1987 CHNC II / Hardinge

[JP Hardinge]

I completely cleaned and detoxed my Hardinge chucker and first model Hardinge CHNC, then run Ballistol soluable oil and water mix.

These are oil only machines, but I place a piece of clear plastic bout' 6 mil, with a hole cut for the spindle as a splash shield, then put the splash guard back on over it. It keeps all the coolant off and away from the bearing. Simple fix.

My CHNC has had a Fagor 8025TG retrofit with new servo motors. The turret indexing was hopeless, and to costly to fix (they never work well) so I set it up as a gang tool fixed position. The worn air O-rings caused rotational flexing in the fixed position.

I drilled and tapped the turret plate with 5/16-24 set screws on 4 positions and it locked it down solid from .004 flex to much less than .0005.

























Also these machines blead air like crazy, so be prepared for long compressor cycle running times. I disconnected my Vari-grip collet closer from the machine air supply, and connect air directly to it only when I need to open and close it. Otherwise I could not afford to run the compressor for leakage as my shop is off grid.

All of this is limiting obviously, but for a home business shop it still is CNC and a very productive accurate machine for my needs. I paid $2000 for mine.

[BobWarfield]

$2000 for a really accurate and solid gang lathe is not bad.

I agree, switch the turret to a gang configuration. Faster tool changes anyway!

Cheers,

BW

[duenow]

I don't know about all this doom & gloom on the CHNC's. I bought in 1992 a new CHNC I & it's still running 8 hours a day now & will still hold .0003. Oil only since day 1. The thing about oil is you put it in once & only add some unlike water crap you have to change out & skim the lube oil. In 18 years I have replaced a few air valves & new O-Rings on the turret (1 time). you can still get any parts you need. I have never had to adjust the gibs (mostly because it's all covered with oil).
I run a lot of SS with a 16 finish (try that with water crap).

Yes it does use air, I take 3/4 shank WNMG tooling & mill the shanks down to 1/2".