# South Bend 9a Restoration (pic Heavy)



## wildo

A month ago I brought home my first lathe- a 1941 South Bend 9a. I didn't really intend to do a full restoration on it right away since I'm itching to start turning, but one thing lead to another and here I am. I thought you guys might enjoy the process.

Starting out with a nice lathe, but some factory worker (I assume) slathered this thing in paint. This blue crinkle paint is everywhere. The paint is in good shape in some places, and terrible shape in others. This is the starting point:









I bought some late model leveling feet and in the effort to mount them, I found so much filth. Lots of used motor oil. Decades upon decades of grease & grim. I only intended to take it apart in order to mount the feet, but I just couldn't put it back together so filthy in good conscious. In order to mount the feet, I had to drill new mounting holes in the bed. That process already has a thread on here.

In the process of getting the feet mounted, I used Zep Purple industrial degreaser to clean and strip the lathe bed. I was happy and surprised to find a nice South Bend name plate under all that paint! I used an 8" diameter cardboard concrete form to soak the bed. Most of the degreaser ran out over night, but it worked well enough. I really wanted PVC, but that diameter was just too expensive.



You can see though that the degreaser worked exceptionally well to strip the paint:



Now the bed and feet were painted. I'm using Ben Moore DTM Alkyd Low Luster paint sprayed through a HVLP gun. This is my first time using a HVLP gun and all I can say is that I'm not sure why I waited so long!



Now, to jump back in time for a moment- when I was talking to the previous owner, I was told that the lathe was a 36" model. Therefore I went out and bought a 36" chip pan. Well it turns out that the lathe is actually a 42" model which is great! However, the chip pan would not fit under both feet at the same time. My solution was to simply offset it like this:



...And that seemed to work ok with the original lathe feet. However, the new later-model feet are much bigger and that REALLY pushed the chip pan further to the right. I ended up having something like 8" of chip pan extending passed the end of the lathe bed. The more I looked at it, the more it bothered me. So in a moment of what I assumed to be poor judgement, I decided to do something about it.

First the old holes in the pan were filled and ground smooth:



Then I sectioned out a 6.5" section of the pan:



I welded it back together and then used fiberglass bondo to blend the seam. I didn't take a picture of the bondo sanded down:



Finally I could paint the pan. I did spray a layer of black first, and then covered it with the machine grey color I'm using. What I thought would be cool is to put some sticky letters down on the bed before spraying it grey. Then I could peel the stickers up and be left with black lettering. In the end, the grey paint over the sticky letters left a VERY cool "embossed" look which I'm leaving for now. If the sticky letters start peeling up, then no big deal; I'll peel them all up and have the black letters I originally intended:



Overall I'm MUCH happier with the length of the chip pan, and the weld seam is completely invisible. I'm really proud of how this one turned out!
	

		
			
		

		
	




Next up was the filthy headstock. Now, when I went to purchase the lathe, I saw it in operation. It sounded nice and quiet, smooth, and in really good shape. I'm so saddened to see that there is some gulling on the spindle and cast bearings. One "band" is pretty bad, though the areas around that band seem to be nice and smooth. I really have no idea what to do about this. I've heard that people will stone the high spots, and just move on. Outside of replacing the head and spindle, I don't think anything can be done. This lathe will be used for hobbyist type work from here on out, so I guess it is what it is... 









The head and drive train were degreased and stripped. I found that the head casting had some kind of rough spots, so I went ahead and smoothed it out with bondo. Not to mention that it had quite a few holes in it that someone drilled. I wanted all those extra holes gone!









Finally, the head was painted and is looking NICE!












I painted the non-machined area on the back gear and also did a cleanup on the back gear itself:



And some other parts with paint:



That's where I'm at right now... LOTS more work to do, but it's coming along!


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## wildo

Here's the paint code for the paint I'm using. I found it mentioned in a random YouTube video:


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## ch2co

FANTASTIC!  beautiful machine, beautiful workmanship. 

CHuck the grumpy old guy


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## Bob Korves

Try to ignore the damaged section of the spindle and bearing.  The remaining smooth sections look good and will support the spindle just fine.


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## wildo

Bob Korves said:


> Try to ignore the damaged section of the spindle and bearing.  The remaining smooth sections look good and will support the spindle just fine.



That's what I figured. There seems to be plenty of "meat" left that is unscathed!


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## David VanNorman

Darn nice job .


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## Techie1961

That's looking really good especially the pan. Hard to believe that it was cut and welded. As far as the headstock is concerned, it is probably okay to use as a hobby machine. If you had to repair it, the best approach is probably to have the shaft metal sprayed and the headstock bushed somehow. Instead of bushing the shaft, you would also get some babbit or epoxy laid in. Nice job though and good to see old stuff fixed up.


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## hermetic

I really wouldn't worry about the spindle galling, just gently stone off any high spots, do the same in the bearing, refit and adjust. It will run as well as it ever did. It looks like some previous owner has neglected to oil it on every use, and it has picked up a bit. There is PLENTY of contact area, and any low spots will just hold oil. and always oil it every time you turn it on!
Phil


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## wildo

hermetic said:


> I really wouldn't worry about the spindle galling, just gently stone off any high spots, do the same in the bearing, refit and adjust. It will run as well as it ever did.
> Phil



Maybe I should start a separate thread on this, but I'll just ask here. When one says to "stone" a high spot- I get that you're essentially sanding down the high spot with a stone. But what stone to use? I'm not sure where to get stones, what quality of stones, etc. Is there a "standard" stone used for this sort of task?


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## wildo

And thank you all for the kind comments! I'd like to say I learned a lot from the drill press restoration that I've been able to apply and do better on this lathe restoration. I'm very pleased with how it's coming along! Like I said, there's still so much work left to be done, but it'll be sweet once finished. It will be so nice to not have 75 years of grease & grim on my workbench.


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## hermetic

Use a small India stone like you would use to touch up a cutting tool on the lathe. Start with a fairly fine grade, and go coarser if it is not doing the job. As I have said, aqny scratches below the surface will just fill with oil, but metal above the surface will break the oil film and cause more damage. I have lapped these type of bearings together with fine grinding paste to finish them off, and to get some idea of the contact areas, but you must scrupulously clean them out afterwards, then oil the surfaces and adjust till the play  just disappears. There needs to be a film of oil between the bearing surfaces at all times.
Phil


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## wildo

Thanks for the info, Phil!


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## mikey

Great job, Wildo! Lots of nice pics, too. That is going to be a sweet lathe when you're done!


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## eeler1

I don't know how it would work, but you might put some blue die on the inner bearing surface and rotate something in it to highlight the high spots.  Work it over and do several times until high spots are gone.   Just a thought.

Oh, and nice job!!


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## chevydyl

As suggested a fine India stone will work, or a white (hard) arkansas stone, the India is going to remove metal faster, you can get them in lots of different shapes, check ebay. I use the Arkansas exclusively on my mag chuck on the surface grinder. when I'm scraping, during the roughing I use my norton India fine, then the more I bring in the surface I switch to the Arkansas stone so the cut rate is slower and I'm not just stoning down the highs to create more highs that aren't actually scraped in. Idk if you've ever stoned a high spot before but you will definitely feel a high spot with the stone, I would also stone your bed, I can see some divots in it, remember not to put alot of pressure, use spirits or windex as lube, be careful as you can literally stone a low spot into the surface so don't Camp out in one spot too long


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## chevydyl

Oh yeah, and be sure and flatten your brand new stone, I can guarantee it won't be flat out of the box, to flatten it you need a flat surface, and some 220 grit open drywall paper, rub the stone against the sand paper on the flat surface until it's flat, use windex as lube, lots of windex and rinse often
A small square foot glass pane is flat enough to rub against, spray windex on the glass and place the sandpaper on it, helps to keep it from moving around, you can use regular wet dry paper also, I just noticed that the open drywall paper cuts really fast against a hard stone


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## Matthew Gregory

What a fantastic job!!!! Every part of it looks great, but I too am amazed at how well the chip pan came out - NEVER would have thought of doing it that way.


