I am not as fastidious as I may at first appear

there is a dark side and a light side

 I need my shop time.

If I can’t do anything else (cough lathe borked cough), something always needs cleaning. "If you've got time to lean, you've got time to clean..."

I said once that I wasn't going to bother with cleaning the mill knee, because fluids are always going to be dripping down it, re-dirtying it. Eventually it occurred to me that it has fifty years of grime on it, AND that given my light use I would be unlikely to put that kind of grime back on it, ever, AND it would make me happy, a little, to look at it if it were clean. So I've changed course and I'm cleaning the knee. Cleaning is an easy path to feelings of satisfaction; it's harder to screw up than making chips, for one thing.

 However, cleaning the knee is being fiddly.  To be thorough, I really want to unmount that little 3-way manifold to clean under it.  But that little tube that comes out of the top and disappears inside the knee - that looks real hard to put back if it were to pull out of the fitting and vanish inside the knee.  The only access to that area is through the hole where the lift screw goes, and I'm not sure I can get my arm in there.  The only alternative is to take the mill apart.  By which I mean, remove the table from the saddle, then remove the saddle from the knee, and then remove the knee from the column. If you think that is going to happen in my lifetime, you are very much mistaken.

 So I'm gritting my teeth and cleaning around it.  But I want you to know that the unreachable grime is really bothering me. :)

 By the way, the best concoction I have found for cleaning greasy "varnish" from a painted surface is 50:50 Greased
Lightning™ & 99% isopropyl.  It's better than either by itself, and this varnish is HARD to get off.  Elbow grease is still required, and I use a blue kitchen sponge for a lot of it, which is soft enough not to scratch the enamel.  Also lots of shop towels.

 I'm sure acetone would attack the HELL out of that varnish, and it would try to take the factory paint off down to the metal too.  Mineral spirits / paint thinner might be safe on the paint, but I dislike the smell and it probably causes cancer or something.  I'm not so worried about the isopropyl fumes, tho I did have to open a window and start a fan because I was evaporating a lot of the stuff.

 After starting this job, I discovered a manifold (sounds biblical, don't it?) on the saddle which is leaking oil, for fark's sake.  It is another part of the one-shot oiling system.  It shouldn't be terrible; it's only nine small compression fittings... 18 things to be tightened... at a bad angle... with a 3/8in wrench if I can even get one in there.  Already tried the right size of tubing wrench, it was useless.

 I might have to enlist my better half to pump the pump while I watch the various manifolds for drips or clues.

 To be honest, the biggest leakage of oil is what drips out of the knee-to-column ways, and I cannot begrudge that; they're vertical, it's gonna happen, that's what the cat litter in the base is for.  I don't know what the weight distribution is between column ways and lift screw, but there is a lot of real estate to lubricate.  And besides, I've only gone through a gallon of way oil in a decade, and I use it for other things too: the lathe ways (obv) but also slow bearings like the fan bearings in one furnace and also the swamp cooler.  Spindle oil is also perfect in faster bearings like nonsealed motor bearings.

 Whee!  Speaking of needful tools, I also would like my mechanic's creeper to elevate up into the air like an ambulance stretcher. <_<  And I want a suitcase full of money, and a pony, and world peace...

 If only the mill's knee could be raised and lowered - wait 😂

 Actually it might still be too high no matter what - I predict an unwelcome amount of bending to get the tightening done, and my back hurt when I woke up today.  Sheesh, what is this thing, a Harley?  After all, I always seem to be wrenching on it, and it always seems to leak oil... 😆

 (I jest, a little; machine tools are of necessity, oily.  A few drips are not wasteful in the grand scheme of things, but I'd rather not be constantly wiping them up from the shop floor.)

~≈{👁}≈~