Hardinge CHNC conversion

[N4NV]

This will be my 5th CNC project. The first project was a CNC mini mill from scratch, a Brute from the crankorgan guy. Then came my Bridgeport J-head to CNC, followed by a Taig lathe, then a 4,500 pound Yamazen knee mill. Now I am taking on a Hardinge CHNC.

I made a terrible purchase, by a total lack of communications. I thought I was getting a HNC on the stand that had been stripped, and also a complete CHNC minis the stand. Well, it turns out the CHNC was stripped as well. It is missing all the motors, timing belts, resolvers, tachs, air motor etc. About the only thing it has are the ball screws. Oh well, what do you have to do? Caveat emptor.

I decided I would go ahead and bring it back to life. One picture shows the HNC on the stand (the stand was also mostly stripped). The other picture shows the CHNC on the ground, waiting for cleaning.

Vince

[N4NV]

I removed the HNC from the stand and stripped everything that was on the outside of the stand so I could paint. The stand had about 20 gallons of water in the coolant tank. I spent a couple of days cleaning and sanding, then started painting. I have 5 coats of primer and 2 coats of finish color. I will add another finish coat after I mount the CHNC on the stand.

Vince

[N4NV]

The coolant pump that came with the stand is three phase. I found a nice three phase VFD that is 1/2 HP to run the coolant pump. The pump is only 1/6HP, but I am feeding the VFD with single phase so I have to derate the VFD. The stand and HNC came with a variable speed belt drive system, minus half the components. I removed the rest of the drive system and plan on driving the spindle with a 3 HP motor and a VFD.

I worked on cleaning up the CHNC and stripping off the hoses and wiring that had been chopped off when the lathe was removed from the stand. For the most part, the bed way is pretty clean with only a little staining and no big score marks.

Vince

[N4NV]

Another day, more cleaning. I worked on the spindle and some of the cross slide, turred, and the bed way.

Vince

[N4NV]

I decided I had to take the entire lathe apart to get it clean. When I started stripping the cross slide I found about a cup of dirt in the limit switch compartment. It was starting to looked like the lathe had been buried before I picked it up. I vacuumed up the dirt and proceeded to remove the ballscrew. To my pleasant surprise, it showed little wear and operated smoothly over the entire travel.

Vince

[N4NV]

Today I finished up removing the cross slide. When I removed the indexer, I found more dirt. I was begging to wonder what I would find in the cross slide ways. Luckily, they looked really good. All the original scraping was visible except for a small section on one end. Tomorrow I think I will remove the saddle ballscrew and maybe the saddle itself. I read that you have to be really careful about removing the saddle because it has a Teflon bottom which can be easily damaged. I need to remove it to completely clean the oil channels for the ways. From the top side they looked clogged.

Vince

[davo727]

Hey Vince , Thats a sturdy looking hunk of iron. What is the work size capability on it? How much does the iron weigh? Cool project.
dave

[N4NV]

It's a tool room size lathe so it does not have that big of a capacity. A 6" chuck would be the biggest I think you could get on it. The X travel is only about 4". The Z is about 10". The spindle is made to take 5C collets without an adapter. They are one of the most accurate lathes of their time. The only other lathe I can think of with the type of accuracy is the Monarch 10EE. They both are belt driven so the finishes are supposed to be exceptional. We shall see.
The lathe on the stand weighs about 3,500 pounds.

Vince

[Ken_Shea]

Vince,
Ditto on what Dave said, "Thats a sturdy looking hunk of iron"

The stand looks great, dontcha just love the weight of these old things.
The doors on a DV-59 base that I started a CNC conversion on are 3/16 inch thick

With the other conversions under your belt and the associated confidence should make this a much less complicated task for you.
The DV-59 conversion I started is now bogged down with complexities, maybe your efforts here may serve to get me enthused again.

Keep us posted.

Ken

[N4NV]

You can see some of my conversions here:
http://www.cnczone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=18178
and here:
http://www.cnczone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=31601
This is a video of my Taig lathe:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8975430568789772373My Bridgeport mill (don't worry, I took the handles off):
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8373124975244896791and my big mill:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3686030068739958567

Today I was able to finish removing the saddle from the bed. I'm glad I went ahead and did it in spite of the warnings in the maitenenace book. There was still a little water trapped under the saddle in the channels of the Teflon. Did I mention that the saddle rides on Teflon. When I got it off the Teflon looked really good. There is only some very minor scoring from chips, nothing that will effect performance.

I found the lathe bed had some minor rust stains from the water that was in the Teflon channels. I cleaned it off. Other than looks, it should not have any effect on performance.

Vince

[N4NV]

I spent the day stripping off most of the rest of the items that are attached to the lathe so I can get to painting it. I then started cleaning. I found more dirt and rocks under the parting tool assembly. I also found the saddle limit switches under all that dirt, which got me thinking, where were the cross slide limit switches. I did not see them when I took the cross slide apart. I think they might have been missing as well. I need to take off the saddle limit switches so I can fix the wiring, then I can start prepping for paint. There are some big chips in the paint and I was thinking of using Bondo to fill them in unless someone can suggest something better. Compare the first and second pictures with the first pictures I posted to see the difference in the dirt.

I also installed the rear shield support as seen in the third picture.

Vince

[N4NV]

Today I removed the saddle limit switches on the bed, there are three of them. I then sanded the lathe and added a little bondo to the badly chipped parts, then more sanding. I applied a coat of rustolium enamel primer with a roller. It's funny, no matter how well you think you have the prep work done, as soon as you apply some paint, your errors glare out at you. The plan is three coats of the rust colored primer, followed by two coats of white primer with some sanding in between coats. Finally a couple coats of the enamel finish color. I will spray the finish coat.

Vince