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## wildo

Matthew Gregory said:


> What a fantastic job!!!! Every part of it looks great, but I too am amazed at how well the chip pan came out - NEVER would have thought of doing it that way.



Thank you! I have pretty limited tools when it comes to sheet metal work. Well, to be clear, I pretty much have no sheet metal tools.  This was the only way that it occurred to me to solve the problem. I really didn't even end up with a ton of bondo on the piece- most of it was sanded off just to get the part smooth. I appreciate the comments!


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## Steve Shannon

Beautiful job!


 Steve Shannon


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## wildo

Another update on the lathe.

I drilled out the bull gear safety cover in order to install a plastic bushing. This will allow me to tighten the screw that holds this cover in place, while providing a nice surface for the cover to swing on. And a cool side effect- because of the plastic, the tighter I make the screw the more the plastic will "bulge" allowing the tension on the cover to be adjusted. Kind of a cool mod, I think:



It seems paint prep is a never ending task on this project...



But I got a lot more of the parts painted:



I'm not sure if I mentioned this yet or not, but I replaced the bull gear guard as well. I have no idea if the guard that was on it was original or not. I can't find any pictures of early 40's South Bends with a cover like this. At any rate, I think it's super ugly! I just love the flowing curves of the vintage equipment, and so a more round cover was sourced. If anyone has any info on the original cover- specifically if it's actually original or not, I'd be very curious!









Next I turned my attention to the spindle since my new ceramic stones arrived last night. (Thanks for the tip, chevydyl!) Now, full disclosure, I've never done this before. I have no idea if I did it "right" or not, but I'm happy with the results. And let's be honest here- whatever I did to this was better than leaving it with the nasty gulled surface that was there. So... take it a little easy on me. I'm new to this!!!!

I stoned the high spots on the spindle with a "fine" square ceramic stone:



After that, I wasn't really all too happy with the surface finish left by the stone, so I mounted the spindle between centers on my wood lathe and polished the bearing surfaces with polishing compound. I am very happy with the surface finish now. No "major" abrasives were used, just the polishing compound. I could be wrong, but I think it would take a LONG time to remove even a tenth with just polishing compound and a paper towel:






The spindle cleaned up beautifully. 





The cast bearing surface in the head was another story. I don't think it's even accurate to call the damage there "gulling" as it's more like deep scoring. It wasn't easy to stone this since it's an internal surface. I did use a fine, round ceramic stone which makes sense, but it was still hard to really get at it. Overall, it was a lot of work, but I do believe I got the scoring down to surface height. I slid a steel rule across the surface and it didn't catch anywhere. However, I can't polish this up like I did the spindle- I certainly have no way to spin the head like I could spin the spindle. I don't know if this surface finish is "good enough" or if it needs to be polished, or even if it's more along the lines of "don't even think about touching that surface, you idiot!" But again, remember, the scoring along that one band was pretty severe, and it would have only gotten worse without some kind of intervention. I took care of that with the stone. But now what? I'm thinking that maybe one of those headlight polishing kits with the foam "puff" ball might work connected to a cordless drill with some polishing compound. Is that a stupid idea? Or a smart one??
This one is 3" in diameter which would be about perfect:



Here's the head after stoning:



I wanted to put the spindle in the lathe head tonight, but I realized I don't have the proper grease nor the grease zerk for the cone pulley. I just ordered the zerk and it will get here on the 28th. I did have a question about the grease though. Please check this thread if you've actually read this far... http://www.hobby-machinist.com/threads/super-lube-for-lathe-cone-pulley.44898/


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## hermetic

Well, you have made a fabulous job of the spindle and the bearing in the headstock, they will not be a problem! Just one thing, and I have to explain here that I have never even seen a South Bend lathe of any type, but is it not usual to lubricate cast iron/steel bearings with oil rather than grease? I fear if you use grease you will be back where you started! South Bend experts please correct me if I am wrong!
Phil


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## wildo

hermetic said:


> Well, you have made a fabulous job of the spindle and the bearing in the headstock, they will not be a problem! Just one thing, and I have to explain here that I have never even seen a South Bend lathe of any type, but is it not usual to lubricate cast iron/steel bearings with oil rather than grease? I fear if you use grease you will be back where you started! South Bend experts please correct me if I am wrong!
> Phil



ONLY the cone pulley and back gear shaft get the grease. Everything else is indeed oil. Apparently South Bend changed their tune on this at some point along the line. My cone pulley is stamped "oil" but some more modern (that is- post war, most likely) cone pulleys actually say "grease." The main bearings/spindle bearings absolutely use a very lightweight oil. 

Thanks for the compliments on the lathe! I'm trying very, very hard to get this one right. So much so that I'm even contemplating having the ways reground. Not sure if I'm willing to fork over the $1K+ for that job though.


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## roadie33

If you live close to chevydyl, see if he can help you scrape your ways.


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## wildo

Unfortunately I don't, but I do have a drill press spindle heading his way for him to play with....


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## wildo

Well I'm happy to say I was right on the Mothers Polishing Ball!! It was a tight fit in all but the front spindle hole, but it worked ok. The head bearings aren't quite as "mirror" like as I was able to get the spindle, but you can still clearly see reflections. I'm now satisfied that I have corrected the scratching to the absolute best of my ability.




Toothbrush reflection:



All four bearing surfaces cleaned up nicely!


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## 4GSR

While you are at this point, install the spindle without the cone pulley and bull gear or oilers in place and check the fit in the bearings.  Place a dial indicator on the spindle and put some leverage on it and see how much play you get in the spindle.  Do this before putting all of the jewelry on the spindle and assemble.  If there is problems with accuracy, you can work on adjusting it now rather than tear everything down to fix.
Nice Job so far!


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## Firestopper

Very nice job. Its gonna be a sweet lathe when your finished.


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## wildo

4gsr said:


> While you are at this point, install the spindle without the cone pulley and bull gear or oilers in place and check the fit in the bearings.  Place a dial indicator on the spindle and put some leverage on it and see how much play you get in the spindle.  Do this before putting all of the jewelry on the spindle and assemble.  If there is problems with accuracy, you can work on adjusting it now rather than tear everything down to fix.
> Nice Job so far!



That's a really great idea!! I geared up to do that tonight, got the spindle installed, messed with the nightmare of a job getting the shims in place, and then I stopped. I realized that I haven't yet bolted the bed to the bench, and so testing this is going to be super hard... Seems like every task on this project needs five precursor tasks completed first...


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## 4GSR

I know most people think that the 9" SBL needs to be bolted down solid.  Wrong answer in my book.  Yes, have a solid bench to set your lathe on, ideally would be a piece of 1" thick or thicker steel plate to set the lathe on.  Anyways, the headstock end should be bolted down with 3/8" bolts.  The tail end of the bed should not be bolted down.  Doing so may create a twist in the bed.  Shimming helps, but over time things shift around and creates a twist in the bed.  Just leave the tail end bolts loose hand tight.  Does the bed need to be leveled? No, all you need to do check it for any twist in the bed and adjust it out if possible.


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## wildo

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.


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## 4GSR

OUCH!! 75 lbs of force!!! Wait a minute, that's 150 lbs of force!!! Double ouch!!!

You going to break something putting that kind of force on that lathe.  It don't take more than a few pounds of force to detect play in the spindle.  
150 lbs of force is going to move things and give you a false reading on your tenths reading indicator.

