Headstock removal

[Mike Millis]

Hey all, i have been slowly tearing down this TH42 and giving it some long overdue maintenance and cleaning.

Up next would be the headstock, is that worth the tear down and clean up? From this point its just clamp bolt on the chuck side and 2 hex head bolts on the rear. It appears to locate pretty closely in between the ways, so im not thinking getting it back in place and lined up would be an issue. Has anyone ever had issues getting the spindle running true with the ways after removing it? Im going to get a new chuck and back plate so if its not true within a thou or two would the be negated when I face the backplate?

 

[Nutfarmer]

If you don't have a good reason to remove the head stock I wouldn't. If it just cleaning leave it in place. Re aligning the head stock can open up a can of worms sometimes. If it was properly scraped in there should be no problems. If someone shimmed it in good luck replacing them accurately.

 

[wa5cab]

I'm inclined to agree. it will be just as easy or probably easier to pull the spindle to inspect the bearings, get the bearing dates and change the spindle belt with the headstock still mounted on the bed.

The stand appears to have casters under it. Before you start back together with leveling the bed, you should lose the casters.

 

[yukon_rose]

I've removed the headstock from my 12" lathe a couple of times. The first was to replace the babbet bearing type with a timken bearing version. The second was to add some electronics to the lathe giving me an RPM display. I mounted the display to the headstock using some flat bar steel brackets that I made. I tapped and threaded some holes into the headstock for the brackets. It was easy on the drill press once the headstock was removed.

In each case installing the headstock was very simple. It can only go in one place. It's a tight fit so lining up the threaded holes that secure the headstock to the ways required the use of a deadblow hammer and some gentle tapping to get it just right.

Gary