# Repair Of My 15" Sheldon Lathe



## 4GSR (Jan 10, 2016)

I bought a 15" Sheldon lathe this past year and has been storage since then.  I pulled the apron and carriage off the lathe stored in my shop until I can make room for the lathe.  Meantime, I started cleaning up the apron over the holidays and have many repairs that need to be made to the apron. The lathe was born around 1960-1961 from what I've been able to find out. It is a Model ER60P serial number 25267.  It is the model with the two lever QC gear box and single rod apron.  The apron looks like it left the factory without any oil.  Most everything in the apron is rusty, full of shavings and a lot of plastic shavings stuffed in there.  There are two plate type clutches, one is salvageable and the other one is trashed out.  Luckily I have a set of clutch plates I bought many years ago for my other Sheldon lathe for a backup set that will get used.  You can still get the clutch plates from Carlyle Johnson Machine Co. for a hefty price!  I may still buy another clutch pack to keep on hand.  Here are some pictures of "before" and pictures of some of the repairs I'm doing now.  Enjoy!


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## 4GSR (Jan 10, 2016)

Here some more pictures.


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## 4GSR (Jan 10, 2016)

Some more pictures.


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## 4GSR (Jan 10, 2016)

Here are pictures of the repairs I started on the apron.
	

		
			
		

		
	







More to follow as I get to work on the apron.


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## DBN (Jan 11, 2016)

Hi,

That looks to be a great project - (I enjoy rebuilding machines) - keep the updates coming; they are good teaching tools.

Be well,
DBN aka John


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## FOMOGO (Jan 11, 2016)

Plan on keeping it, or down the road to finance something else? I always enjoy bringing something back from the grave. Will be fun watching it come together. Mike


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## 4GSR (Jan 11, 2016)

Initially, it will take the place of my 20" L & S lathe.  Not quite as big as it is.  The main reason for the larger swing is to allow me to bore out brake drums and face rotors.  I'm limited on my 13" lathe a bit.


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## A618fan2 (Jan 12, 2016)

Looks a lot like a Logan I did recently - aside from the crud, your gears look to be in pretty good shape.  I enjoy bringing them back as well and that one looks like lots of fun - it'll be a nice lathe when you're done.


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## 4GSR (Jan 12, 2016)

Here's how the gears turned out.  A buddy of mine has a phosphate system set up for phosphating parts for his customers.  He phosphated the gears for me and turned out pretty nice.


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## FOMOGO (Jan 12, 2016)

Looking forward to doing those operations on new to me lathe. Any tips on set up? Thanks, Mike



4gsr said:


> Initially, it will take the place of my 20" L & S lathe.  Not quite as big as it is.  The main reason for the larger swing is to allow me to bore out brake drums and face rotors.  I'm limited on my 13" lathe a bit.


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## 4GSR (Jan 12, 2016)

FOMOGO said:


> Looking forward to doing those operations on new to me lathe. Any tips on set up? Thanks, Mike


I'll be glad to share my method of doing rotors and drums when that time comes.  My not work for all, but will work for most.


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## FOMOGO (Jan 12, 2016)

Thanks, I'll keep an eye out for your post. I can envision doing it with some kind of arbor & bearing setup. No rush for sure. It will probably be year before I get around to giving it a try. Mike


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## 4GSR (Apr 4, 2016)

Well, it's been a while since I've posted progress on my lathe.  I had to move my lathe from storage for reasons beyond my control and put it in my driveway covered with a tarp for now.  Meantime, I just about have the apron ready to go back together. Had to buy a couple of bronze bushings and machine them to replace the worn one's that needed replacing.  Also had to buy some new clutch parts from Carlyle Johnson.  Holy cow! $300 worth!  Didn't want to buy stock in the company.  But had to have them to get the apron back together. For some reason there are two missing parts that are needed for the clutches to operate properly.  The only thing I can figure out that some one tried to work on the apron over the years and forgot to put the parts back in. I suspect they couldn't get them back in and toss them!  Here some pictures on the progress.


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## 4GSR (Apr 4, 2016)

Meantime, I've been stripping paint to get the lathe ready for paint.  What a nasty mess!