Ken


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## wildo

Thanks for your advice, Ken- this is all new to me so I really do appreciate it! Do you think there's a typo in the book? This is all I really have to go by:


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## wildo

So far so good!! Spindle clearance is right on! 4gsr- that was a *really* good call to test now before full assembly because it was very difficult to get the shims back in. The last guy to mess with them must have hammered on them or something, because the edge of the slot where they go into the head was kind of mashed up. I had to carefully file the lip so that the shims could be inserted. Even at that, I was only able to get a portion of the shim stack in there that I had initially taken out. I thought that might be ok, but when I tightened the head bolts to "about 20 pounds of force" it locked the spindle.

So I turned some cone wedges out of hardwood on my wood lathe, put the wedges facing in on each side of the bearing bore, and tightened the wedges together with a piece of threaded rod run through them. This expanded the shim gap _just big enough_ to barely be able to get ALL of the shims back in that I initially removed. After that, I could tighten the head bolts to spec, and I measure .002" clearance both front and back. Right on spec!


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## hermetic

and most of that clearance will disappear when the oil gets in the gap! Excellent work!
Phil


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## wildo

It has been a while since I've posted in this one, but the work continues. I'm really not sure how some of you can knock out such beautiful machine restorations at lightening speed! I don't think I work particularly slowly, but this sure is taking forever! Regardless, I'm having a good time doing it...

The countershaft assembly was really holding me up from assembling the lathe head since I need to put a new serpentine belt on there and don't yet know the belt length. For whatever reason, the countershaft assembly just did NOT seem like it would be fun to mess with. Of course it really wasn't bad, but I didn't have a ton of motivation to work on it. I started with the ugly green motor. I pulled it apart, pressed off the bearings, replaced them with new ones, and painted the motor:













The countershaft was disassembled, stripped, and repainted. I actually bought a second one on ebay for just $40 with the intention of learning how to line bore on it as a project. I want to bore it out to insert these oilite bearings I purchased. Obviously I can't bore my countershaft stand while the lathe is running, so the second one was the right price.











The tailstock, milling attachment, and a ton of other parts were stripped and repainted. It took me forever to mask all those parts!






It sure does bring me great joy to see this table filling up though!




I picked up a couple super cool accessories that are also getting painted. Telescoping steady rest and follow rest. I'm especially excited about the follow rest because even though it's not often used, my understanding is that the telescoping follow rest is not particularly common.










And finally, I did do the spindle takeup bearing mod as well:




...Next up will be mounting the countershaft to the bench so I can accurately measure for the serpentine belt. Then final head assembly. What's left is the quick change gear box and the saddle.


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## LucknowKen

Nice machine. Great photos. Awesome run through. Thanks for that.
Lken


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## wildo

LucknowKen said:


> Nice machine. Great photos. Awesome run through. Thanks for that.
> Lken



Glad you're enjoying the photos!


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## LucknowKen

wildo said:


> Glad you're enjoying the photos!


It is the photos that have turned me green with envy.
You have done a great job! The counter shaft motor turned out sweet.


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## wildo

LucknowKen said:


> The counter shaft motor turned out sweet.



That motor was UGLY! I think it's just some farm replacement motor- I could be wrong, but it doesn't seem like anything special. I just couldn't leave it green like that after putting so much work into the rest of the parts. It was fun to tear that motor apart. My uncle has done electric motor repair for years and years and years. I'm no slouch on the matter, but certainly nowhere near as established as him. He was able to walk me through ever step of the tear down via phone, which- I wouldn't have thought would be needed; tearing a motor down is not exactly difficult. But there were some real gotchyas that I would have messed up without a more experienced guide. So that was nice. 

Quick lesson: I kept saying "the armature, the armature" and he kept correcting "the rotor." Turns out that if the center shaft has windings on it, THEN it would be an armature. But if the center shaft has no windings- just iron cores like you see in the photos, that is called a rotor. I hadn't realized there was a distinction. Learn something new every day!


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## pythonwill

Very nice work!!!
I especially like your motor mount  on your counter shaft assembly, is that original? mine doesnt have that mount, it just bolts right onto the assembly. I also like your matching follower rest and Steady rest, very nice


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## pythonwill

next question, when you put in your new bearings how are you going to keep oil in there, if you line bore the countershaft holes and press in the bushing there wont be a keyway for the felt to set in, will you just cut a keyway into your countershaft? I am going through this right now, I am having mine line bored now. I was planning on just cutting a keyway into the shaft and hoping that would work. I am also going to mount oil drip cups on the top of each side


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## wildo

Good observation on that motor mount. Actually, I hadn't given any thought to it, but checking some reference photos- that does appear to be an interesting mount. I'm not sure if it's an original SB part or not. It's cast aluminum, and not much on this lathe is aluminum- so perhaps it isn't. Then again, the bull gear guard is cast aluminum, so SB did do _some_ aluminum parts anyway. I guess the answer is: I'm not sure.

Regarding the oilite bearings, I have more research to do there. The bearings don't have a slot cut in them, and when pressed in there is still a gap between the two, presumably directly below the gits oilers. I'm not sure if any modification needs done other than perhaps filling the old felts slot with JB Weld. I don't believe that felts are used in the newer countershaft versions with the oilite bearings. I could be wrong... This is a project for much further down the road. I'm not even sure if line boring is the appropriate method here since the bore bar could only be .750" diameter anyway. Too much flex in the boring bar itself? No idea... I just embraced the opportunity to pick up the parts at a cheap price for a future project.


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## wildo

Threading Nameplate Restoration

I decided I wanted to try my hand at restoring the brass threading nameplate. I know that you can get reproduction ones on ebay, but they are just screen printed. I liked the raised brass letters better. This wasn't a particularly easy project because the panel was a bit beat up in the first place. But here's how I tackled it. Overall, there's some places I wish it turned out better, but I'm really proud of the results anyway. Kind of cool to restore the original plate!

The real key to success here is liquid mask, which you can pick up at a hobby/craft store. The details are far to fine to be able to mask with masking tape. The liquid mask is clear when dry:



I masked off the areas I wanted black so that I wouldn't get too thick a layer of paint on the background. Then I sprayed the plate red:
	

		
			
		

		
	




After the paint dried, I removed the masking:



...and wet sanded with 1000 grit paper. I started by putting the paper on glass, and rubbing the plate on it. But since the plate wasn't smooth and flat, I ended up sanding too far in some areas and not far enough in others. I found that it was far better to put the plate down and sand with the paper in my hand. This was my first time doing this, so live & learn.



I then masked the areas that I just painted red. Again, note the liquid mask over the S:



...and sprayed black on the black areas:



Prior to wet sanding, it looked like this:



After sanding, the plate looked like this. To be honest, I was pretty disappointed in the results. The lower left area where I sanded too far bothered me. And the black background was pretty messed up in the name box area. I thought about stopping here, but just couldn't bring myself to admit defeat:
	

		
			
		

		
	




So I masked of the raised lettering and resprayed both colors:
	

		
			
		

		
	







After that things were MUCH better. I still had a couple exposed areas of brass in the background. For the black, I colored them in with a black sharpie which worked really well. For the red I used a red sharpie, but the color is off. I think it's still probably better than the brass splotches all over. Finally I sprayed a flat clear coat over it to try to dull the shine of the sharpie marker with the sanded color paint. Here is my final result, which (besides the red sharpie) I'm really happy with!


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## wildo

Collet Rack Restoration

I picked up a SB collet rack off ebay which was full of extra holes. It still wasn't cheap, but it was cheaper than normal since it had a ton of holes all over. I figured I could fill the holes with JB Weld, which worked just fine. I also used a little bondo to smooth the transition from the cast aluminum to JB Weld in some areas. This one turned out nice as well!

