A Possibly Very Short Restoration Thread

[RaisedByWolves]

I wouldn’t assume that the scoring is a problem until you actually run the machine.

If it were me I’d just clean it up, oil it and find a motor to see.

Proof is in the performance.

Or the worn ways.

Only way to tell is to use it. It got into this condition for a reason, it still worked.

 

[Asm109]

Re: bearings and spindle. Stone any high spots off the bearings and spindle. Replace the felts and RUN IT.

Re: bed condition. Ignore it for now. That is an expensive rathole you don't need to go down.

Put it together and try to make some parts. If you find that the bed condition prevents you from making parts accurate enough for your needs, then go on the hunt for a better condition lathe and Part this one out.

There are no options on your lathe that make it particularly valuable for a SB afficionado. No taper attach, no metric conversion gears, where are the face plate, steady rest and follow rest? So it is an easy decision (for me) to move on, if it won't make parts.

 

[silverhawk]

I agree with matthewsx. I had scoring on my 10L spindle, and went to an experienced machinist and asked him. You should be fine with that. Less worry about the spindle than the bed ways.

You can find a replacement bed, but might get into the same situation with that. My ways are worn. The trick is to know what you have to deal with. It's still usable.

At some point, I will try to fix the ways, but the spindle scoring has not been an issue.

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[toprecyler]

My thought on the scoring. Those are just oil retention grooves.

As long as you have no burrs to make more scoring, it should be ok. After all, why is there scrape marks when putting on a hand scrape finish. You do not want perfectly smooth surfaces running together, unless it is in a roller bearing. There has to be clearance grooves for lubricant of some sort.


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[Dabbler]

+1 on the scoring comments. A bronze bearing can give you lots of life, and the scoring marks will hold more oil. that's not as bad as it seems. I've seen worse in well running south bends.

Here's what I'd do about the ways... First I would de-rust, clean and put a straight edge on the ways and look for damage, etc. Only then can you can tell how bad it is. A friend of mine bought a Colchester from photos, that had been sitting in the rain for 3 years. (from 2,000 miles away - and had it shipped) It looked terrible. Once he had cleaned it up, it was very good. As in just fine. (it could have easily gone the other way...)

 

[n9viw]

Gentlemen, thank you all for your candid and honest statements and suggestions. I am well heartened by this, and will follow your lead. Tomorrow, I'm going to start by blasting the flaking paint off the unit with pressure washer and wire brush, then I will bring it down to the basement walk-out door and get it inside where I can start disassembling it. @Dabbler , I've got a good straight 36" framing square I can put on the ways to see how bad it really is. I have some stones to dress the worst of the dents out once the rust is off.

I received a compound rest I bought off ebay in the mail today. The usual chuck crash marks, but not too bad, certainly not the worst I've seen. Nice thing is, it was definitely for a Heavy 10, and complete, for $100. Beats the $350 one I saw the day before! May need a brass nut, but that's no big deal. I'll get a cheap AXA toolpost set and some cutters, probably carbide so I don't have to learn two things at once- I'll learn how to grind HSS later once I've got my feet under me.

Plans at this point will be to clean off the loose paint, rust, and grease, take it down to nuts and bolts, do a little light polishing on the spindle and bearings, and bring it back up with new felts. I'll need a faceplate, a chuck, and some centers, but at least the latter of those are cheap if one has no qualms about Chinesium. The faceplate is going to be the hardest to find; what I may do is pick up that 3.75" plate on Lost Creek Machine (the only one I've found with a 1-78"-8 threaded hub) and bolt a piece of 6061 to it and true it, then get a chuck to bolt to it, and go from there.

Once again, many thanks, my mind is more at ease. I'll be posting pics here as I go along.

 

[n9viw]

Wife sent me some pics, I love how she builds up the suspense... "The box... and then ANOTHER box! And then... PACKING PLASTIC!! So much tape..."

