I am surprised not to find a prior topic on this ........ is there a good easy way to clean and flush out a series 1 quill? I now have my retrofitted Boss up and running now, and find that no matter how much I keep wiping off the quill, when z goes up into the head it always comes back down covered with chips and black oil residue.

Thanks in advance
Scott

If I am reading this right your quill is picking up chips from inside the head and they are still stuck on the quill as it comes out of the housing ? If so then your quill to head housing fit must be very well worn and I would think it not worth cleaning as it will be so loose its unusable.
Hood

The quill is chromed and it is fitted to the quill housing. Typically when new the clearance was .0004 inches. The top of the quill is atamped with a number. The same number is atamped on the quill housing somewhere (I have seen it on the top typically). Bridgeport had a pile of each, matched them up by number and lapped them in.
Depending on the BOSS version, some had a door that would swing open while others had a narrow switch cover on the front of the quill. The old BOSS machines did not like a heavy oil or a gummed up quill. I would flush the quill with Kerosene and then re-oil it with Mobil Vactra number 2.
There is also a quill wiper on the bottom of the quill housing. If worn out or missing I can see where it would collect chip and bring them down.

George

AhHa - Thanks Machintek. I wondered if that was a wiper - so I just took it apart and the wiper is the source of the black gook and chips. Do you have a source for new wipers? I bet you have your coffee cup on a few right now!

Hood - thats exactly what I was worried about, since when I purchased these machines they were not powered up. But I just removed the wiper, and was happy to feel no play and run the spindle up and down a few times with new oil and it stays nice and clean.

Where is the wiper? is it in the nose end or inside the head? Will have to check this on mine although it seems clean but I am not finished retro fitting yet so might be best to look now.

Hood
EDIT
Ok forget it, I have just done what I should have in the first place, read properly the previous reply ;)

Unfortunately, I do not have any. Either call Hardinge, or someone else mentioned in these posts, or my parts guy (Alan, 1-800-245-2598) and see if any are available.
I would consider making one out of a good piece of rubber of such a diameter that it will wipe the quill lightly. The rubber has to not degrade with the way oil and cutting fluids you will use.

A clean quill and good oiling is critical to the long life of the quill. I have had a couple where the chrome pealed and it bound up tight! This shop was drilling thousands of holes in die plates for extruding rug filaments. Yes the machines did a lot of Z work!

George

In a pinch, I've used Dexron ATF in place of Vactra.

It is fairly light and it does have friction modifiers and seal conditioners and other additives which can help 'degunk' dirty oxidized lubes. it also has antirust agents which come in handly when water based coolants are involved. I found it really did a good job of freeing up a gummed up Excello mill spindle.

In fact, Excello spec'd this as their gearbox lube for their milling machines. Don't use Type F or "mopar" ATF's as these do not have the same formulations or additive packages as dexron.

Generic "house brand" dexron is cheaper and just as good as the name brand stuff - it is usually packaged by a "name" supplier only under a generic label (example: Citgo packages the "Murray's brand" sold at Murray's A/P in the Michigan area).

Thanks for the link. I enjoyed a quick peek at his work. Will look at it a lot closer when time allows.

George