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## 4GSR (Apr 17, 2016)

Had to make a fixture to hold two parts I'm making for the apron clutch controls. The mandrel/fixture allowed me to hold the parts in my super spacer so I could cut a square hole cross wise in two sleeves. There are two square holes at 180 degrees from each other. The corners do not have to be sharp, a 1/16" radius is acceptable. The sleeves are too thin to try to broach and I don't have a shaper, another tool on my wish lists.








Next step is putting the apron back together!


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## 4GSR (Apr 2, 2017)

It's been nearly a year since I posted progress on the 15" Sheldon Lathe.  I did post a thread last month on a tape measure I found in the boottom of the headstock while I was cleaning it.  Here's some pictures of it.


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## 4GSR (Apr 2, 2017)

Here's some pictures of the inside of the headstock before cleaning.  I forgot to take pictures after cleaning.  Used 4 cans of Brake Clean to get all of the gunk cleaned out and still had to wipe the rest out by hand.  What a mess.  Then on top of that, I over filled the headstock with oil.  And still cleaning up the excess oil!!!


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## 4GSR (Apr 2, 2017)

Got the electrics mounted and hooked up and running.  I thanks H-M for the posting on the Huanyang Inverters in helping to get my settings just right. Still have some tweaking to do but it's pretty much done.  Can't figure out why the pot works in reverse.  Never had on do that.  Even swapped a couple of leads.  I think I need to swap the other two leads.  Oh well, I can deal with that another day.

Next is getting the saddle refitted to the bed and so on.

Here is a couple of video clips of the lathe running.  Ken


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## 4GSR (Apr 17, 2017)

I worked on putting the tailstock back together for my 15" Sheldon lathe.  I also cleaned and honed the bedways to remove dings, burrs, etc. so I can start the process of scraping and fitting the saddle to the bed.  This bed is harden and ground and you can still see faint surface grinding marks in the worn areas of the ways.  For a 57 year old lathe that is not bad!  Here's a few pictures of my progress. I also posted a couple pictures of the apron rebuild I forgot to post last year.  Ken


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## FOMOGO (Apr 18, 2017)

Really looking good. Did you make the ships wheel for the tail stock, or is that a factory part? Cheers, Mike


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## 4GSR (Apr 18, 2017)

FOMOGO said:


> Really looking good. Did you make the ships wheel for the tail stock, or is that a factory part? Cheers, Mike


I made it for my 13" lathe several years ago.  Wasn't about to let it go with the 13" when it's sold and mounted it on my 15" lathe.  Fit perfectly!  

I got this idea from a old lathe manufacture, actually they are still in business, they provide this type of handwheel on their tailstock as an option at the time.  It's now standard with the hollow spindle lathes they sell today.  They used to refer to it as a "oilfield" tailstock handwheel.  Make its nice when drilling larger size holes and need that little bit of more leverage to turn the handwheel.  Ken


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## Chuck K (Apr 30, 2017)

Looks great. The before pics of the apron remind me of my Polamco when I first got it apart. It had been contaminated with coolant for years and didn't appear to ever see an oil change.  Every  bearing in it was trashed. Looks like you're going to have a nice Sheldon there.


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## Silverbullet (May 1, 2017)

Nice lathe, I owned one many years ago , dumbest thing I ever did was sell it . Mine was variable speed with the crank wheel. I had just about everything for it, the lever collet made using it a joy when I did multiple parts jobs. With the square tool post four tools set , had a turret plus tailstock. God I wish I could have it back . Good luck with a great lathe , Sheldon are very under rated . There strong , made well, last forever without tons of repairs with a little maintenance no repairs should be needed . Nice to see one again, really like the tailstock handle . I'm planning on making some for a few vises I own.


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## 4GSR (May 1, 2017)

My 13" Sheldon I just sold, had it for 38 years, my first real lathe purchase.  For a half worn out lathe, it still cut straight 0-0  from the headstock out about 3".  Always had a problems getting it to cut straight when using the tailstock.  Even then, I could get down to about .002" taper in 18".  Worked for me.  The 15" here, is in ten times better shape than the 13" was in when I bought it back then, and even cheaper including shipping!  It will be a nice lathe, if my son decides to keep it, it should last a life time for him.  Ken


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