Maintenance

UK Manufactured Flypress

There is little maintenance on the flypress.  Periodic lubing is advisable and some backlash adjustment may be necessary.

No special oil is needed to lubricate the lead screw; a med weight engine oil will suffice. Just lightly drizzle oil on the screw below the stop collar and let it work its way down. Too much will create a big mess and possible contamination of your work.

There are two main adjustments that can be made to your press. When the ram is all the way down there should be no side movement.  Any side play can be taken out by slightly loosening the nuts on the face of the left hand gibb /guide (some presses have bolts on both sides of the ram). Loosen the locknuts on the side of the press. Tighten those bolts in small increments while checking for free up and down ram movement. Finger tighten everything, checking for up and down movement and side play. If you’re happy with that, then tighten everything down and check it again. You may have to do this a few times to get it right. No need to gorilla tighten these bolts. The other adjustment that may need to occur is to take out any backlash. If the ram doesn’t move up or down immediately in response to you moving the arm, you can take that play by doing the following.

You will need two low profile wrenches to do this, and you may have to make them. If a crescent wrench is too fat to fit in and grab the nut, wind the ram up so the two nuts are above the gibbs. Spin the stop collar down to hold the ram in that position. Loosen the bottom of the two nuts on top of the ram, this is the locknut. Undo it so you see a gap between the ram and nut. Screw the top nut down until the ram starts to bind, back it off slightly until the ram is free again. While holding the top nut in place with one wrench, screw the lock nut down with the other until it snug .These two adjustment will give you many more hours of trouble free use.

The pictures below show how the ram is attached to the lead screw and help make it clear what you are doing when taking out backlash.