Here is the rack as I received it. Tons of extra holes all over:



I filled the holes with JB Weld. The large slot in the tray area required a little bondo to get the transition smooth. I didn't take a photo of that:



Here it is painted to match the lathe:



I painted the mount as well. I kind of polished the vertical shaft, but it's pretty old and gnarly. It looks fine like this:


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## wildo

Quick Change Gearbox

My final project for the weekend was wrapping up the quick change gearbox. I started this a couple weeks ago, but there was a lot to this thing. I guess I didn't really take a before pic, but it was absolutely filthy, grimy, disgusting, and greasy inside. Everything got degreased and scrubbed. The casting was paint stripped and repainted:



I found a thread while researching how to restore the threading nameplate that indicated that this was a good time to do some machining on the gearbox casting to better the oiling system. The restoration manual did cover part of this, but not all of it. So I was glad to find that thread. The biggest thing was to drill out both sides of the oil galley so that you could really get in there and clean everything. So to start, I drilled out the factory plug on the right side:



Then I was able to use the galley itself as a guide for a really long 1/4" drill bit in order to drill out the left side of the galley. The longest bit I had was 6" which was _just_ long enough:



Now the oil galley goes all the way through the casting:



...and the oil passages on the left side of the casting can actually be cleaned:



I also replaced both of the bronze bearings in the gearbox with bronze oilite bearings. The needle bearings in the tumblers were replaced as well, though I didn't take a picture of that:



Both the right and left side of the oil galley were drilled to letter F and tapped 5/16-18. Set screws were fixed in place with a careful application of loctite. The set screw on the right side had to be shortened to just shy of 1/4" while the set screw on the left side had to end up a very small 1/8". To make the set screw this short, I had to grind material off of both the top side and the thread side. This was to ensure the oil passages weren't blocked. I also drilled out a new hole for a right-side Gits oiler, and replaced the old oiler with a matching new one. Now the oil galley doesn't need to supply both sides of oil passages quite as efficiently since I can put oil in on either side.
	

		
			
		

		
	







The gearbox was reassembled taking care to set the proper clearances on the top shaft:



And finally the gearbox is complete:









Next up, I can finalize the position on the bench where I want the lathe, mount the countershaft assembly, measure for the drive belt length, and then finish assembling the head. After that all that's left is the carriage, which is still a grimy mess:


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## wildo

Almost 300 new views on this thread since I posted the update last Sunday. I have to say- I really thought that name plate restoration would draw some comments. I am really proud of how well that thing turned out!

I did get the saddle and apron torn all apart, degreased, and paint stripped throughout last week and this weekend, but I haven't had chance to move further on them. I think that the saddle is kind of rough in the casting, so I plan on smoothing it just a bit with some bondo. Otherwise, just lots of masking and paint. All the gears seem to be in OK shape, but I did notice that the worm gear moved around quite a bit in the retaining sleeve. I'm not sure if that's ok, as the restoration guide made no mention of this in the disassembly section. I haven't read the apron assembly section yet, so perhaps it'll mention it in there.

I did replace the compound lead screw nut, and the cross slide one seemed to be on OK shape. The half nut threads were still square (acme) and didn't seem to be worn to points. So overall, I think I've purchased the last of what I need to finish this thing off.


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## 4GSR

Hey, your nameplate/ threading chart looks nice! For a first time restore.  In fact it's nicer than I would have done.  The name plate on my 9" SBL is pretty beat up, not worth restoring.  I can still read the numbers, that's all that counts on my lathe.  I'll let my next generation of kids worry about restoring it, if they don't sell it first!


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## wildo

4gsr said:


> Hey, your nameplate/ threading chart looks nice! For a first time restore.  In fact it's nicer than I would have done.  The name plate on my 9" SBL is pretty beat up, not worth restoring.  I can still read the numbers, that's all that counts on my lathe.  I'll let my next generation of kids worry about restoring it, if they don't sell it first!



Thanks for the comment! I was surprised nobody really said much about it. I know I'm pretty damn proud of how it turned out, ESPECIALLY because it's the first time I've done it.


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## 4GSR

wildo,

I'd be proud too!  You did a very nice job there restoring your 9"SBL. 

I have my dad's that I learned on years ago. It started out as a 9"C, born in 1949.  Later in life, I bought a worn out QCGB and apron to make it a 9"A.  Recondition the entire lathe 12 years ago, but didn't paint it.  I like the way your paint job came out.  What type of paint did you use? Ken

Edit: Just found your earlier post on the type of paint you used.  B. M. brand. 
Your lathe has the same bed length on it as mine 42".  There's very little changes on these lathes from about 1939 and later.  I bought a 1943 model A for my brother a couple years back that was in mint shape for its age.  In comparison with mine, I could not find any differences.  Ken


----------



## Fairbanks

Too pretty!  Nice job!


----------



## rwm

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


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## wildo

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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## pythonwill

Very nice work!


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## wildo

rwm said:


> 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.


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## toolman_ar

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


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## rwm

Very nice. I like the low gloss paint you used.
R


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## Matthew Gregory

What an astonishing transformation!!!! 


Gotta hand it to ya - the nameplates look great, and are a well deserved detail and a nice touch.


----------



## wildo

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).






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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## 4GSR

wildo said:


> 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...


----------



## george wilson

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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## wildo

Good idea, George! Thanks for the advice!


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## Kernbigo

I respectful disagree with polishing the plain spindle bearings, the spindle should be polished like you did but the plain bearings should have oil pockets in them not polished. I used to hand scrap in od grinders center less grinders etc. and that is the wrong way to do it you wont have any area to hold the oil film. I hand scraped my 9" wide bed spindle in and i can run my bearing down to + .0005 lift which is very tight.


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## 4GSR

Kernbigo,

I hope those were duplicate post.  I went ahead and deleted them for you.


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## Kernbigo

i posted the wrong picture thanks


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## wildo

wildo said:


> Here's the paint code for the paint I'm using. I found it mentioned in a random YouTube video:



Give credit where credit is due... I was just watching BasementShopGuy's shaper restoration series on YouTube and in Part 3 he comments (at 9:04) that *HE* took a pristine section of South Bend painted part to Ben Moore and had this color formulated. I couldn't recall what video I had found this in, and I guess I rediscovered it today. In fact, in the original video that I took this screen capture of, he didn't go into detail about the back history of determining this color code. But in the shaper video, he mentions taking the South Bend part to Ben Moore and getting it scanned. So there you go... firm believer in citing sources when possible!


Also- if you check out the video linked in this post, you'll see the High Gloss version of this paint, whereas I used the Low Luster version for my lathe. I do far prefer the low luster myself. Nice to be able to see the difference though.

I do find the color very pleasing, and in this photo you can see the drastic difference between a standard "machine grey" as on my Burke mill and the SB color.


----------



## USNFC

I'm going to pull this back to the top Wildo, cause I was late to view...I don't spend much time on the computer.  But, you restoration looks great.  I have to be honest, I would have tossed the nameplates and had new ones laser etched(Father in law discount!), but yours look much better!  Bigtime kudos on those.  The restoration as a whole and the attention to detail is inspirational.  Job very well done!


----------



## brino

@wildo,

What a nice bright shop space you have!
That must be great to work in.

-brino


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## 4GSR

brino said:


> @wildo,
> 
> What a nice bright shop space you have!
> That must be great to work in.
> 
> -brino


That floor would drive me nuts to look at!  A solid color like a light gray would be my choice or something else close to it.


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## roadie33

I'd make some 2' tall Chess pieces and play a game.


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## george wilson

I like the checkerboard floor.


----------



## David VanNorman

Darn nice job on the lathe. Cleanest shop I ever did see.


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## wildo

David VanNorman said:


> Darn nice job on the lathe. Cleanest shop I ever did see.



