Painting my Bridgeport Series 1 Mill

My Wife's Grandpa made some cool stuff with this mill and now I have it. I thought it was time to get it tuned up by adding a VFD, cleaning it thoroughly, and painting it. Here are some links to what Grandpa Rich made with it:
Small Hit and Miss Engine
• Hit-and-miss Engine
Larger Hit and Miss Engine
• Hit-and-miss Engine 2
Coffee Cup Engines
• Coffee-cup Engine
Some action shots
• Hit-and-miss Engine

[@David-hm9ic]

Very nice! This is useful because I intend to do a similar cleanup on my Index 645 without a full disassembly. My lathe came with an ENC VFD. The instructions were terrible. I had set up my mill with a US brand of VFD and it was a breeze. I knew what I wanted the ENC to do; it was just harder to understand what to do to get there. On both of my machines I retained the original controls and wired/programmed them to the VFD.

[@keithkrueger1609]

personally, I don't know why everyone thinks they need a VFD. After a few days of using you can swap speeds pretty fast. As far as the 3 phase they are inferior to a rotary phase convertor. a static phase converter works great. I have had one on my dad's mill for 30 years on the farm used daily even a lot of rigid tapping. never an issue with the motor,

[@David-hm9ic]

If I had to use a rotary phase converter I would not have 3 phase machines in my home shop. They take up space that I can't spare and they're noisy. I really hate the nonstop noise. VFDs are silent or near silent. I have yet to run into anything I can't do with a VFD supplying the power that a RPC would enable. There are some things a VFD will do that a RPC won't, though. I love the soft starts and braking that the RPC won't do. Separate issue; I've also had a static phase converter and didn't care for the power loss. I had to start my mill on high speed and shift to low because it didn't have the power to start in low. Once the motor was running it ran OK; I just didn't like it.

[@shawnhankins6281]

I really hope someone helped you with realigning the head to the table after moving it ....

[@samuelwiltzius]

Uncle is a machinist. I’ve been picking his brain on everything. It’s good.

[@Bonanza06c]

What paint did you use? Looks good

[@NeMoC53]

@@Bonanza06cyou can kind of see the can. It’s Rustolem farm implement paint. It’s oil based enamel.

[@Bonanza06c]

@@NeMoC53 I see it now. Thanks

[@NeMoC53]

@@Bonanza06cI’m revisiting this comment because I’m a few days away from painting my mill head. In a quest to find this paint, I believe more specifically it’s Rustoleum farm and implement paint in Massey Ferguson Gray.