It seems like every time I conclude with saying the mill is now operational, I realize there’s something else I want to improve.

After making the new air spring bracket, I finally wanted to fix the air spring scraping against the inside of the column. This would require making a new bottom mount for it, so it’s spaced further out from the inside of the column.

It’s not a complicated part, but I’ve had other stuff going on (more posts on that soon) so it took me a while to get to it. Here it is:

The new air spring mount, mounted on the air spring piston. The black steel one is the original.

The new mount puts the bottom of the air spring directly under the link on top, which moved when I switched to the bracket I made, so it should now be completely vertical. It’s also far enough from the inside of the column that it doesn’t touch. It’s also taller to provide more support for the twisting action, now that the air spring is attached further out from the wall.

Maybe now I can start making non-mill-related things…