my family I speak Russian. No wonder I'm the last who can judge somebody’s grammar. When I was younger I spent many years in the sea with different crews: German, Finnish, with the guys from Filipinas and so on. Thanks that I understand English, speak some primitive one, and to write a post takes me significant time usually.
Hi Alex, First off i think your grammar is top notch giving that english is not your first language! I also have a Sirmeccina ws2 compact machine, which was a good machine when fairly new but not so much now!! It has give a fair bit of bother! That said i do like its size and useablity! I really like your bearing holders and have been planning to build a similar type soon myself! the adjustable bearing should help alot too! As for long bores, i don't do alot of long bores at all, the longest i did was about 3.5m, what i did there was use a long length of 40mm bar with two pieces of nylon machined to size of the bore! then i bored one side at a time using 2 mounting bearings each bore (4 in total) worked out well! as for the centering threaded bars, i use the sirmeccaina type but using 16mm threaded rod and a lot bigger of a center piece! worked alot better on larger bores! I intend on getting a new machine real soon, climax are doing a great deal at the minute for a boring machine and separated bore welder which i like the idea of boring and welding at the same time! Il re read through your thread here again and add bits as i go Aiden
Aiden, thank you I don't bore many long bores also, even more: I bore them very seldom, but I'd like to be ready to perform the job if any. And the last, but not the least - the harder the task the more they pay. I was the second who refused to bore those long distanced holes. So your machine is WS2 Compact. Not long ago I found a short movie ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XU6wylR9Uw ) about WS2 compact machine on YouTube and I like this short boring bar idea. Sometimes I regret that I don't have compact machine - mine is 10 kg heavier and 20 cm longer. Aiden, can you tell me what parts of your machine bother you the most of all. What have I to be ready for? 16 mm rods - then those rings should be some 15 mm thick - anyway it's better than 10 mm diameter rods. S.
Hi when I get an opportunity I will put some picture of what I use and mounts I have made. With regard to grammar and spelling don’t worry. And this is about the only forum I’ve gone to that dose take the mick (P**S) when your post are not quite correct.
Thank you, dabsfabs Looking forward for the pictures
Here as I said i would sorry it's taken while here is one of the mount plates I use on regular basis. Profile is hand burnt until i can get some other ones made. As you can see the Italian one made of alumimum the bearing keeps push out when you work the machine hard.