Quick Splash Guard Improvement Project

[partsman]

I decided today was going to be my last day as a messy person (yea right) and the tiny Tormach splash guard had to go. The chips & coolant were ending up all over the shop... and me. I have seen some really nice splash guards on some other users' Tormachs with linear rails and fancy brackets- this is not one of those projects. This was a "use what we had in the shop and get it done today" type project.

We just found some left over barn door track & rollers from another project. The roller and rail are only rated at a few thousand pounds so I hope it will hold up my 1/8" plexiglass... I may have to upgrade them later . The good thing is that the heavy duty bearing rollers glide like butta'. I bent some roll bar tubing and welded it all up. It just bolts to the frame with 1/4" bolts so we can remove it if needed.

I also glued a CD case to a piece of loc-line to block any splashing from getting on the control panel's switches. Since the normal splash enclosure is gone it started to splash up there a little. Removing the factory splash guard setup makes the mill seem so much bigger! There is so more usable space now.

It is all ugly but it works FANTASTIC! Just slide the 'glass out of the way to load your work and then slide it back over to block chips. A screw in each end of the tracks keeps the whole thing from shooting out the end when you slide it too hard- and yes.. I figured that out the hard way . The coolant hits the glass and falls right back into the tray. You can easily wash the glass by turning the coolant nozzles back to the glass. The only improvement I would make is to enclose the sides because some chips still sneak past. But overall... a good few hours spent and probably a total of $75 if you had to buy everything new.

It was a slow day today so I thought I'd contribute something back to the board Back to work-

[tikka308]

that's great! nice job!