The workday yesterday was very successful. Thanks to everyone who came!
The Cold Saw got a pretty complete servicing. The primary motor housing oil was changed – this was very overdue. We’ve posted the date we did it and I’m putting a reminder task in ClickUp for the future. We also completely emptied and cleaned the cutting fluid reservoir. We disassembled, cleaned, and stoned the ways for both the ram and the vise; users should find the former much easier to move. We’ve also realized that we need to pay more attention to lubricating the ways regularly; this machine lacks the automatic oilers that the lathe and mill have. I will be setting a weekly reminder task for that as well. We fixed a minor misalignment that was preventing the right side of the clamp from holding pieces properly. And we changed the blade, which had definitely gotten too dull. (We seem to be going through them in somewhere between one and two months.)
And, key point, we now hopefully have a pool of people who would be comfortable doing these tasks in the future.
The blade guard for the Cold Saw is still broken, so use extra caution with the machine. A replacement part has been ordered.
In addition, the welding tool area was re-organized, lists of missing tools were compiled, and the lathe had its position adjusted and was leveled. The latter had never happened after being moved a few months ago, which was definitely limiting the precision of the machine. (We will need to repeat this as the machine relaxes to its new position, then also check/adjust the tailstock positioning.)
If anything, we had more people than tasks; we will try to plan for that for the future volunteer days. The next one is on August 23rd.