South Bend 9a Restoration (pic Heavy)

Great work! I especially love the paint you chose. What kind, color, brand?
I'm just glad you will not have guests using this nice machine while you are asleep.
R
 
More nameplate restoration. Glad to have these wrapped up. Speaking of- I'm hoping to wrap up the last of the painting on the carriage assembly this weekend. I'm getting close!

I got smart on these nameplates. I used Testers brand gloss enamel on the nameplate for my quick change gear box. After wet sanding it, the gloss was dulled to a flat luster- except in the pits and valleys of the nameplate (remember this is a restoration, not a replacement/replica: it has a few dings/dents/pits). I didn't like that much because I couldn't get the random gloss spots sanded down to a flat luster. So this time around I tested using the Testers brand flat enamel and had much better results. I did still spray the final product with a coat of matte clear to "smooth" everything over. I think they turned out nice!
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Great work! I especially love the paint you chose. What kind, color, brand?
I'm just glad you will not have guests using this nice machine while you are asleep.
R

Sorry- apparently I missed this comment. See the second post in this thread for all details on the paint.
 
wildo,
Just read your whole thread, very nice work.

I noticed in Post 20, the bull gear cover looks like an old brake shoe lining... Glad you found a factory part.

I am getting ready to start on a SB13 and am gathering info, thank you for posting your progress.

toolman_ar
 
Very nice. I like the low gloss paint you used.
R
 
What an astonishing transformation!!!!


Gotta hand it to ya - the nameplates look great, and are a well deserved detail and a nice touch.
 
Thanks everyone for the compliments! I've been working on this off and on since the last post; summer is a REALLY busy time for me with dog sport competitions, and as such I haven't been quite as dedicated to the lathe. I do have the entire carriage assembly back together! Last night I finally cleaned up the cone pulley for the countershaft assembly and finished putting it together. Tonight if I find time, I think I'll wrap up the back gear shaft and finally put the spindle in place for good. I had been waiting on putting the spindle together thinking that I was going to get a continuous belt for the lathe, but now I think I'll go on ebay and buy one of those pre-skived endless belts that you glue together. If anyone has an opinion on the endless belt vs the laced belt- I'm all ears. Seems to me that the laced belt is both louder as the lacing hits the pulleys, and more likely to slip a little when the lacing is directly over the pulleys since it's metal to metal contact. Of course, the laced belt can be installed/removed without disassembling the lathe components.

The big surprise is that I really, really want to maintain the original (rare) pushbutton FWD/STOP/REV switches rather than mounting a drum switch. A buddy of mine is 3D printing a switch plate that I drew up. Originally I was going to use switch contactors in order to use cheaper "electronic" sized switches, but after pricing out how much the reversing contactors would be, and considering that there's no question I will want to upgrade to variable speed in the future, I decided to pull the trigger on a 1HP Baldor 3Ph motor upgrade and VFD. With the VFD I get the variable speed and, more importantly, the ease at controlling the motor for FWD/STOP/REV buttons. The upgrade just made sense. I'm still waiting on him to finish up the switch plate, but otherwise- I do think the lathe restoration is more/less just about wrapped up!!

Of course I'll post more photos of the final stuff a bit later. Like I said, I've just been a bit busy with some other things right now.

[EDIT]- Here are the only pictures I have with me at work at the moment. I'll post these up as a "teaser" to the finished photos.

The apron was completely disassembled, degreased, and repainted. A couple of the gears in the apron had what I considered to be excessive wear, so I replaced them with less-worn units I found on ebay. I opted to paint the inside as well, though I read AFTER the fact that the restoration manual says this isn't always a good idea since the oil will eventually break down the paint and then paint chips can cause excessive wear on the gears. Honestly, I don't see this being a huge issue. This is a hobby lathe, not a production lathe... I painted all surfaces that weren't machined- including the arms on the half nuts (but not the threads on the half nuts, of course).
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All of the levers and handwheels were polished by putting them on arbors (typically just a bolt captured with a nut on the other side) and spun in my drill press. I used a green scotchbrite pad at first, and then finished with a grey scotchbrite pad. This produced a nice finish!
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I can see that, but my point was that the manual says to put 75 pounds of force on a 2' long bar inserted into the head stock in order to check the bearing clearance. It would be hard to put 75 pounds of force on the bar and not raise the end of the lathe off the bench. Therefore for performing this test, I'd think the lathe would need to be bolted down.

I'm not sure where that guy got his information, it's not correct. But as I said before, 75 lbs is way too much force to apply for this test. On a larger lathe in the 16"-20" range, yes, but not on a 9" SBL.

EDIT: I got this way out of sync. Oh well...
 
To make your laced together belts SILENT,you can lace them with copper wire. But,on the flesh side of the belting,which touches the pulleys,carefully cut "V" grooves deep enough for the copper wires to lay in so they don't touch the pulleys.

This is the recommended way to fix belts to run silently. The hair side of the leather is where the strength is,so you do not appreciably weaken the belt by cutting the grooves., Just don't get sloppy or carried away with the depth of the grooves.

I made such a belt many years ago,and it has lasted through many years of use without the joint failing.
 
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