Have you noticed how badly the switch panel is hanging off the machine? I certainly have!
Also, when the mill is running and I press the emergency stop switch, the whole shop goes dark as the ground-fuse (if that's what it's calles, anyways means that there is electricity going through the grounding wire..) goes out - have to find the cause of that too..
So yesterday, I removed the cover in front of the knee, to see what electrics were inside it.

Then I removed the panel mount from the knee, where a whole bunch of "sugar bits", as they are called here, were revealed..

The casting of the mount has been broken off and badly welded on again, not exactly plane to the rest of the surface, causing oil and dirt to enter and make a right mess of the electrics inside

So I removed the mount, cleaned it up a bit and took a new shot just to show how bad it was

Out came the angle grinder, and the big machinery fled to hide under some bed sheets.

First, I have to say that I have not worked with cast steel before!
Now that you are warned, I tried making a relieving cut in the old weld and then mount it in the vise and straighten it with a hammer. Only thing that happened, was that I chipped of the edge around the mounting hole in the corner

Next up, was trying to bend it. Again mounted it in the vise, and this time I took a good pipe wrench and applied ofrce. It broke off...
So I was left with the two parts, and now had to align them. First I ground away some of the old welds, then I mounted the parts on the vise's hammering plate with some vise grips

I welded a bit on the outside, found a smaller hammer and pounded the welds, as I've heard you should to that when welding cast. Althoug I have also heard that you should use special flux covered electrodes, not a regular mig welder with CO2

Then I began welding from the inside, to strengthen the piece up, and avoid any major deflection.
I also welded on a bit where I had broken of the edge, that would have been difficult with flux electrodes!

Then I drilled up new mounting holes, trial fitted it, and filed the holes a bit

New trial fit, with switch panel. Seemed ok when i pressed the surfaces against each other.
I also opened the switch panel to have a look inside, to see if there could be any visible cause of the electricity going to ground when using the emergency stop. Nothing to see there..

I thought about painting the parts, but then I would have liked to reomve the switches too, to do the job properly. However the switches seemed to be mounted to the switch panel in such a way that I would definetely destroy some old plastic clips when trying to remove them. So that was out of the question. I am going to have to redo the machines entire wiring when I convert to 400V anyways..
Without the urge to put on paint, I simply bolted everything back together and applied a bit of sealant on the mating surfaces.

How's that for straightness?


I also considered moving the entire switch panel to somewhere next to the quill handle. But after several trial fits and considerations, I decided it would be too much work, and there would be times where the panel would be har to reach. The thought of having to reach over the table, quite close to the cutter, to access the emergency stop was also making a few alarm bells ring..