South Bend Heavy 10 restoration

[Thoro]

This will be the beginning of my documentation of a South Bend heavy 10 that I acquired on Christmas eve. This is the first South Bend I have owned and am excited about it. I am going to try to be proactive here and share my adventure with it rather than sit back and read while I fix it up in the shadows of lurkville, time premitting.

It originally was in a Vo-tech school, then put in dry storage for some time and after that a student from that school purchased it and took it home. The school had removed a few parts that I assume they needed before they sent it with the student. The student who is now a man reaching retirement age is who I bought it from. From what I can tell it is about 1941 vintage. Single tumble gear box. Small bore spindle. 10R

Here it is just after unloading it. I put the 2x's and casters on it before it ever touched the ground. Sure makes moving it around a tight shop for various tasks easier.


My plan is to restore it. To what extent is something I haven't decided yet. The ways have the classic nicks near the head stock, but they are mostly on the flat and tail stock way, not the carriage way. Not much significant wear on the carriage ways that I have identified yet, no wear ridge. It's definitely a used machine though, and that's what makes me question to myself as far as what extent I want to restore it, because I am planning on fixing this one up and replacing an Atlas lathe that I currently own and using it. I do like the luxury of having a working lathe already so I am not in an extreme rush to get this one going and would like to make it nice, because I can.

Here is the gear cover model plate.


Here is the serial number on the ways. Not sure what the D.W.W is. I'm guessing it may be the school's stamping?


It was missing the primary gear on the gear box. As well as the sliding gear. In this picture I have taken the banjo off, but I do have it. Just missing the sliding gear.


The apron was missing the star knob and screw retaining screw for the star knob.


What appears to be a shop / student made large dial conversion (more on that later, as it is going to cause me much confusion down the road with this restoration)


Those are most of the missing pieces/oddities I have found so far except for every single gitts oiler being missing or smashed except for the head stock cups.

That should get things up to speed as far as the condition that I found it in, pretty much. I have already started stripping parts and cleaning things up so I will post up some progress shots and such on that.

I'm going to need all the advice I can get.

 

[Thoro]

Getting even more up to speed here.

As soon as I could, I got hot on the trail for a few of the parts that I was in need of, at least the parts that I could see right off the bat.

I was able to track down a star knob, primary gear, and 12 gitts oilers all from the same fellow.

I forgot to mention that none of the gears that I have seen so far have been broken. I will update on the condition of the gearbox once I get it off the lathe and expose it's soft underbelly.

Also, my intention is to convert this to a 10L which I have already acquired a spare head stock and spindle for. That's a whole different ballgame from this post, but thought it worth mentioning.

I was surprised how fast after a few days of me putting my feelers out for parts that they just started coming out of the wood work.

Primary gear. Had to make the nut as I forgot to ask the gentleman I purchased it from if he had one. So I turned down a 5/8 x 11 (I think it is 11) nut to give it a skinnier profile, like the original one.


Star knob. I was not able to get the left hand screw for it, so if anyone might have one laying around, I'd be interested. Or if at least someone could get me the dimensions of it as well as the thread pitch, I would be grateful, so as to make it myself.

 

[woodtickgreg]

Subscribed! I love a good restore thread, this will be fun.

 

[Thoro]

Subscribed! I love a good restore thread, this will be fun.

Thanks! I'm really excited about this. The fellow I got the parts from was Dave, you may know, because he mentioned your restoration to me which led me to here, and also i had seen before while doing research and found some of your youtube videos on, which really impressed me. So the piece came together after connecting with him. That's what I mean when I say I don't know to what extent I will restore this because it seems your's was in much better shape than mine to begin with, but, you know the saying, "if it's worth doing, the it's worth doing right" and I'm the kind of guy that has a hard time half doing things.

 

[GK1918]

I was always lead to beleive the D.W.W. was probably the inspectors stamp of approval, dont know, mine says J.F.P.

 

[RandyM]

I am going to try to be proactive here and share my adventure with it rather than sit back and read while I fix it up in the shadows of lurkville, time premitting.

Perfect, we love your attitude. :thumbsup: You have a great machine and it will be fantastic to watch your progress as it be comes another HM masterpiece. Thank you for posting.

 

[Thoro]

I was always lead to beleive the D.W.W. was probably the inspectors stamp of approval, dont know, mine says J.F.P.

That's interesting. I didn't consider it was an inspector stamp. I wonder if anyone else has a D.W.W stamped, like mine, or a J.F.P like your's?

 

[Thoro]

My weapon of choice against rust and old paint

So far for the larger parts and parts with intricate ins and outs or machined surfaces, my weapon of choice has been electrolysis to remove rust, grease and paint. For the smaller parts I will just run them under the wire wheel if it's a sensible situation. I like the electrolysis though, because I can just set up a batch of parts and come back the next morning to find the paint ready to peel off by hand.

Apron with handwheel before electrolysis.


Apron hand wheel after an overnight bath.


Peels right off by hand.


A little bit of elbow grease with the scotchbrite pad and it's pretty much ready for paint. I don't think I'll do much polishing to parts past this stage. I kind of like the idea of leaving a little bit of "patina" left.


Other parts cleaned and ready to go.


Gear cover after a night in the tank. That would have been a lot of time and mess with the wire wheel and sand paper!


After. Still has a few spots that the paint was tenacious enough to survive 24 hrs in the tank. Will touch those spots up by hand.


Word of warning. Don't leave aluminum in the tank, for long, if at all. I didn't realize that the pulley cover was aluminum and it spent 24 hours in the tank, it got very pitted which I am very frustrated and bummed about. I should have checked, but everything else on these things are cast iron! I guess they chose to make this cover aluminum so it would't crack under opening / closing (slamming)? Live and learn I guess.


That's about it for now. Just wanted to share my preference for the age old "how will I clean this part up??" quandary.

Thanks for looking

 

[Thoro]

Brass tags

Still trying to get up to speed with everything I have done so far.

Next is simple. Cleaned up the brass tags on the rear gear cover. saw this recently and really liked it. I wish I could remember who I saw writing and sharing this technique so I could give the credit. Simply spray the whole tag with some kind of paint that thins with mineral spirits. I used rustoleum professional gloss black. The carefully wipe off the raised letters and areas. Took me two tries because I wiped too hard the first time, so i had to respray and start over with a much more gentle approach after wiping off the background in some large spots. I was fun and very satisfying results though.

Before


After (needs a tiny little bit of touch up)

 

[GK1918]

That's interesting. I didn't consider it was an inspector stamp. I wonder if anyone else has a D.W.W stamped, like mine, or a J.F.P like your's?

Well thats just my educated guess on that, howerver Our other S.Bend just has an "A" so thats what I think. Those 'red sticks' used with
that sizzle buff wheels do an excellent job - just like chrome, BUT, you will need a weekly chrome polish job, or maybe clear coat, but I
think clear coating is more of a pain. Nice find their Thoro

sam