Enco 12x36 Lathe Rebuild (Picture Heavy!)

[macardoso]

Hi All, I recently purchased an Enco110-2033 gap bed lathe from a industrial surplus business for around $1100. It's more than some have spent on a lathe like this, but it was available nearby my house and in beautiful condition under the significant amount of grime that had coated it. This post will follow the process of inspecting a piece of equipment, picking it up (on a budget!), cleaning it, bringing it into a house, and setting it up for operation. I welcome any questions or comments on this (re)build as I go along.

 

[Dave Paine]

We love to see pictures of cleaning, restoration, etc.

Did the lathe come with any tooling or accessories?

Is this a belt drive or gear head lathe. I have a Grizzly G9249 belt drive which is 12x37.

 

[macardoso]

Chapter 1: The Find

An industrial surplus company nearby my house lists their equipment online and I had been following them to see if I could find a lathe. I couldn't justify a new lathe at this time and even for $2000, you can only get a 10x22 from Precision Matthews and that doesn't cover shipping and accessories. Don't get me wrong, I'd love a new lathe and I do love the look of the PM machines. One day, my soon to be lathe was listed for $1800 and shortly after was reduced to $1100. I went out to look at it with the usual tools (tenths indicator, rubber mallet, wrenches and such) and was pleasantly surprised at the condition the machine was in.

It was very dirty and built in '94, but the grime gave way to beautiful ways with nearly non-existent wear, a spindle with .0001-2" runout at the spindle taper, and gears with a full compliment of teeth (a rare feat in some used lathes!). Even without a 4 jaw chuck, faceplate, or change gears, I felt it was too good of a deal to pass up so I bought it!

Pictures of the lathe as I found it:





(Are the bedways growing hair?!)




Stay tuned for Chapter 2!

Ps: If anyone knows an easy way to rotate pictures when putting them in the post, please let me know! I'm new to this forum.

 

[macardoso]

Chapter 2: No spare parts you say?

I quickly realized that this lathe was more machine than I had worked with in the past, and having a solid supplier for spare parts and manuals was going to be important. I called up Enco (now MSC... ugh.) and was quickly informed that they discontinued the lathe in '99 and don't have spare parts. They were kind enough to provide an old manual with no useful information in it. As I browsed the forums, I learned that this was a popular lathe from China/Taiwan in the late 80's and early 90's.

Fortunately, many companies sold this lathe with varying paint colors, and our good friend Grizzly offered it under the name G9249 12x36 Gap Bed Lathe. Grizzly produces some amazing manuals for all their machines and has a good selection of spare parts available. I contacted Grizzly and was able to purchase the three missing metric change gears which should arrive in mid-June.

This lathe can swing a 12" part over the bed (18.88" over the gap) and 6.5" over the cross-slide. It has a 1.5 HP motor (220V 1P) with 12 speeds (50-1200 rpm) by changing v-belts and engaging a back gear). Max length is somewhere around 36" depending on the tailstock and centers. It has power feed and power cross feed, reversible feed and threading (left-hand), and separate leadscrew and feed rods. The spindle is 2.25 x 8 TPI, a relatively common spindle attachment, with a 1.57" bore.

Thanks to their manual, I have been able to figure out most of the mysteries of this machine! Just a fair warning, even though this lathe is the "same" as the G9249, there have been several issues which I have run into which I will explain later (hint, my tailstock was not an MT3).

Here are some pictures of the name plates, one of which show the required change gears to achieve metric threading:




Up Next: Chapter 3: Getting it home... you need it down the basement?

 

[macardoso]

Dave, The lathe came with a 6" 3 jaw scroll chuck, a 4 way tool post, a live center (which was missing by the time I picked up the lathe) and a random drill chuck and big 2" shell mill which had fallen into the casting and I didn't know about until I got the lathe home. I purchased a 8" 4 jaw chuck, Quick Change Tool Post, live and dead centers, drill chuck, and the missing change gears. I'm still debating about buying the steady and follow rests from grizzly for $200 for the pair.

Lots of content to come, just have to find time to write it all up!

 

[DAT510]

Welcome to H-M,
Looks like your lathe is part of the Jet 1024/1236 family of lathes. Under the downloads section you'll find a number of manuals, in the Jet section, for the different brands the lathes were marketed under (Jet, LAM, Grizzly, etc.). Each of the manuals has different bits of info not necessarily covered in the others. Each lathe varied slightly in their specs, as you noticed with your tail stock.

