Standard Modern 1334 unusual noise in reverse

[AJB]

I just acquired one of those rusty SM 1334 lathes from a government auction which has actually cleaned up really well. It looks to have been run very little and has no noticeable wear...it is very tight and the ways look almost perfect. After cleaning up the light rust, most surfaces were smooth. The exception being the taper attachment which has some light to medium pitting. I could go into more detail about the small things that I had to work on to get the lathe fully functional, but I don't want to stray too far off topic...I just wanted to give some background on the machine before I ask a question.

After "fixing" all the little problems, I hooked the machine up to the only 3 phase power supply that I have, a 25 year old Phase-A-Matic that is properly sized to the machine. I ran it through every speed and threading combination on the high speed pulley setup and it ran super smooth except when it is run in reverse at 50 and 100 rpm.

In reverse at the low spindle speeds there is a noticeable tapping or knocking that happens exactly once per revolution of the spindle. It is about the equivalent of tapping the tip of an ink pen lightly on a table. This noise cannot be heard at higher speeds but may just be overshadowed by the louder hum of the spindle spinning faster. I will add that the tapping also occurs when the screw cutting gearbox is placed in neutral. I can't tell where the noise is coming from but I am assuming it is from the headstock. With that in mind, I took the cover off the headstock and all the visible gears appear to be perfect with only minimal wear. Also, when turning the chuck by hand I cannot feel anything unusual.

Anyone have any ideas about what could be causing this tapping sound? Also, should I disregard the noise and just run the lathe (can't see using law speed reverse very often) or identify and fix the problem before I run it again?

Tony

 

[JimDawson]

I would start by pulling the gear cover off of the back of the headstock and look for any crud in the spindle gear teeth. I have found that it doesn't take much to make a noise. I sometimes have the same problem with my Jet, and just taking a scribe and cleaning the teeth roots seems to make a difference. Other than that, I'm not sure.

 

[AJB]

Jim,

When I had the cover removed, the only thing that I saw that was unusual was some yellow paint chips embedded in some of the teeth. I'll have to pull the top again and scrape the chips out to see if it helps. I've also changed the oil and need to readjust a drive belt that is way to tight.

I've been cleaning up and painting the lathe in an area that is about 75 feet from my power supply so it is a bit of a hassle to get it plugged in. Once I get a few more things done I'll move it back to my power supply and see how it sounds.

Thanks for you suggestion.

Tony Bacala

 

[AJB]

I thought that I'd post a couple of picture of my progress on the rusty government surplus lathe and some further details.

The first picture is of the lathe as it was advertised on the Government Liquidation website. Since it was only a few hours away, I decided to do a personal inspection before deciding whether or not to bid. While the lathe appeared to be in horrible condition in the posted pictures, what I found was that the rust was mostly superficial.

I also noted that the lathe was pretty well equipped including a taper attachment, splash guard, face plate, Bison 3 jaw chuck, Bison 4 jaw chuck, steady rest, Aloris BXA Tool Post, Fagor DRO and some other odds and ends. Aside from the rust, there were a lot of parts that were frozen tight including the tailstock, the cross slide, and the dials. What was most concerning was that the lead screw shear pin was sheared and it was steel instead of the factory used brass pin. I was afraid that there could be some broken gears so I did a lot of hand spinning of the chuck but couldn't detect anything obvious.

I decided to bid, since I had been looking for an SM 1334 for over two years and I justified my bidding by telling myself that the accessories had some value and could be sold to recoup some of my losses if the lathe ended up being beyond repair.



My initial efforts were to remove all of the rust. It was mostly removed from the lathe with a local version of Ospho (phosphoric acid) along with some non-abrasive rubbing with a towel. For the component parts, I soaked them in an ice chest filled with a 1% solution of oxalic acid. After a couple of evenings of work, the rust was 99% removed.

After all the rust was removed, I found some light pitting on a few non-critical surfaces such as parts of the taper attachment and the top of the cross slide. There was only a very small area of extremely light pitting on the an area of the ways a flat that the tailstock rides on. Even there there, 75% of the original surface is present.

I have used some abrasive aluminum oxide paper to remove most of the pitting on the non-critical surfaces but absolutely no abrasive has been used on critical surfaces such as the ways.

My second priority was to un-stick all the frozen parts. What I found was that the frozen parts appeared to be stuck due to dried grease and oil so I soaked all the frozen parts for few days in a 50/50 mix of automatic transmission fluid and ccetone. In the case of the tailstock it took soaking, heating with a propane torch, and tapping the quill free. After all of the old coagulated oil and grease was dissolved, all parts started moving slick as silk.

I should mention that I had no hope of the DRO would work after being exposed to the elements. When I plugged it in, it was absolutely dead so I took it, and all of the component parts off of the lathe. One day when I was bored, I decided top open up the DRO and did a check with an amp meter. As soon as I touched the meter to the switch wires, the unit came on. Apparently, the trouble was with a loose wire. I'll have to check the scales to see if they work and if they do, I'll be putting all the DRO parts back on the lathe. Bottom line, I gave up on the DRO way to soon!

The only issues I've discovered with the lathe are that it has the slight tapping sound when run in low speed reverse as described in the original post. If I can't locate the source, I may just run it as is...I don't think I'll be using low speed reverse very often anyway.

As you can see in the picture below, I've done some painting. I tried to match the original color with something off of the self of local hardware stores but there was nothing even close. Eventually I mixed my own color. It is Rustoleum Rust Stop paint with the mix being 1/3rd of a half-pint can of Blue with a quart of Smoke Gray. It isn't an exact match, but it is somewhat close and I think a pleasant color for a lathe.

I still have to paint the inside of the cabinet and the splash guard before I call the project complete and take another shot at trying to local the source of the tapping noise in low speed reverse.

I'll add one final comment...I am really enjoying the refurbishing of this lathe but also looking forward to making some chips...

 

[AJB]

This is one more picture of the lathe that I meant to add to the previous post:

 

[Cal Haines]

What did you wind up paying?

Do you know about Evap-O-Rust? I use it all the time on small parts.

Cal

 

[JimDawson]

Looking good !

 

[AJB]

Cal,

i thought about buying Evaporust-O-Rust but I wnted to soak everything at the same time so I needed 4 or 5 gallons. Only for that reason, I went with Oxalic acid. Between winning the auction and picking up the lathe I had 7 days to experiment with the concentration level using wood bleach from Lowes. I settled on an 5 parts water to one part wood bleach solution as effective but not damaging to the base metal. Anything in this general range seemed to work.

As to the price of the lathe, my bid amount was about $1,860 and after tax and the buyers premium the total was just over $2,100.

i forgot to mention some other included accessory...it also had a micrometer carriage stop, a live center that doesn't fit, one dog, a dead center, part of an indicator holder and a few other odds and ends.

One more tidbit, I called Leblonde and asked for the date of manufacture based on the serial number but accidentally gave the a number 40 higher that actual. They said the lathe was made in 2005 so I figure it was made in '04 or '05.

i hope that the "take away" from this post is that rusty looking machines should not automatically be dismissed as junk. This machine is tight, cross feed backlash is about .012 and for the compound it is about .007. The machine was apparently used very little and suffered only from neglect and not abuse.

Tony

 

[AJB]

Update: after changing the headstock oil, adjusting the belt tension, and realigning the pulleys the noise went away.

 

[greenhornet-1]

Looks Good! I need to get back on mine and get it running! I can't decide if i want to change the motor to 220 single faze or wire it up 3 phase. Changing the motor seems to be the easy way out!