Not currently! It's a mess!! My German Shepherd passed away about three months ago and I just haven't made it back into the shop since. (I know that's an unintelligible and nonsensical correlation, but never the less- there it is.) The shop sits in a 95% completed state just waiting for me to get back in there and finish it off. I do have high hopes of spending a good amount of quality time with the lathe (and mill) once snowfall hits this winter. At least that's the plan. And hey- if I don't get in there, it's not like the machinery is going anywhere. I have sooooo many hobbies and so little time. 

Thanks everyone for the nice comments!


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## rwm

I am a dog person too. Tough to lose a friend like that. So sorry to hear. If I'm in the shop for too long my little girl comes in to let me know to take a (play) break.
Shop looks great!
Robert


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## Christo

Color me impressed. That's a sweet shop.
Amazing work on the lathe.
I will be following along with interest as I prepare to endeavor into my 1940 9A.


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## wildo

I have a nice set of updates for the lathe for you all to enjoy!

I got the lathe bolted down as well as the countershaft assembly:



I drilled a hole in my work bench to accept these cable grommet things. Actually this wasn't particularly easy since this is a 1.75" thick rock maple bench top:



Once the lathe and countershaft were bolted down, I could measure for the belt lengths:



For the record, I opted for an AX42 belt for the countershaft, which seems to work just fine.



I also made sure the belt alignment was set before finally bolting everything down:



Unfortunately, I do measure .007" wobble in the motor pulley which causes a noise as the belt spins on there. While the hub of the large pulley is clearly not on center, I do only measure .001" wobble in the large pulley. Both the motor shaft and the countershaft measure no reasonable runout. So the noise is from the motor pulley itself. At least this is a cheap fix:



I mounted the VFD below the bench. I bought a TECO JNEV-101-H1N4S (which is the weather proof enclosure) because it had the built in direction and speed pot. I mounted the VFD forward enough where it's comfortable to reach under the bench and find the speed pot directly. This way I don't have to mess with installing a remote speed pot somewhere else. Besides that, I got a good deal on the VFD via eBay:



I got the spindle and back gears finally installed as well:


----------



## wildo

*Switch
*
My lathe is a 1941 model (made in Oct 1940, actually) and was originally equipped with the now obsolete and impossible to find push button switch. When I bought the lathe, the push button switch gear guard casting was included but had been retrofitted with a drum switch. I realize the drum switch is probably the better option, but I really wanted to pay homage to the lathe's history and restore it to original. Of course, you simply can't get these switches any longer. I decided I would make my own. 

I designed the switch plate based off of this photo of the original switch:



I used a stop switch from a 1971 Allen Bradley switch box. The FWD/REV arrow switch buttons are from a vintage Evinrude boat motor controller. The 3D printing was really course and needed a LOT of work to bring into a usable shape:



I used an epoxy filler designed for smoothing 3D prints in order to fill in the gaps in the print:



Lots and lots of layers of paint and sanding to fill in the smaller pin holes:



It ended up with a pretty nice finish!



The Allen Bradley stop switch was highly modified and then mounted to the 3D print:



The Evinrude switch buttons were shortened, drilled out, and the electronics switch buttons inserted in them so that the switch buttons will snap onto the switches:






The switch assembly was then assembled:






Turns out that my VFD doesn't support on/off via momentary switches like I thought it did. I ended up using the schematic mentioned here in order to build a flip-flop latching relay circuit so I could turn my momentary switch pulses into a latching switch. I built this circuit:



Wires were installed on the switch:



And then somehow I had to figure out how to fit this mess into the switch casing:



...Which went fine:


----------



## wildo

*Completion!
*
The lathe is now complete! I still need to level it and do all the setup stuff, but the restoration is complete. It took me 313 days of work start to finish (off and on, of course). I'm really pleased with how it came out, and I'm excited to start making some chips!!

























And if 159 photos in this thread weren't enough for you, here's two videos of the final result that you might enjoy.


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## brino

Wow!

That is a very thorough restoration. Building your own custom switch plate to get the vintage look........Fantastic.

I can see/hear the pride in your work.
That pride is well deserved.
Great Work!

-brino


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## Bob Korves

Very nice work!  Like fine sculpture.  But it isn't a lathe until there are chips and cutting oil in the chip pan...


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## wildo

Bob Korves said:


> Very nice work!  Like fine sculpture.  But it isn't a lathe until there are chips and cutting oil in the chip pan...



Indeed! Yet *so much* to learn still. I think about this often- I've made stuff my whole life; I have a garage full of tools and a brain full of knowledge on how to use them. If I want to make a bench, for example, I know where to go to buy the material. I know how to choose one material over another. I know what tools will be needed. I know what order of operations I want to perform. I know how I would go about finishing it. I know how to do it...

But I don't know any of this for machining! I don't know where to buy material. I don't know the differences in materials. I don't know how to grind a tool bit. I don't know how to adjust my feeds/speeds. I don't know how to improve my finishes. I don't know the order of operations... Know what I mean? 

I guess the good thing is that in knowing what I don't know- I have a clear and obvious path forward. Sure it might all be new to me, but fabricating something- anything- still has the same design process regardless of the material and tool. I just need to do lots more research on my questions and start making some chips! All in time, all in time.


----------



## Bob Korves

Discovery is much of the fun of learning any new endeavor.   In any case, you are in the correct (and best, IMHO) forum for asking questions.  No question is too silly here...

First, learn those safety precautions that are distinct to the lathe, then proceed slowly, with the approach "what can go wrong here?".  One "OH SH**" cancels out a thousand atta' boys.


----------



## bob135

Hi First post here on this forum! Im in the UK. But have to say very nice "restoration" ( i wont get into the terminology like often get pointed out on a certain other forum).
I love the Matt /satin look to the paint and the colour. Ive done one 1963 9A and have a 1942 one 3/4 finished. I used a Boxford lathe colour (not quite as blue in real life) but if i did it again i would have used something more like yours.
The colour you used is very like Rustoleum mouse grey that i did a Walker Turner bandsaw with and the lathe cabinet in the photo.
Bob


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## Bill Gruby

Beautiful restoration.

 "Billy G"


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## bob135

Thanks Bill, i think you learn alot about how the machine works in the progress of rebuilding them ,which i found out being a relative novice to machining. I think i learned alot i didnt know .


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## Mr. Byte

wildo said:


> Indeed! Yet *so much* to learn still. I think about this often- I've made stuff my whole life; I have a garage full of tools and a brain full of knowledge on how to use them. If I want to make a bench, for example, I know where to go to buy the material. I know how to choose one material over another. I know what tools will be needed. I know what order of operations I want to perform. I know how I would go about finishing it. I know how to do it...
> 
> But I don't know any of this for machining! I don't know where to buy material. I don't know the differences in materials. I don't know how to grind a tool bit. I don't know how to adjust my feeds/speeds. I don't know how to improve my finishes. I don't know the order of operations... Know what I mean?
> 
> I guess the good thing is that in knowing what I don't know- I have a clear and obvious path forward. Sure it might all be new to me, but fabricating something- anything- still has the same design process regardless of the material and tool. I just need to do lots more research on my questions and start making some chips! All in time, all in time.



First, that lathe is gorgeous. Very well done. Second, the Brothers O'Brien wrote the bible in learning how to run a lathe, called 'How to run a Lathe." The older editions are in the public domain, you can download a PDF. Personally
I want a not too worn (but still clearly used) one for my shelf over my 9A.

I just purchased a 9A, Sn# 141164, under-slung motor type. I believe it's a '43. And while it seems to be in good shape, you've inspired me to restore it. (ok, you and BasementShopGuy)
Thank you for sharing the journey.


