# South Bend 13" restoration..



## jbarton (Aug 6, 2012)

Well the girl has been taken completely down and I'm preparing to reassemble her. The VFD arrived and I spend the weekend putting in boxes, conduit, wiring and retro fitting a NEMA 12x12x6 box to house the VFD. While I was at it I added a pair of 120v 20a outlets to the wall behind where the lathe will sit. For pumps and other acc items.

Here is a couple of picks of the enclosure.









The enclosure came from a local electical supply... I could have gotten the box for $34 from Lowes but I didn't feel like driving the extra 30 miles both ways and I like to put money back in the local economy.

I wanted to be able to see the VFD read out so I cut a 6-1/2" tall full width window in it and put som 1/4" plexiglass I had at the house in it. The hole for the fan is the size of a CD so I used one to lay it out. 

The fan and the additional guard were ones I had from salvaging a stage lighting power unit.. back in the day. The quick disconnect was a spare I had from when we built the house, as well as all the conduit and wire. I was missing one 3/4" conduit connector so its still not hooked up. After running 20 ft. of conduit I didn't feel like running to town. You can see one of the additional 120v boxes at the bottom of the last photo. The VFD uses 240v so I had to run an additional nutrual wire to run the fan. I'm patching in one side of the fan to one of the 220 legs and then the other side to the nutrual wire... this will give it 120v and be run through the quick disconnect.


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## Old Iron (Aug 6, 2012)

Nice clean setup on your wiring, Now get your Lathe looks up and running and you'll really have a good setup.

Paul


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## jbarton (Aug 6, 2012)

Old Iron said:


> Nice clean setup on your wiring, Now get your Lathe looks up and running and you'll really have a good setup.
> 
> Paul



The Original machine was in a horrible condition... or so I thought... it had so much dirt on it I thought it was going to be a real problem.





	

		
			
		

		
	
 as you can see from this photo. A little pressure washing and it was better. Then I found that it most likely had been quite some time since it saw any maintenance. The lubricants where like wax.



	

		
			
		

		
	
 After doing some more cleaning I started looking at all the bits and pieces.



	

		
			
		

		
	
One of the things I found was that the collet wheel had the nut welded on. Had to use a cutting wheel and a chisel to take it off, but now I can use it to make the new one as well as the cross feed screw. Both are left hand Acme thread screws... 1/2" or 5/8" depending on how you measure it. Those and the reverse gears... 27 tooth and 30 tooth are the only truely parts that are baddly worn.

Right now she is disassembled... I'm cleaning up everything and re-lubing it all. I painted the inside of the motor base light grey so I can see what is going on, but the exterior will be a greenish grey. In cleaning it I found the original equipment color. A bit greener than what I... got but close enough for Govt work...

I've got to make the catch tank for the tray and install the lubricant pump as well as the high pressure pump for the gun drill. Any suggestions on this will be welcome.


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## woodtickgreg (Aug 6, 2012)

Nice machine and I really like your enclosure for the vfd. It gives me some ideas for mine when I do it. Thanks.


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## jbarton (Aug 7, 2012)

woodtickgreg said:


> Nice machine and I really like your enclosure for the vfd. It gives me some ideas for mine when I do it. Thanks.



The box I got was $53 dollars local... you can get one like it from Lowes for $34. 120volt muffin fans aren't to hard to come by you can always pull one out of a old computer power supply. (I have to think about that some of the fans are 12 volt).

I used RTV on the Plexiglass to seal it and bolted it at the corners to add strength.

I put in the quick disconnect for a Condenser unit on it just in case it all goes wrong or I just want to kill the whole thing including the fan.


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## woodtickgreg (Aug 7, 2012)

I was not aware that the vfd's made that much heat and would require a fan for cooling. I would assume that if the fan blows out you would have to have a filtered intake?


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## jbarton (Aug 13, 2012)

woodtickgreg said:


> I was not aware that the vfd's made that much heat and would require a fan for cooling. I would assume that if the fan blows out you would have to have a filtered intake?



The VFD has an internal fan... didn't know it until I fired it up this weekend.. So the fan is necessary if you put it in an enclosure. The Fan has a external cage and I can make a filter holder for it. I thought about that after it was up.

The VFD makes very little noise... the muffin fan I installed is louder than it or the Lathe when its running. I really like the fact I can put the controls on the Lathe itself. Got to get a 5k pot for the freq. control but I'm usign the original forward reverse switch as suggested by David Young in his white paper. But I'm adding int the pot to adjust the speed. I had to bump the fan out on the actual motor. someone had pushed it in so far it was rubbin the housing. Once that was done it didn't make much sound at all. But all the gearing is still removed so we'll see what it sounds like after its all back together.

Paint is a pain the the rear.... I was going to strip it.. but don't want to strip my shop floor with it... so I got a wire brush for my DeWalt grinder and away I went.... heres a tip... only use it on the bed sides and other parts that don't have any leading... the base, leg and some other cast parts may have been leaded at the factory... I cut some gashes in the base 1/8" deep where it ground out the lead. I can use bondo but I really don't want to... I did some body leading back in the day but I'm not really kean on that either. so now I'm using a gasket scrapper and believe it or not its all coming off down to the bare metal. I'll knock off what little there is left with a small wire brush.

Anybody got another sugestion on what to use to fill cast in with?

Anyway that's it for now.


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## 7HC (Aug 13, 2012)

jbarton said:


> Anybody got another sugestion on what to use to fill cast in with?



If you don't want to use bondo, why not use 'JB Weld', which would be a better match for the casting material.

M


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## Uncle Buck (Aug 14, 2012)

woodtickgreg said:


> I was not aware that the vfd's made that much heat and would require a fan for cooling. I would assume that if the fan blows out you would have to have a filtered intake?




I have a friend who has done some beautiful machine restorations and he always uses regular old body filler like you would use on a car. Mix, apply, sand and prep then paint. If you do it right it will look great!


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## jbarton (Aug 16, 2012)

Thanks for the input... I'll come up with something this weekend ... I'm determined to get the head and bed done. I've told the whole family.... don't bother me this weekend.


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## Sanctifier (Apr 10, 2013)

7HC said:


> If you don't want to use bondo, why not use 'JB Weld', which would be a better match for the casting material.
> 
> M


Thanks for the tip. I was thinking about Eastwood's No-lead Solder or All-Metal filler as alternatives.


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