Clausing 4914

Yes a lesson learnt. I had bid on one before, but before I bid I made sure I asked the seller that it was a plain back chuck. I subsequently didn't win that particular chuck. Then the next time I actually made a bid I didn't confirm, and ended up winning it. Like I said, its a shame, it seems to be a very nice buck chuck for the price I paid.

I have to email the seller, He has a 100% satisfaction guarantee on a little note with this email address that was on the top of the packaging. It will cost me $12 or so to ship it back. No biggie.

The lathe comes home tomorrow! Finally. Of course, the weather forecast is calling for an 40-60% chance of rain showers between here and PA for tomorrow. Perfect time to be moving a precision hunk of cast iron!

I'll make sure my camera is charged and I take plenty of pictures of the move. I know we all love pictures!

Wish me luck!
 
The lathe comes home tomorrow! Finally. Of course, the weather forecast is calling for an 40-60% chance of rain showers between here and PA for tomorrow. Perfect time to be moving a precision hunk of cast iron!

I'll make sure my camera is charged and I take plenty of pictures of the move. I know we all love pictures!

Wish me luck!

I've been thinking about you today, the weather sure is crappy for moving anything other than a beer to ones mouth :drink2: Pretty much solid rain all day-but we sure do need it.
 
I've been thinking about you today, the weather sure is crappy for moving anything other than a beer to ones mouth :drink2: Pretty much solid rain all day-but we sure do need it.

Weather is perfect here...you COULD move it here if you want to ;)

I hope the move is happening positively.good luck
 
I've been thinking about you today, the weather sure is crappy for moving anything other than a beer to ones mouth :drink2: Pretty much solid rain all day-but we sure do need it.

You got that right! I'll fill you all in much more later. Worst day to move a lathe ever. It's in the shed. Glad my friend helped, would have never been able to do this by myself. As much as I had planned, things got hairy real fast but we didn't have any major incidents. A lot of standing around in the rain scratching our heads how we were going to actually get it in. Very miserable day.

Ugh, I'm exhausted.
 
My friend helped me out yesterday. We haven't known each other too long, he's the husband of a co-worker of mine. But after yesterday he's a real friend. He is a hockey player so it was nice to have a big guy to lend a hand. He said he actually had fun helping me.

The lathe is in the shed. Still up on it's skids and rollers. Which will help me move it around a bit while I need to get behind it to get to the junction box, etc. while I begin to work on it. It fits just about perfectly. With the shed door shut I will even be able to open the belt cabinet. I think once I get it off the skids I'll be able to actually get into the storage cabinet as well.

It is absolutely filthy. Every square inch is covered in muck. What do you guys find to be the best de-greaser/general purpose cleaner?

I think I might splurge and get a small parts washer. I've found ones similar in size to the small HF model, yet they are metal. And only about $20 more.

I was able to get it hooked up to the VFD temporarily just to get it running. I can't believe it actually runs it off the extension cord out to the shed. It's a 12 ga cord, so it should be big enough. I'll have to keep an eye on it when I'm running the motor for long periods of time to see if it's getting hot.

I'm trying to get it cleaned up enough to make sure that everything functions so far. The power feed works for both the carriage and the cross feed. The half nut works.

I can't seem to figure out the back gears. When I put it in back gears the spindle won't move at all. I seem to be having some issues with the back gear pin.

The chuck back plate should be usable. I will try to get a 3 jaw that actually can be used on this plate.

I've started tearing down a few minor assemblies like the drum switch. Just to get started.

I might get it to a point where I can turn something, see how accurate it is, then do a complete tear down. What do you think? Should I wait till I can get to that point or should I just start in on it?

I'll update my blog soon so you can check out pics...
 
I use mineral spirits or K1 kerosene, they are the cheapest-even Wal Mart sells mineral spirits in the paint department.

When you move the rear handle into back-gear, you have to pull the pin OUT that is inside the spindle wheel (left side) or the spindle will be locked. See red arrow:
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Have to decided if you are going to just clean it, or do a complete teardown?

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Thanks Ken. The bull gear pin was stuck. I had been spraying it with PB blaster thinking it was stuck. After I read your post, I went out and levered it gently with a screwdriver and it popped right out. I was then able to engage the back gear and get the spindle to move.

It doesn't say it in the manual, but I'd imagine that actually comes in handy when you want to lock the spindle if you need to get off a stuck chuck?

I've got the motor out now and hooked up to the VFD in my workshop. Using what you told me about the drum switch I was able to hook it up as the forward neutral reverse controlling the VFD and motor. You were right, once I had everything in front of me it was a piece of cake. Thanks again! And go ahead and call me a dork for saying this but this VFD is pretty freakin cool.

I have a huge Delta abrasive metal chop saw I picked up on eBay ages ago. It's still in my mom's basement. It has a massive 3 phase motor. I had thought I'd get rid of the thing because it would be too much trouble to run. Now I'm thinking a VFD hooked up to it would be great, you could even slow it down enough to run it as a cold saw. Too bad I don't have any room for it. hmmm...

Anyway, the tool post slide and the compound slide are pretty buggered up. As I was aware the tool post slide is welded on both sides indicating it had been broken at some time. In addition to that, the compound slide has a pin inserted into the end of it limiting it's travel. As far as I can tell it's also limiting me from taking the whole thing apart. I can't imagine why someone would put the pin there. The slide end, where it is inserted, is pretty chewy. Do you think it would be ok to carefully cut this pin off with a cut off disk? Then file it down flush the way it should be?

Also I can't tell from the exploded diagram but is the compound screw supposed to be two pieces? It looks to me like it was also broken at some point. The acme screw was held onto the rest of the shaft with a flat head brass screw and nut that do not look original at all. Also where the shaft attaches to the acme screw looks like it was welded on.

Another thing I noticed is that the tail stock handle was broken, and re-welded as well. I'm starting to wonder how bad this thing is. I think the main thing is, the ways are in good shape and the spindles in great shape too. Everything else I can fix.

To answer your question, this thing is so nasty I think it's going to take a complete tear down just to get it clean, and if I have it completely apart I might as well do a full on restore. I'm actually surprised how much I've got done in just one day. Of course it's always much easier taking it apart than putting back together.

By the way, how much paint did it take to do your machine? Is the TSC light ford gray almost white? It looks that way in your photos. Did you use the catalyst hardener with that paint? Did you brush it on, spray or both?

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looks good - don't be too hard on yourself, moving a lathe with just 2 people like that is no joke. you did well! pat yourself on the back and smile.

I would recommend taking the opportunity that you are not tooled up and taking the lathe apart and cleaning it NOW - once you have it tooled up and start turning you will NOT want to stop and have a long break in work to do the clean up (it's just too addictive).
 
Sharon, I was thinking the same thing. Once I have it apart, I might as well take care of it all now. Only I think I'm going to go one step further and follow Ken's example and paint as well. I like restoring machinery so why not make a project of it. It's going to be some time before I get all the tooling anyway. All of us must have the same personalities because I agree, I think I'll be too addicted to making chips to stop and tear it down.

My biggest problem right now is I'm rapidly running out of room to do anything. When I got the lathe I stopped at my mom's house and grabbed all of my mechanics tools, an air compressor, etc etc etc. I have no idea where I'm going to put this parts washer when I get it. Plus, the lathe seems to take up a lot more room when it's in pieces than when it's together.

I have to admit, I had a fun time fooling around with this thing yesterday. I went through about 20 pairs of nitrile gloves and I still can't get the dirt from under my fingernails. :))
 
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