----------



## external power

I'm quickly seeing the caliber of folks that hangout here and love to see projects like this.
Thanks for the education..Doug


----------



## woodchucker

Matthew Gregory said:


> What a fantastic job!!!! Every part of it looks great, but I too am amazed at how well the chip pan came out - NEVER would have thought of doing it that way.


I never would have shortened it. I would have put it under the other support. That way the oil from the gear box can leak into it.
Not sure why that wasn't done.


----------



## RandyM

Matthew Gregory said:


> What a fantastic job!!!! Every part of it looks great, but I too am amazed at how well the chip pan came out - NEVER would have thought of doing it that way.





woochucker said:


> I never would have shortened it. I would have put it under the other support. That way the oil from the gear box can leak into it.
> *Not sure why that wasn't done*.



The OP explains it all very well in his very first post.


----------



## woodchucker

RandyM said:


> The OP explains it all very well in his very first post.


Don't know that he tried to put it under the other foot. I think he just mounted it like it was and it stuck out further.    Clearly it would have if it had 8 more inches out past the ways.


----------



## RandyM

wildo said:


> Now, to jump back in time for a moment- when I was talking to the previous owner, I was told that the lathe was a 36" model. Therefore I went out and bought a 36" chip pan. Well it turns out that the lathe is actually a 42" model which is great! *However, the chip pan would not fit under both feet at the same time.* My solution was to simply offset it like this:





woochucker said:


> *Don't know that he tried to put it under the other foot.* I think he just mounted it like it was and it stuck out further.    Clearly it would have if it had 8 more inches out past the ways.



I am sorry, but

I think he did.


----------



## woodchucker

Damn, I did not see that.
Yep, I guess he had no choice


----------



## RandyM

woochucker said:


> Damn, I did not see that.
> Yep, I guess he had no choice



It is easy to miss the details sometimes. I have to go back and re-read post all the time. Actually, he had a second option and that was to make the tray bigger to include both legs. All in all, he did a great job.


----------



## wildo

Bob Korves said:


> Very nice work!  Like fine sculpture.  But it isn't a lathe until there are chips and cutting oil in the chip pan...



There's a whole lot more than that under there! Been doing a lot of cast iron work lately. Now that's some dirty stuff. I need to take more time to clean up, honestly... It might seem ludicrous, but the process of keeping a machine shop clean is completely foreign to me. As in- I entirely don't get it. There's chips and cutting oil all over EVERYTHING. I watch the likes of Adam Booth, Keith Fenner, Stefen Gottenswinter, and all the other "big name" guys on youtube and I honestly don't understand how they keep their shop so clean. I would find a video on "machine shop cleaning" to be highly informative. Then again, I am a thirty something bachelor, so there is that...


----------



## wildo

Thanks Gents! I appreciate the comments. Admittedly, a lot of what I did on this restoration was NOT a result of understanding or experience, but rather in simple guesswork about how to go about things. As I mentioned (somewhere- maybe here, maybe in another thread) I've been building stuff and making stuff my whole life. Even so, I find machining to be a considerable new challenge. I mounted the chip pan as I did for two reasons:

It mimicked how the chip pan is mounted on the SB Heavy 10 when on the pedestal base, and
Because it mimicked that look- I thought it looked cool.

Given the amount of oil that seems to be constantly on my bench under the gear box, I might have approached this differently with this new information. Perhaps offsetting it such that the headstock end sat in the oil pan and the tailstock end was not in the oil pan might have been a better way to go. I do think it would have looked rather wonky in spite of "form follows function."
Either way, it all seems to be working out just fine. The lathe is working well, though I'm finding the .008" of wear near the headstock so debilitating that I'm saving up for a new PM 1228VF-LB. Sure, it sucks to walk away from the old iron, but old iron is only good if it's functional. And for the precision work I'm trying to do with spinning tops (ten-thou tolerances) it's REALLY hard when I can travel ONE INCH and get .008" taper.


----------



## 4GSR

Oops, you posted before I had a chance to post.  You may disregard what I've said here, sorry.  Ken

It's just like the house you live in.  Same cleaning procedures apply to the house apply to the shop!  Oh, you're a bachelor, cleaning? never!

That  will change if you ever get married!

Rule number one, when your done working in the shop for the day, sweep the floor!  So that way the shavings don't get tracked into the shop.
Number two, learn to clean and oil your machines.  Wipe down your machines!  Bounty paper towels work good for this.  When you wahs your hands, wipe off with Bounty paper towels.  Lay the paper towels out to dry.  Now they go to the shop for use out there.

Ken


----------



## wildo

4gsr said:


> It's just like the house you live in.  Same cleaning procedures apply to the house apply to the shop!  *Oh, you're a bachelor, cleaning? never!*
> 
> That  will change if you ever get married!



You hit the nail on the head here, Ken! LMAO!!!!


----------



## Bob Korves

wildo said:


> And for the precision work I'm trying to do with spinning tops (ten-thou tolerances) it's REALLY hard when I can travel ONE INCH and get .008" taper.


Willy, .008" in 1" taper is not likely from the ways.  You have some other issue going on there.  It could be the headstock mounting, the tailstock offset (if you were cutting between centers), a carriage that has slack in the mounting, a tool post not properly mounted, or other issues.  

Start here, chapter 26:
http://www.hobby-machinist.com/threads/connelly-on-machine-tool-reconditioning.41802/


----------



## wildo

Bob Korves said:


> Willy, .008" in 1" taper is not likely from the ways.  You have some other issue going on there.  It could be the headstock mounting, the tailstock offset (if you were cutting between centers), a carriage that has slack in the mounting, a tool post not properly mounted, or other issues.
> 
> Start here, chapter 26:
> http://www.hobby-machinist.com/threads/connelly-on-machine-tool-reconditioning.41802/



There probably are some other issues in play, no question, but if I have a Bison 6" chuck on (so I'm working a good 6" away from the headstock) I only get about .001" taper across an inch. When I move to a collet, which I've been doing a lot of lately, it puts the carriage right over the worst part of the way wear and I get really considerate taper.


----------



## Dabbler

It is possible but very unlikely that your lathe is that worn out unless it was used for years without lubrication.

--Here is how you measure your ways for a first check:



1) You need a good reliable test indicator or plunge indicator that has at lea st .0005 (half-thou) accuracy, and a magnetic base.
2) Your carriage should ride on ACH as per the diagram above.
3) Take a very fine stone  (1000+ grit or hard Arkansas - 800 is used by some, but use it very lightly;  I use a hard arkansas) that is lubricated and lightly dress surface B.  The should be no wear on surface B, but it might have dings, and these will make the measuring miserable. You aren't trying to take a lot of metal off, but feeling that it is smooth without big raised areas. DO NOT ROCK THE STONE SO AS TO CUT INTO SURFACES A AND C...
4) CLEAN ABCD till it is spotless using rags and varsol, and lube them with light way oil.
5) Set your mag base on the carriage and position so you preload onto surface B - I've seen lots of guys indicate onto surface H and it doesn't tell you anything. B is not a wear surface, but H is.
6) Most every lathe maker surface grinds the B surface and on every SB9 I've seen it has been true.
7) Run your carriage back and forth slowly and note the readings.  Now you know what you have.  You can use this map of low spots (they show as High) to help you make very accurate diameters.

My guess, sight unseen, is that you have other alignment issues, but if your carriage does drop .009 then the restoration is gonna take TIME and a LOT of it.

I've seen 5 or 6 SB9 lathes in my time, most of them heavily used from schools (where they were abused) and I've seen max .003 wear in the carriage tracking.  It is usually more like .001.  Using good techniques, you can still turn a shaft to .001 diameter on one worn to .003 on the indicator.  It just takes time and being very picky (and the lathe properly set up).  If you buy a  PM 1228VF-LB (ort even a Hardinge) and don't use a lot of care, you won't be able to turn and hold .001 accuracy, let alone .0001.  It takes a lot of experience to turn to .001

FOR THOSE WHO WOULD OFFER ALTERNATE MEASUREMENTS: (my apologies)
Yes, I know this isn't definitive, just a first quick check for wear.  There are a bunch of checks in Connely's book, but it may be the lathe is very good! - I'm in love with the old iron!

