Monarch 1944 12" CK

[mattthemuppet2]

that jib crane is really sweet, that'll make your life so much easier. Keep up with the rebuild updates - I love reading them and they give me inspiration to keep plugging away about my South Bend.

 

[rabler]

I cleaned and painted the steady rest, and have cleaned and painted but not completely reassembled the tailstock. The quill and bore on the tailstock are in pretty rough shape. I'm going to put it back together for now, and just use it, but it really needs to fixed. I'm thinking about boring out the tailstock and then lapping it smooth, and turning a new slightly oversize quill. That will be an undertaking that I'm not ready to dive into. I also need to address the wear in the carriage slides. The bed looks to be in pretty good shape but the carriage has quite a bit of slop in it, so cutting while traveling left cuts significantly deeper than while cutting with the carriage traveling to the right. That makes sense if you think about the rack for the carriage being on the apron. I'm planning on using moglice on the carriage, which will be a new experience for me. To do that I need to mill out the carriage V grooves by somewhere around .050, as moglice is not suppose to be thinner than about .030 and the oil grooves need to be cut into it.


I have made new felt wipers for the carriage, but it is missing one of the metal wiper holders. And the large wiper holder on the tailstock needs to be made for the headstock face of the tailstock. You can see a little bit of brass in the chuck here. I just made a few brass plugs for the oil ports in the tailstock.

The older machines are probably going to be a bit oily. The gearbox, for example, has an open bottom so oil drips into the bearings from the oil cups on top, and then out into oil pan. I also have a gasket on the headstock end that is leaking pretty badly. You can see the kitty litter absorbant on the floor at the left front corner of the lathe. I'll need to drain the headstock again to deal with that. The headstock drain is on the back side of the headstock, behind my electrical panel for the VFD. For this reason I put an elbow, ball valve, and barbed hose connector on there. Seemed like overkill when I was cleaning the headstock initially, but now I'm glad I did that.

I also need to re-level the lathe. But I'm at a point with it that I'm now using it regularly and am ready to set aside (i.e., make more room in the shop) the little 10x22 Grizzly I started turning with a few years ago.

 

[rabler]

that jib crane is really sweet, that'll make your life so much easier. Keep up with the rebuild updates - I love reading them and they give me inspiration to keep plugging away about my South Bend.

For me, rebuilding the machines is a great way to appreciate how they work, the limitations, and how to get the best use out of them. Once I've gone through everything like this, using it becomes a lot more intuitive. And more fun, because I take a lot of satisfaction out of knowing I contributed to fixing it up. My grandfather was a machinist, and this is the era of machine he would have used. And damn, I know when I'm done I'll have a machine that would have cost at least $10k to buy new. Of course I'd guess I have at least $5k in fixing this up, new motor and VFD, bearings, paint, metal for the crane, chucks, etc. I'm enjoying it though, and that's what matters.

 

[mattthemuppet2]

that's awesome. For sure there's no better way to know a machine than by having taken it to pieces and successfully put it back together again!

 

[Watchwatch]

Stan at BarZ posted the receipt for his Monarch. IIRC, it was over $5k in 1950. You could buy a Cadillac or a nice starter home in those days for that kind of money.


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[rabler]

Stan at BarZ posted the receipt for his Monarch. IIRC, it was over $5k in 1950. You could buy a Cadillac or a nice starter home in those days for that kind of money.


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Maybe what I was trying to say wasn't clear. I meant that I'll have less than $10k in cost not counting my time, and have a machine that is significantly better than any lathe I could buy new today for $10k. But yeah, these things were not cheap when new.

You could certainly argue that my time is worth something. And you can also argue that people should not expect to learn skills for free, so I'm writing my time off against what I've learned in the process. I don't foresee buying machines to fix up and resell, honestly I doubt I could break even on my actual costs not counting my time if I sold this machine. Although with three Monarch lathes, that does seem like I have more than I can use all at once.

 

[rabler]

Here's the little Grizzly that this is replacing. Not a bad lathe. The homemade stand has a substantial beam under the lathe along with bolts set up to level the lathe (the original mount was one bolt at the headstock end and one at the tailstock end which really didn't allow for leveling. But time for it move out to make room for the other equipment.

 

[Ultradog MN]

Hi Rabler,
I just got around to reading this thread. It was very interesting and it looks like you are doing nice, thorough work. I bought that same lathe a couple of months ago. It was built in May of 1942 - about the time of the battle of the Coral Sea. I also have an old milling machine from that era. It was built 4/42 - during the Doolittle raid. (I'm a student of the Pacific War - where a Lot of this machinery was first sent)
You mentioned you bumped up the spindle speed on yours. The one thing I can add to that is mine was factory 1000 rpm spindle speed so I doubt you'll hurt it running it faster.
I have not done much with mine. Replaced the felt wipers and did some cleaning. Need to change oil in the headstock yet. The apron pump is putting plenty of oil to the ways but not sure of other areas yet. I don't plan to tear into it unless I need to.
From looking at other photos of these lathes one thing I have not often seen is a carriage travel indicator which mine has. (Photo) Must have been an option. A fellow I've gotten to know recently here in the Twin Cities also has a 12CK and his does not have that indicator or the feed reversing handle on the carriage that ours has. So that must have been optional as well.
Mine has the 3 hp motor. I built a RPC to power it as my mill is 3 phase too so I can power them both .

 

[Janderso]

$5k in 1950. You could buy a Cadillac or a nice starter home in those days for that kind of money.

OK, a starter home in Northern California (North of Sacramento) is probably $250,000 to $325,000. A doghouse in the San Francisco Bay area is over a million.
This is a good illustration of how the times have changed. You can buy a Cadillac for what, $85,000- $95,000?
I can see a lathe made today of the Monarchs pedigree around $80-$100,000. Not a 1/4 of a million.

 

[Beckerkumm]

Thanks for the idea on the vfd. When I finally finish the vfd conversion of the 1024, I need to finish up the 60/61 and was dreading the wiring. My motor is 1800 and the top speed is 700 rpm. Monarch used the same bearings for the 1000 top speed machines so I think I will swap a pulley and use a vfd. Your colors turned out way better than mine but they are here to stay. I clear coated the enamel with Spraymax auto paint that even acetone won't touch so I'll live with the mistake.