13" South Bend turret lathe project

[dwall174]

I bought a 13" South Bend turret lathe a little while back & I'm in the process of restoring it.

Currently it's all disassembled & the majority of the smaller manageable sized parts I moved into my basement so I can work on cleaning them up & rebuilding them.

I took the base / bed / chip-tray / & a few other larger parts to a local shop that does sandblasting to get the 60 years of caked-on grease & coolant off.

I had a couple days of somewhat warmer weather here in Michigan, so I was able to get a quick coat of primmer on the parts so hopefully they won't start to rust before the weather starts to warm up here a little.


Doug

 

[Shootymacshootface]

Looking good!
How are the ways on that? I have a Heavy 10 that has a groove worn into the v-ways. My plan is to take the bed somewhere to be ground straight again.

 

[dwall174]

The lathe wasn't connected to power when I looked at it, but the owner said that it ran on 240V 3 phase.
Looking over the wiring a little better once I got it home, I decided just to strip it all out! The wiring was all black wires & there wasn't any type of labels on any of them. Besides the lack of labeling, the wiring & control boxes were coated in a greasy coolant film.

Once I opened-up the disconnect box I was kind of glad it wasn't under power


Doug

 

[dwall174]

How are the ways on that? I have a Heavy 10 that has a groove worn into the v-ways. My plan is to take the bed somewhere to be ground straight again.

They seem to be in fairly good shape for a 60-year-old machine, no deep grooves or excessive wear.

I may look into having the ways ground while I'm waiting on the weather to get warmer, but seeing this lathe is going to be just for home hobby use I think they will be fine as is.

Doug

 

[dwall174]

After seeing the mess in the power disconnect-box I was a little skeptical on the motor running ok?
Once I got the motor out of the cabinet, I noticed that it didn't have any type of nameplate or wiring diagram. Doing some testing to see which wires had continuity with each other I came up with conclusion that this was a two-speed dual winding 3PH motor. I connected it to my RPC to see if it ran & it seemed to run good on each speed.



Being I wasn't 100% sure that this was a 240V motor I took it to a local motor repair shop & had them bench test it to make sure there wasn't any other possible problems. They got back to me a few days later & confirmed that it was 240V & it passed all their bench tests. I asked them how much they would charge me to clean it up & replace the bearings. They quoted me $100 which I thought was pretty good, so I told them to go ahead & do the work. It took them a few weeks to get it done since they were pretty busy & short on staff like everyone else out there.
I was quite happy when I picked it up, I didn't know they were going to paint it also!


Doug

 

[dwall174]

Once I got the motor out of the cabinet,

Getting that 80lb.+ motor out of the cabinet on a fully assembled lathe would be a PITA.
Here's a couple of pic's of the motor next to a regular sized spray paint can for size comparison.

Being it's mounted from the bottom up, there's not too much room to maneuver it around inside the cabinet.

Being I had the lathe disassembled I used my shop crane to lift the base & motor assembly up onto a heavy-duty stand. From there I disconnect the motor from the mount & used a method I seen on YouTube, I lifted the base up high enough to slide the motor out from the bottom.


Doug

 

[Shootymacshootface]

This is what I am the most amazed at so far....

 

[dwall174]

Yeah, that surprised me also! To make things even a little stranger, they had a 10 /15 /& 20-amp fuse in the slots?

The motor repair shop told me that the motor was also loaded with chips!
He also mentioned that it was probably a good thing that I decided to let them do the cleaning. They have a special dry-ice blaster that they use for cleaning the insides of the motors.

I haven't got around to checking out the coolant pump & motor that also came with the lathe. However, judging by its appearance! I'm guessing that the pump would be loaded with debris also. The motor should be an enclosed fan cooled model, so the windings shouldn't be clogged with debris.


Doug

 

[FOMOGO]

That control box is pretty scary looking. Kind of amazing nothing shorted out. That should be a real useful machine. Mike

 

[dwall174]

That control box is pretty scary looking. Kind of amazing nothing shorted out.

Once I seen that mess, I was convinced that I would just disconnect all the wiring & start from scratch.
Even the reversing switch that was mounted up high, had a light coating of oily coolant on the contacts?

That should be a real useful machine. Mike

Yeah, I took a chance on the motor not running seeing it wasn't connected to any power! But everything moved nice & freely including the turret's rotating assembly. The only part that was somewhat stiff was the upper tool holder section of the cross slide.

I only paid $500 for the lathe, so I figured it was worth the chance
It does need a few parts & new bearings/bushings but considering what a 13" SB lathe in really good condition would go for, I think I made the right decision.

Doug