P.S.  I just helped check a Standard Modern lathe that was used in a school for 35 years and crashed dozens of times:  the ways were worn less than .005 (oops - make that .0005, that is, 1/2 thou) using my Mitutoyo .0001 test indicator.


----------



## wildo

Dabbler said:


> I've seen 5 or 6 SB9 lathes in my time, most of them heavily used from schools (where they were abused) and I've seen max .003 wear in the carriage tracking.



Thanks Dabbler for the detailed wear measurement instructions! I just did a quick test using the instructions you indicated above. Please forgive the really dirty lathe; I just wrapped up a cast iron/bronze job. But I cleaned down the lathe ways, lightly stoned the "B" surface you indicated, and took a measurement. A bit more than you expected, eh?


----------



## Dabbler

I've never personally seen wear like that - I have *heard* it is possible, but oh my gosh!  You can't hold to good tolerances with that much wear - so your idea of a PM lathe seems like a good approach.  

Because I live in an oil town, we have several very large grinders that can grind the ways back to tolerance, but such a job is in the $1000 range, even here.  Then you have an old lathe with old bearings, cross slide wear, etc.  A machine that badly abused (by not oiling the ways) isn't worth the cost of making it 'right'.  Selling it for a start on a better lathe sounds about right.


----------



## wildo

Dabbler said:


> ...but such a job is in the $1000 range, even here.



Unfortunately, I'm no longer certain that I can swing the cost of the PM lathe. At this point, a $1K regrind job is a fifth the price of a new lathe- and that I'd be willing to pay. As a hobbyist, I can't imagine I'd inflict too much damage over the course of my life on newly ground ways (assuming proper lubrication). So it really would make this an heirloom piece.

I have sent messages out to a few companies; waiting to hear back. One company responded that they would be happy to sell me a $16K Lagun instead. 

"I wish we could help, but these machines are not feasible to rebuild. Replacements are too cheap. We can sell you a Republic Lagun lathe for $16K that is less than the rebuild cost. Although they are small, it take the same amount of steps and setups as a larger machines. Actually, the small one are harder to do. We thank you for the inquiry and ask to keep us in mind with other machines."


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## Dabbler

Wildo, perhaps you can find one of the more experienced members near you and go together to look at used lathes.  If you are patient, you can find excellent buys on the used market.  In some places in the U.S, you can find good lathes for about the cost of a grinding job.  One of the guys here bought a 11X20 Standard Modern lathe in  near perfect condition (out of a school) for 1300 Canadian pesos. (- is that about $2.70 in American?)

Take heart a great lathe is out there - and in the mean time, you an start on your current one!


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## woodchucker

I paid $250 for my SB 9a. It required a complete rebuild. But was well worth it. These days I wish I had a bigger machine as far as spindle throat size, and 5c capabililty.
but a 9A in decent shape is in you future. if you are willing to travel a little maybe 2 hours, I'll bet they are plentiful.


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## Dabbler

Wildo, note that for the normal working area of the lathe, setting the tool height correctly will give you about 10" of practically straight ways before you would need to compensate.  It can make good work for shorter pieces (about 90% of the work I do!)


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## McRuff

I am kind of late to this thread, I have been off this site for around a year. Let me give a little background, I have been a Tool & Moldmaker for 35+ years. I ran my first South Bend and Atlas lathe when I was about 14 years old, about 40 years ago. I currently own 2 South Bend 9" lathes, a very well worn 1943 that is a war production machine used under contract from Tocco heating and cooling to make gun sight parts during the war. This machine is worn heavily but I still make parts 10" long with it and hold it within .0005". It is adjusted to compensate for the wear. My other is a 1947 that is in good shape although it was in boxes when I got it and needed painted and put back together. If your tailstock end is not bolted down, get it bolt down and leveled good. Secondly of all the surfaces on your lathe to check the B and F in the above drawings are the only 2 surfaces that meant absolutely nothing. On war production machines this surface was not stoned polished or even scraped, they were simply planed. None of the carriage rides on this in any way shape or form so they are not a means of measuring the ways at all for wear.
To check for wear see if there is a ridge on the  A,C, E or G surfaces, these would indicate wear and these are the only surfaces the carriage should ride on. If the carriage rides on B and F, the carriage itself is worn badly and not necessarily the ways.


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## 4GSR

McRuff said:


> .................... Secondly of all the surfaces on your lathe to check the B and F in the above drawings are the only 2 surfaces that meant absolutely nothing. ...............................


I tend to disagree with you here.  They can help in determining how much wear there is in the bed ways.  The problem on the 9" SBL is this surface is only about .090" wide. And like you said, if the saddle has excessive wear, it can ride on the top of the ways on this surface, thus, causing it to wear.

The surfaces I prefer to reference from is the one's at the bottom of the vee's and flats.  With that said, how do you check for wear on a LeBlond lathe bed?


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## Dabbler

Nice to hear your input *McRuff*!  The South Bend lathes I have looked at all had B and F ground on the same setup as the V ways.  I was unaware about the war machines being planed.  It might be a great exercise to see if the planing was smooth enough to determine V way wear.  I'd be happy to accept that matter as undecided.

-- in no way was I saying that the carriage was riding on B.  The fact that it doesn't is why it is a good reference surface. On most SBs, B is virtually untouched except for some easily stoned out dings (from chucks or heavy parts).  If there is any wear or long scratch/scrape marks on A,B, or C it is usually a bad sign needing extreme skepticism.

_Secondly of all the surfaces on your lathe to check the B and F in the above drawings are the only 2 surfaces that meant absolutely nothing._
I love absolute quotes.  We have to 'absolutely' disagree.  Perhaps you misunderstand what is being measured and why.

*4gsr*: that is a great question!  I'd have to look very hard at my friend's LeBlond - however his has no wear at all due to very low hours.  Perhaps other LeBlond owners might weigh in on this question...  (hint, hint)


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## McRuff

Ok to address the Leblond lathe, most all of the Regals I have run from the early to mid 1950's to present machines you simply removed the bed ways, measured them and bolt new ones on or have them reground, the vast majority of them have hardened tool steel removable ways, and sometimes the bottom of the carriage is hard chromed.

As to the South Bend, unless you have a flame hardened bed all of the ways were planed, only hard beds were ground, ask Ted Phleuger on the South Bend forum, he worked there for more than 30 years as a toolroom foreman.
Now as to how to check your bed for wear, there are several ways but B and F surfaces are not part of it. Here is one way and probably the best way that I know of, remove your head stock and mount an indicator on your carriage perpendicular to A, C , E, G and D and H if you like. Now run your carriage up on the surface that is unused under your headstock "0" out the  indicator, now watching your indicator run it back down the lathe bed to the other end, this will show you where the wear spots are. Like I said one of the other ways is to look for a wear ridge on the top edge of A, C, E or G surfaces, In my experience the flat ways seem to normally wear on the tailstock bottom and not the bed, don't know why but all of the flat ways I have seen wear there rather than the bed. You can also use a straight edge perpendicular to the ways and see if you can get shims under it or there is a lot of light showing under it. If there is short wear spots this usually stands out rather easily. On the B surface only being about .090" wide, thats why I said look for a ridge on A and C surfaces, cause the slot in the carriage is about .150" wide so if there is a bit of wear it causes a ridge on the sides of the V way a sit wears and settles lower on the ways.