Very well packed, I appreciate how he removed the crank to make sure it wouldn't act as a lever on the feed screw and bend it in transport. Wife said, "It's smaller than I thought... and HEAVIER!" Yep, arn is like that.

I'll strip it down tomorrow, if I can keep myself from doing it when I get home from work around midnight. Make sure the brass nut is kept aside Somewhere Safe Where I Won't Forget Where I Put It <rolleyes>, and dunk the rest into the vinegar bucket for a few days. Ought to come out in the new year gleaming fresh... slightly dinged, but ain't we all.

 

[matthewsx]

Don’t know if I would do anything to “polish” the spindle or bearings. Just clean them up and a light stoning if anything seems to be standing proud.

I know the temptation is to start making things look nice, but that is something that can wait until you turn a test and confirm operation.

John

 

[Dabbler]

Your bronze headstock bearings were scraped. Tthey were not meant to be smoothly polished. Reassemble (with an abundance of oil) and set your end play and measure your radial concentricity and try to flex it radially and measure that. Your radial concentricity should be less than 1/2 thou (given how old it is, from the factory, about 2 tenths) and trying to stress the spindle in 4 or 6 directions, measuring deflection in each. This will tell you if your bearings are oval shaped, damaged, warped, etc. If the spindle bushings are tight and sound, then you have a viable lathe. I've seen guys do great, accurate work with a bed that deviated .040 near the chuck. (not ideal, but you can still cut chips with it).

With a little work (fun?) you will probably have an economical starter lathe. If the bed is okay, just pitted a little, you might have a forever lathe under all that crud. --- don't fret if it is pitted - all you need is that the majority across the width is flat and smooth. Your main carriage contact on the veeway is pretty wide in the heavy 10, and it will 'average out' the missing bits, if it isn't > 75% pitted.

 

[n9viw]

@matthewsx , I hadn't planned on a refurb before running, there is a LOT to do just to make it even marginally functional. For instance, the flat belt tensioner is frozen with rust, I had to flex on it pretty hard to get it to move enough to allow me to remove the old leather belt. I'm going to completely ignore the change gears for now, it was good enough to be able to get the drive direction lever unstuck so I could put it in neutral. Same with the apron controls, they were locked in power crossfeed mode, for some reason. Got that unstuck, and the carriage now rolls. The crossfeed does work, but has a tremendous amount of runout which I have yet to measure. The 3-phase motor may or may not work, I'm going to grab one of the decommissioned old Allen Bradley 160's from work to try it out.

@Dabbler , this one does not have bronze bearings, they are cast iron. There's a lot of debris stuck in there, so I foresee some quality time between us with a bucket of kerosene and a toothbrush. I have a mag base dial indicator I'll put on it to see what the concentricity and flex measures out to once I've got it back together and snugged down.

Your latter point is one of my concerns: "don't fret if it is pitted - all you need is that the majority across the width is flat and smooth." That's just it- it may be pitted, but it ISN'T flat. That's why I posted the pics of the front way, and how far down it was worn, allowing the saddle to rock toward the operator several degrees as it traversed the bed. Keith Rucker got back to me and passed me the contact information for Cash Masters at Knifemaker as someone who might be able to refurbish the bed and carriage. At what cost, I don't yet know- I still need to clean it enough to even know what I'm dealing with- but I find it hard to believe it would even approach the cost of a new lathe this size.

That's neither here nor there, as a) I haven't even used this thing to know how bad it might be, and b) it may even be serviceable for my purposes as it is. As @RaisedByWolves said, "It got into this condition for a reason, it still worked." So, as I said, I'm going to clean it up and at least get it functional, see how it works, and go from there. I do want to get the loose paint off before I bring it in the house, though- chances are good it's old enough to have lead in it, particularly the white. I'd rather have that outside my house than in it, and it seems almost ready to jump off by itself- the windward side was halfway stripped by the time we got it home!

I'll have more pics tomorrow, it's my day for rest and play.