Lathe Restore Project. My first go!

[countryguy]

Hi everyone! I've been looking forward to getting a change to post up here. I purchased an older Hardinge turret lathe. I have yet to figure out the SN# and date of the unit, but I see they were around from the 40's thru the 70's (even this I'm unsure of at this point). So, I'll do my homework when I get home from yet another summer business trip.

That said, Whats the MO here on a good restore? Do I go ahead and get it powered up first? Eval the operation and such? Or just prepare the Video/Pic setup for a tear down and begin the dis-assembly, clean up, and inspection? I will need to buy the user and parts manuals it seems. It's a DSM-59 unit. I have all the parts, cross-slide's collets, and tooling. So it's all there. Someone painted the entire unit an ugly blue? I really want to do this job right, take my time, and have some fun making it look new again. If you wish to see what I mean- I think I bought this example machine's ugly DSM brother! http://www.babinmachine.com/index.php?HARDINGEDV59

Peace everyone!
CG

 

[Andre]

Rebuilding your machine is a great learning experience. As long as you don't force anything and are not afraid to get dirty (see my signature)

I'm going to be rebuilding my M head soon, will probably write an article about it.

 

[rmack898]

Restore, recondition, refresh, what does it need and what do you want?

A good day spent with a DTI will tell you how much wear the machine has. Typically an industrial quality machine like your Hardinge, unless it was really abused, will not need a full restoration. (i.e. grinding and scraping the ways).

After you determine where the machine is worn and how much it's worn then you can plan out how much work and $$ you want to spend to bring it back to a condition that will meet your needs. Often a thorough cleaning, lubrication, and adjusting will bring a machine back to a very serviceable condition for home shop use.

Do a thorough inspection, be honest with your needs and expectations, and go to town on it. Photo document it all the way, and enjoy the ride.

 

[ScubaSteve]

It all depends on what you want to do with it. Are you planning on starting with this and then keeping it as a lathe in your shop? Or, do you just want to get your hands dirty and fix something up? If you want to keep it, know that Hardinge stuff is ridiculously expensive and if you want to add power feeds, etc. that are required for threading....it will be quite expensive. For simple turning, it will be awesome.

If you want to get crazy and scrape the ways for a complete rebuild, know that the flat ways are probably easier to do than the prismatic ways on South Bends.

Or, you could fix it up and learn more about what you like/want....then sell this to fund your next project.