Way wipers on all axis?

[ThatguyDave]

I've had my Fadal 4020HT for like three days now, still w/o power but thankfully my internet connection is up and running. Unfortunately the machine is soooooo filthy that it taken till now to get the machine halfway clean so between servicing it and cleaning it not yet having power really ain't such a big deal. That said I appreciate all the advice I've gotten about my install so far.

That said I'm kinda curious why only the X axis has way covers and not he Y or Z. There are nubs on the casting to suggest that covers may have been once installed or at least thought of on the Y. Has anyone added them, have a machine that came with them, or at least pondered this as well? Thanks again for the heads up.

Oh yea and the machine came with a Hurricanemill pn# MSO45-3.00R 4 insert cutter facemill. Anybody know who makes this or if its any good? Google brings up other hurricane mills but nothing like mine.

[little bubba]

You should have covers on the Y. I've never seen a machine without them, except when I took them off my self.

Looks like there is a video here where you can see them

http://cgi.ebay.com/1990-FADAL-VMC-4...3%3A1|294%3A50

[scadvice]

Dave,
What year is the machine? All come with way covers. They are mostly made by www.gortite.com for Fadal. When the rubber wipers wear out or the way cover is damaged they can buckel and I imagine some people just pull them off and discard them. You need the covers. It's most likely a little cheaper to get direct, rather than from Fadal but I'm not sure about that. Also if you don't have the manuals you can get them from Fadalcnc.com as a free download. Even if the manual is not the same year they are close enough as long as you download the same model. Nice thing about Fadals they didn't change much until recently. They have sheet metals and way drawings in there. The Back Y axis cover is a slider plate style on the 40-20's and the Y front are boxed just like like little bubba's link about the vmc40. I'm almost finished rebuilding (complete overhaul) a 15XT with 4 axis, so if you have more questions, just ask.
Steve

[ThatguyDave]

I meant to say way wipers and not way covers. Sorry for the confusion. The Y axis and the underside of the head have these little plastic way wipers but the X axis that lacks them and the top of the head also doesn't have any as well. At least on my machine there was enough chips packed in everywhere that they would seem like a good idea everywhere. That said its possible that my machine is just displaying the results of having never been cleaned and this is the accumulation of 13yrs of chip making. I don't know.

I suspect that my machine was flooding up with coolant pretty bad because there are globs of silicon everywhere as if someone was making this valiant attempt to keep the liquids inside the machine. Cleaning out the coolant drains, one of which was completely clogged seems like it would have been a better move, but hey it wasn't my machine back then.

Thanks for the the heads up about those rubber strips as well. I definately need those and yes, at least one cover is nicely dented so I'll have bruch up on my sheet metal fab skill.

Thanks again for the advice.