Levelling the SIP 01552 – Part 2

As mentioned in my previous post, my current best idea for getting the table absolutely level is to fabricate some new “square washer thingys” (I really must figure out the proper name for them, but the exploded diagram that came with the 01552 is virtually unreadable!) which are a little oversize and can then be fine tuned with a file.

The dimensions of the original piece are:

• the Square section is 10mm x 10mm x 3mm
• the Cylindrical section is8mm diameter x 4.5mm length with a 5mm bore (maybe 5.25mm but I don’t have a drill bit that size)

(I only know this because I finally splashed out on some Moore & Wright vernier calipers to replace my old cheap ones which I’ve either lost or thrown away due to them being rusted solid. I’ll probably post about these and the other things I got from Machine DRO/Allendale Electronics another day).

I had imagined turning a cylindrical section onto a length of an appropriate (11 or 12mm square?) square section steel bar, but my Father disagrees (and as he’s the metalbutcher of the family I will defer to him 🙂 )

He thinks turning down a large round section steel bar and then squaring off a bit will be easier, but he only has 15mm and 22mm.

As he says, the 22mm will leave him knee deep in swarf, but the 15mm is possibly a bit too close to the “14 and a tiny bit” mm minimum diameter required to be able to create a 10mm square section.

I think given the already fairly rounded corners of the standard part I should be able to offset the cylinder on the square by at least half a milimeter – maybe more – without losing too much in the way of squareness, so we’ll see if that makes any meaningful difference to the tilt on the infeed table and adjust our ideas accordingly.

He has sent me the three photos of his work in progress below:

First skim to clean it up

The round bit, just under 9mm to allow for finishing

Making the collar to become the second washer

I can’t wait to see and try out the finished result.