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## 4GSR

Yeah, you are correct on the later Leblond lathes have replaceable way inserts.  The few I've seen being rebuilt, they never did that.  Put the entire bed up on the planer, with a Dumore grinder and reground the ways.  Or send the bed out to a place that has a way grinder.  Not sure about hard chrome on the underside of the saddle, have seen Turcite laid in place.  I remember dad saying replacing the way inserts cost more than it did to put the entire lathe bed on the planer to regrind the ways did.  

Anyways, getting off topic here.


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## 4GSR

McRuff said:


> .................. If your tailstock end is not bolted down, get it bolt down and leveled good. Secondly of all the surfaces on your lathe to check the B and F in the above drawings are the only 2 surfaces that meant absolutely nothing. On war production machines this surface was not stoned polished or even scraped, they were simply planed. None of the carriage rides on this in any way shape or form so they are not a means of measuring the ways at all for wear.
> To check for wear see if there is a ridge on the  A,C, E or G surfaces, these would indicate wear and these are the only surfaces the carriage should ride on. If the carriage rides on B and F, the carriage itself is worn badly and not necessarily the ways.



Hate to bust your bubble, My dad's SBL has never had the tailstock end of the bed bolted down tight, ever!  Always left loose. With this in mind, the bed ways are still in the same plane, dead straight and accurate, as it left the factory in 1949.  It's never been leveled that I can recall all the years I've used it.  I just recently checked the alignment with a "verfied" test bar.  For a almost 70 year old lathe, it checked within 0.0010" in 6" in two planes 90 degrees from each other.  Not bad for a lathe that South Bend called a "work shop" lathe. 

And without the bed being put on a planer or way grinder to check wear, you always look for machined surfaces that are not worn.  They don't have to be scraped, since the scraped portion of the ways started out planed surfaces, along with all the other parts of the bed, ALL in the same setup. Having said that, surfaces B and F as Dabber mentioned above can be used as reference surfaces for determining wear on bed ways.  You don't use surfaces D, E, G, or H as Dabber has referenced.  Those surfaces WILL have some sort of wear to them.  And you don't use the tailstock ways neither.  I've seen tailstock ways with just about as much wear as the carriage ways have.

Oh, I forgot to mention one other thing, South Bend Lathe only planed the beds smooth on the unhardened beds.  They did not scrape them flat.  They did lay very light flaking or frosting to the ways.  This was the most common way lathe manufactures did the beds before the days of harden & ground bed ways.  There were a few like Harlindge that did scrape their beds for super accuracy.

Ken


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## eeler1

Agree with everything said by everyone.  But still doesn’t stop me from making a few comments.  First, some brands DO wear on the “B” surface at the top of the V, Logan, for instance (I know this is a SB forum, but there’s been talk of other makes).  Also, on the SB’s, as the ways wear, the B is no longer a flat, but becomes a ridge with vertical sides.  If you can measure the vertical sides of the ridge, that could be a good indicator of how much wear there is on the ways, and also shouldn’t be uniform along the entire length.  I don’t know how to do it but if you could.........

In that picture with the indicator, you don’t really need the indicator to see there’s quite a bit of wear, just look at the ridge.  Just visually, looks like more than 0.010”.  I’m wondering how the rest of the ways look at the tailstock end?

Another thing is that some owners or dealers may have worked over the B on an older, worn machine to make it look better for sale.  So the B is a good reference only if it is unmolested.

This is a good thread.


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## LucknowKen

Dabbler said:


> It is possible but very unlikely that your lathe is that worn out unless it was used for years without lubrication.
> 
> --Here is how you measure your ways for a first check:
> 
> View attachment 251372
> 
> 1) You need a good reliable test indicator or plunge indicator that has at lea st .0005 (half-thou) accuracy, and a magnetic base.
> 2) Your carriage should ride on ACH as per the diagram above.
> 3) Take a very fine stone  (1000+ grit or hard Arkansas - 800 is used by some, but use it very lightly;  I use a hard arkansas) that is lubricated and lightly dress surface B.  The should be no wear on surface B, but it might have dings, and these will make the measuring miserable. You aren't trying to take a lot of metal off, but feeling that it is smooth without big raised areas. DO NOT ROCK THE STONE SO AS TO CUT INTO SURFACES A AND C...
> 4) CLEAN ABCD till it is spotless using rags and varsol, and lube them with light way oil.
> 5) Set your mag base on the carriage and position so you preload onto surface B - I've seen lots of guys indicate onto surface H and it doesn't tell you anything. B is not a wear surface, but H is.
> 6) Most every lathe maker surface grinds the B surface and on every SB9 I've seen it has been true.
> 7) Run your carriage back and forth slowly and note the readings.  Now you know what you have.  You can use this map of low spots (they show as High) to help you make very accurate diameters.
> 
> 
> McRuff said:
> 
> 
> 
> Ok to address the Leblond lathe, most all of the Regals I have run from the early to mid 1950's to present machines you simply removed the bed ways, measured them and bolt new ones on or have them reground, the vast majority of them have hardened tool steel removable ways, and sometimes the bottom of the carriage is hard chromed.
> 
> As to the South Bend, unless you have a flame hardened bed all of the ways were planed, only hard beds were ground, ask Ted Phleuger on the South Bend forum, he worked there for more than 30 years as a toolroom foreman.
> Now as to how to check your bed for wear, there are several ways but B and F surfaces are not part of it. Here is one way and probably the best way that I know of, remove your head stock and mount an indicator on your carriage perpendicular to A, C , E, G and D and H if you like. Now run your carriage up on the surface that is unused under your headstock "0" out the  indicator, now watching your indicator run it back down the lathe bed to the other end, this will show you where the wear spots are. Like I said one of the other ways is to look for a wear ridge on the top edge of A, C, E or G surfaces, In my experience the flat ways seem to normally wear on the tailstock bottom and not the bed, don't know why but all of the flat ways I have seen wear there rather than the bed. You can also use a straight edge perpendicular to the ways and see if you can get shims under it or there is a lot of light showing under it. If there is short wear spots this usually stands out rather easily. On the B surface only being about .090" wide, thats why I said look for a ridge on A and C surfaces, cause the slot in the carriage is about .150" wide so if there is a bit of wear it causes a ridge on the sides of the V way a sit wears and settles lower on the ways.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> eeler1 said:
> 
> 
> 
> This is a good thread.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> This is a good thread. Thanks
> LK
Click to expand...


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## Sblack

I think if you took material off the spindle and off the bearing you might have too much clearance. Also, either one could now be out of round. i think the proper way to repair this is to get the spindle precision ground at a machine shop. Not a big deal at all. I was once told that no shop foreman ever turned down cold hard cash and that has been my experience. Just walk in with your part. You want it ground on a cylindrical grinder, just enough to clean it up. Then you want to machine a new bearing insert (of course you need a lathe for that) and internally grind it and lap it to size. Then your spindle will be perfect. While the lathe looks really pretty because of the new paint, it is rebuilding the mechanics that will make it into a like-new machine. Scraping the ways and getting rid of play in the bearings is what really counts. If everything is badly worn you will still be frustrated after all that clean up work. Been there, done that.


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## wildo

Sblack said:


> I think if you took material off the spindle and off the bearing you might have too much clearance. Also, either one could now be out of round.



Thanks. The spindle was tested and shown to be well within spec after the work was completed. I've had no issues from the spindle after 1+ year of use post rebuild.


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## KBeitz

Anyone using  polishing compound like this make sure that you Clean clean clean.....
 Polishing compound is very abrasive and it will keep cutting away....


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## GunsOfNavarone

I don't know what to say. Amazing. Beautiful. Inspiring. Nice work seems underwhelming.


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## Brento

Would you happen to still have the restoration book? Is it on a pdf at all? I have a 9a not sure the year but would not mind doing some cleaning to it one day.


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