9A project completed

looks great, you definitly have more patients than I do, fixing things the proper way.
 
What an awesome restoration, I believe its now better than when it left the factory.
Fantastic work.
 
savarin said:
What an awesome restoration, I believe its now better than when it left the factory.
Fantastic work.
Click to expand...
Thank you that's kind of you too say. It is certainly a wonderful little machine to use now that it's restored.
 
derf said:
Some of you guys may remember this little crudball I acquired back in April...
View attachment 275273
View attachment 275274

I had just completed the last project, the Seneca Falls #30 resto-mod,(project of the month) when this lathe found it's way to me via a friend of a friend. My friend, who is also a tool salesman, showed me a pic of this on his phone, which came from his friend, the seller, who now is a retired tool room supervisor. He had this in his back building just taking up space and wanted the room for some of his restoration projects.
I told him I would take it, and explained to him what my mission was. With the lack of training facilities and instructors to teach skilled trades these days, my mission is to educate a passionate individual some skills that seems to be disappearing more every day, if I have to do it one student at a time!
I already had a student lined up to not only learn, but to eventually purchase this lathe once we got it up to date. He thought this was a noble plan, and let me have this machine for a very obscene low price.
He also done the research and got the pick card from South Bend. This model was made in 1945. It left South Bend in March of '45 and went to Reynolds Machinery in Cleveland. In April, it went to Neil Machine of Lima, Oh. Neil Machine was a defense contractor that had a Navy contract to build tow targets for aerial gunners to practice on.
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I don't know how long it stayed there, but it changed hands a few times and it was at a local school for awhile, until he purchased it.

Although quite filthy, everything seemed to be there with no missing parts on the lathe itself. But it didn't have much tooling. It has a 6" Union 3 jaw chuck, but with only the large diameter outside jaws. The chuck is actually pretty tight with little wear, but the killer is it only has the one set of jaws. Other than that, it came with a #2 morse dead center and an Armstrong lantern tool post, with one holder and 3 pieces of hss tool bits....almost bare essentials.

When I acquired this, I thought it would make another winter project, but I was wrong.....since this butted right up to the completion of the Seneca Falls project, I couldn't stop.....like Lays potato chips, can't eat just one! So I started in right away. more to come.
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When I was starting out I wanted to learn everything I could, took introduction to machine shop at the community college, traveled 25 miles one way to a retired machinists house to learn advanced machining skills from him....he had no kids...he was a genius!!! When you entered his shop he had a big picture on the wall of Albert Einstein......he would give me little quizzes Like...for a 1/2 -13 tap what is the major and minor hole diameter!! I told him if I wanted to know that I would look in the Machinery Handbook...that was the answer he hated the most...he said I should have that memorized!!! He made his money making vintage aircraft control cables and parts.....I helped....watched him make the Swaging Dies to squeeze the cable ends on the control cables....he would send them out to be tested....when the Lab gave the seal of Approval, the order was for 25 different lengths of cables for B-17 flying fortress.....he was An Amazing man.....sometimes his belittling of my Knowledge was almost unbearable,and I thought why the hell drive all the way over here for this kind of verbal Abuse!!! I sucked it up as what I was Learning from him was in No text book....he would say...pay Attention you wont see this in any textbook....and he was Right.....I took the time to drive there to learn as much from him as I could....my point being....I hired a good young man to do my firewood....he wanted to learn advanced welding so after firewood I would show him advanced welding techniques....also had him on the Lodge and shipley bevelling a bunch of pins..this was after piling firewood for pay......he was 17 and had no drivers license yet...i encouraged him to get his license then he could drive himself to the shop like i did for my schooling....he got his License and when he was done with the firewood or other paying jobs he was gone....to play video games and party with his friends...i had high Hope's to pass on the trades and skills to someone young and he could pass it on to someone.....it just isnt there today...i had high Hope's as this kid has what it takes as far as brains....but no drive to learn as i had unless he is getting paid and I'll be damned if I'm going to pay for someone to learn from me the skills i acquired......Oh well just my take on the subject....anyone else have the same experience?????
 
Kind of off topic here, so mods, please delete if so.
This post just brought up some memories here

Great post Riverland!!
So sad, but true!!
I grew up in a small Iowa town in the 50's
My first stop after school every day walking home, yes, walking, was the local blacksmith's shop to see what was going on.
Always something going on.
Sometimes he would even let me don a helmet and watch him weld something.
Are there even blacksmith shops anymore??
 
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finsruskw said:
Great post!!
So sad, but true!!
I grew up in a small Iowa town in the 50's
My first stop after school every day walking home, yes, walking, was the local blacksmith's shop to see what was going on.
Always something going on.
Sometimes he would even let me don a helmet and watch him weld something.
Are there even blacksmith shops anymore??
Click to expand...
A gent down the road is the blacksmith at the steam and gas at the fairgrounds in our town....we were talking about heat treating steel...he was talking about the colors steel makes and the right color for determining the proper time to quench the steel.....I told him there was a better way to know when the transition temperature was reached for quenching....and he said and when is that....I told him when a magnet wont attract the steel anymore...he gave me a Look like I was full of B.S.!!!! Saw him a while after that and he said the magnet method was far more accurate of a way and where did I ever learn that....it was in Guy Lautards bedside Reader many years ago....I have all of Mr Lautards bedside readers....lots of very valuable info in them!!!
 
DMITTZ, I just looked at all you your photos on the SB, Beautiful job.
 
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