For my Jet 1024, combining parts from each manual, I was able to piece together a manual that matched the specific specs of my lathe. (For example, my 1024 has a less common 2"-8tpi spindle).

As mentioned Grizzly can be a possible source for parts. I was missing the metric threading gears, I took a gamble and ordered a set from grizzly, they were a correct fit.

There's a decent following of H-M members with the Jet family of lathes.

I look forward to following your progress.

 

[ezduzit]

...debating about buying the steady and follow rests from grizzly for $200 for the pair...

Seems like a bargain.

 

[macardoso]

Chapter 3: Getting it home... you need it down the basement?

Unfortunately I do not drive anything with a tow hitch, and was trying to avoid crazy expenses to move the lathe 5 miles (one shipping company quoted me $400), so I was at the mercy of a kind coworker to help me get it home. We chose a chilly NE Ohio afternoon at the end of March to pick up the lathe.

I don't have an exact weight figure for the machine, but it is somewhere in the 700-1100 lbs range based on Grizzly's manual (minus the missing accessories). In order to handle the weight, I picked up a 1 ton engine hoist from Harbor Freight for around $140 on sale (This will be important soon!)

When we arrived, this beauty was outside waiting for me!



Unfortunately it was almost an hour and a half before a forklift driver came to load it. Now many of you will cringe at the upcoming pictures, but I assure you we spent over an hour rigging the lathe and it was not moving at all! We managed getting it loaded sideways on the back-end of a F150 and didn't even bottom out the shocks.





Now the challenge was to get it off the truck without a forklift. I encourage anyone who needs to move equipment to seriously think through every possible situation, and half backup plans for when things don't go according to plan. Heavy equipment doesn't like rinky-dink rigging, and loves the smell of gravity.

My personal situation is that I need the machine down the basement in a split level house. There is a detached garage, which we chose to use for unloading the lathe, but it is not insulated and doesn't have power. I had plenty of people telling me that what I wanted was impossible and I should just set up a generator or buy a smaller lathe, but after planning it out, I was confident I could safety move the machine in and out of the house as needed.

We drove the 5 (pothole riddled) miles to my house and backed the lathe up to the garage. After all the considerations I made, I missed one: the lathe didn't fit under the garage door! So I jumped on the rear bumper of the car, pushed the door up, and just squeezed under (rubbing the weather stripping as we went!).


To get the lathe off the truck, we rigged the bed to my shiny new engine hoist. Unfortunately the engine hoist was too short unless it was at the 500 pound setting, so we decided to continue very carefully (I was kicking myself for not buying the 2 ton hoist).



We spent an hour trying to get it off the truck, before we thought of unbolting the lathe from the base (duh). After that it was smooth sailing.


(That's my coworker, not me. Thanks J.)

That's all for right now, look for Chapter 4: "Man this thing is dirty"

Ps: The boats are whitewater kayaks.

 

[macardoso]

DAT510, Thanks for the info. I have 5 or 6 different manuals, but Grizzly had the best out of all of them. I agree each has some unique info. I will have to check my spindle when I get home. I already bought a new 2.25" x 8 TPI chuck so I hope it's correct.

Ezduzit, it is definitely a bargain, but the wallet is hurting from all the expenses of the machine so it may have to wait a few months. Someone told me to expect to double the cost of any smaller machine in tooling and equipment (oil, moving expenses, missing parts, etc.). I also own a Grizzly G0704 mill, which might make a guest appearance later on, and I found this to be accurate.

 

[Dave Paine]

Nice pictures of getting the lathe home.

Your ENCO looks almost identical to my Grizzly. My Grizzly has a 2 step pulley on the motor so in theory I can get about the same speeds as yours. Changing the motor pulley belt at the motor is a pain, so I normally leave this in the "A" position and use the lower 3 speeds. One day I would love to upgrade to VFD and 3 phase motor. Just need the funds.



You may notice a small block above the ON/OFF lever on the carriage. A better view. My way to avoid the "brown-stain-in-the-underwear" when the lever goes through the detent and the motor goes from FORWARD to REVERSE. It is always scary.

I made this block of wood notched to fit on the bracket. A rare earth magnet and the thread dial to hold this in place. Now I cannot accidentally go into reverse. I remove this block only when threading.