8x36 mill riser

[RobbieKnobbie]

Does anyone have one of these, or more to the point, does anyone know what the OD and ID should be to make a riser for this mill? I suddenly have a great variety of tube end cuts available (up to 18" diameter with all sorts of wall thicknesses), but I can only take a few pieces... Don't want to look a gift horse and all...

[tdmidget]

I bet a clue, like who built the machine would be helpful.

[RobbieKnobbie]

The 8x36 is a pretty generic asian mill. Grizzley, Jet, Enco, all the usual suspects carry it and they're all just about interchangable, give or take a few details..

[tdmidget]

I guess you could measure it...

[RobbieKnobbie]

Indeed, sir, I could, but to get the ID I'd need to take the turret off. And at this point I'd just as soon avoid that if someone else has the info at hand.

Appreciate the input though.

[John Stevenson]

Get the right size pipe on the OD and the thickest wall thickness you can get in this size.

You can't do better than that.
If it's not thick enough then you have lost nothing and you could always weld a flange on in a worst case scenario.

[platypus2020]

I bought the 4" riser block for the Jet JVM-836, from Grizzly, their part # H8107, it is sold for the just discontinued G6760 mill, which is the generic 8" x 36" Asian mill. Without disassembling the mill, I can't give you dimensions, but it is still available from Grizzly.

http://www.grizzly.com/outlet/4-Riser-Block-for-G6760/H8107

jack

[SGW]

I think if 'twere me I'd want to take the mill apart anyway, just so I could see what the top and bottom of the joint actually look like and what the riser would have to mate with. But yeah, it's a pain to disassemble the mill.

I've thought several times about making a riser for my mill out of a disk of cast iron, then decided I didn't need one *that* badly and continue to get by as-is. Otherwise known as laziness....

[RobbieKnobbie]

Thanks for the tip on the Grizzly offering. I may go that route, but I can't help wanting to make my own (I mean, look at what hobby we're talking about!).

I have taken the mill apart before, and I know basically what the mating surfaces look like. The turret has the inner half of the 'ring' depressed a 16th or so and there is a corresponding boss on the top of the column (or is that backwards?) To machine that feature I would definitely have to disassemble the mill and at that point it would be time well spent.

For now though, I'm not sure what wall thickness I need. I'm guessing 3/4 to an inch, but such thick tubes are rare, and I don't want to ask for ten different tubes in hopes that one actually fits the bill... thus my question

[Bruce Griffing]

If you know the OD and weight of the Griz version you could come pretty close to the thickness by calculation. You already know the OD since it is the same as your mill. So all you need is the weight. Make a small correction for the spider and you should get to within 0.1" of wall thickness.

[Highpower]

I had considered the Grizzly riser for my mill as well. Unfortunately I had to make a riser to mount a power drawbar, which ate up what little head room I had. The column riser would put me into the overhead joists.

[RussZHC]

Could that photo Grizzly uses (platypus2020 reply, post # 7) be of enough detail that you could place a grid over it (and so have some idea of distortion cause by angles) and or measure from that...? It looks like there is a lip/flange so the wall thickness maybe less...

[Bill Pace]

I had a 6x26 that I put a riser on - I think the 6x26 is either the same or very minor differences in the column area from the 8x36. Really liked that little mill, but that 6" Y travel was a killer - so was the spindle/table distance til I made the riser...

Whatever - heres a couple pic of when I was doing it. Found that piece of drill stem in the scrap yard to use for the riser (that was interesting cutting that stuff) Made it 6" and that was too much, shud a made it 4" Obviously the drill stem was ample thick walled.

[platypus2020]

I've made a couple of riser blocks for 6" x 26" machines, they are quite different than the riser blocks for the 8" x 36" machines. On the 6" x 26". the mounting bolts are t-bolts in a slot, on the 8" x 36", the clamp is an X member, with studs. The outside diameter of the 6" x 26" is about 6" on the the 8" x 36", is about 12".


jack

[strokersix]

I had a local shop cut an 8" long piece of 12" dia x 3/8" wall steel tube and turn the ends parallel for me. My machine is an 8x36 grizzly. The ends are out of parallel by about .001". I selectively positioned it to zero the tram in the nod direction since the machine does not have a knuckle. I never swing the turret so lack of pilot diameters is a non issue for me. I use 1/2-20 alloy all-thread into the original "X" part to lock down the turret.

I also have a vintage step pulley "J" head adapted to the machine which is much nicer than the original head. Not relevant to the OP question but I think it really improved the machine so thought it worth mention.