The top 5 general machine tool maintenance tips

When it comes to machine tools, it's extremely important to perform the proper maintenance on them in order to ensure their longevity. Whether it's the maintenance on a machine's motor, operational components, or specific attachments, the importance of routine check-ups cannot be stressed enough.

The last thing that you want to have happen is a machine breakdown because of improper maintenance. In order to properly conduct a maintenance check-up, here are some steps that should be followed:

Check the lubrication

For machine tools that are frequently used, it's extremely important to inspect the machine's lubrication levels on a weekly basis. By ensuring that the moving parts are properly lubricated, you will be able to protect the motor over an extended period of time.

This includes greasing of moving parts, oiling or internal moving components and visual inspection of all part movement in action. Without the right amount of oil, grease or other lubricant, any machine tool could face unnecessary wear and tear. This could lead to breaking downs or extreme damage.

Sharpen important components

If you are using machinery that has components designed for sharpening, cutting, slicing or chopping, you need to ensure that these components maintain their sharpness. If you don't perform routine maintenance on specific parts that need to sustain a particular sharpness, you could be putting production quality at a very high risk.

The sharpness of a machine part is important because you need to make sure that cut materials are shaped correctly and accurately. This could include checking the sharpness of tools like end bills, drill bits, lathe tools and precision cutters.

Check alignment specifications

The last thing that you want when it comes to your machine tool is to have a particular component or attachment out of alignment. This could greatly affect your work quality in a very negative way. To determine if your machine tool is properly aligned, simply perform a few test jobs and measure the resulting parts to inspect how the equipment is currently working. If the alignment is off, you will need to realign the machine in order to maintain accurate specifications.

Inspect the cleanliness

Although this is somewhat obvious, you need to make sure that your machine is cleaned on a regular basis. By cleaning various pieces of equipment either daily or weekly, you will ensure that a machine is running at maximum capacity. The cleanliness of a machine can often be taken for granted and overlooked when it comes to specific parts breaking down. For example, when a machine collects a lot of grime or begins to rust, long-term problems can start to appear.

Take good care of accessories and parts

In order to properly maintain your machine tool, it's very important to perform routine maintenance checks on all of your components and accessories. An important part of this preventative care is to make sure that all of you machine parts and accessories are handled and stored responsibly. You definitely don't want to be careless with any part of your machine tool.

Common sense plays a major role here. Use all of you senses to detect potential problems. An odd sound, a strange smell or unordinary vibration can mean trouble. All things that can be more easily taken care of when detected early on. Keeping a checklist and carefully logging all maintenance performed will optimize this process.

David Dodge is a professional content writer and blogger. He specializes in custom quality content for a variety of topics both technical and casual. Specializing in niche research, David uses his vast machine knowledge as a machine tool research specialist for Machine Sales, Inc.