Scraping in all bearing surfaces on my Wards/Logan 10"

[Rex Walters]

Rollie's Dad's Method.

Ah! I should have figured that out. And I think you're right, what Connelly described is basically the same idea as RDM.

I wasn't a fan of RDM, mostly because it uses a chuck rather than the taper and you don't need a straight bar. Now that I re-read it, though, I see it is pretty close to the same idea. I'm far less critical of it now, but still prefer Connelly's method.

Connelly's method that I've described requires a verified, very straight and concentric test bar inserted carefully into the spindle taper. It depends on the high points and low points being the same everywhere along the bar. It also suggests removing and reinserting the test bar until you get a minimal difference between high and low readings at the headstock end (indicating a good fit).

Since RDM uses a chucked part that doesn't even need to be straight, and performs no cutting to create cylinders concentric to the spindle axis, I was skeptical that it would tell you much. Especially considering the inevitable bell mouth of any chuck.

After re-reading (and after actually DOING something similar) I now see that it's saying that the outermost points of even a twisted part will sweep two circles at each end of the part that are concentric with the axis of rotation. Since RDM requires a part that has the same diameter at both ends, it sweeps two circles at each end (one with a larger radius indicating the high reading). If the midpoint between high and low readings with the indicator tip on top of the part is the same, then the headstock isn't tipped in the vertical plane — even if the part is inserted such that it's sweeping a cone rather than a cylinder (which is pretty much guaranteed).

That's exactly the same as what Connelly describes, but Connelly wisely (I feel) prescribes a straight, precision ground test bar.

As described in the "Common Errors" section at the end of the RDM document I linked to above, RDM doesn't give you an actual line you can sweep with an indicator. It gives you two points and an imaginary line between them. If instead you use a straight, precision ground test bar as with Connelly's method, you can sweep an indicator anywhere along its length once it's rotated to the midway point. With RDM you must consistently indicate at precisely the same two locations along the bed, and rotate the part to find the midpoint independently at each end, every time.

I think Connelly's method and a precision ground test bar is superior to RDM if for no other reason than it gives you a physical line you can sweep (like my first video in comment #44). It also shows you directly if the taper in the bore of your spindle is ground on-axis.

I see test bars from India on ebay right now for $25 for 2MT, and $45 for 3MT. Cheap enough that I'd still recommend Connelly's method over RDM.

Regards,
--
Rex

 

[Rex Walters]

Back onto the tailstock, and I realize it's kind of a mess.

After my umpteenth nap^h^h^h re-reading of Machine Tool Reconditioning, I noticed it suggests using a custom scraped "template" to check if the top of the tailstock base is flat and co-planar. Basically what you need is a surface plate with a hole in the middle (something I now recall Richard suggesting is a useful thing to have around).

The problem is that the bottom half of the tailstock has two independent surfaces that need to be scraped coplanar, with these annoying lumps of metal sticking up in the middle ( the set-over ways and the thing the set-over screws bear against):



I'd been making do with straightedges, just scraping each surface (top and bottom in the photo) independently then carefully indicating on the lathe bed. This sorta worked, but wasn't ideal.

I toyed with the idea of milling a big hole in my cast iron surface plate (something I still might do) but then realized I had just the thing: a cast iron box square or "transfer block" I'd scraped in long ago.

So, with a big lump in my throat, I decided to mill out a portion of one side:



I thought I was being clever by leaving most of the webbing in place. "It won't move that much with that much metal remaining all the way around the hole," thinks I. "That hole should provide plenty of room to mark up the part, even if I have to angle it a bit to get all surfaces."

Wrong on both counts. After milling the hole, I was surprised to see how badly the surface moved. A markup and hinging showed it had sort of bubbled up like a volcano: it was only bearing on the surfaces around the hole. I forgot to take a photo or actually measure how much it moved, but I'd estimate the outer edges were as much as 0.0001" lower than the areas immediately around the hole.

So I spent an hour or two re-scraping the surface (now surfaces) flat. I studiously ignored the little voice in my head telling me the remaining five sides now also need to be re-flattened and re-squared.

Stupidly, only after I did the scraping did I try to actually mark up the part. That's when I discovered that there still isn't quite enough room to move the tailstock base around and get a good markup. Sigh.

I need to remove the remaining portions of the webbing on either side. That's my task for today. Once that's complete, I think this tool will be even more useful.

Even with the obstructing webbing, I was able to at least mark up the tailstock base enough to see that things weren't as coplanar and well-scraped as I thought:



I've got more work ahead of me.

Onward!

 

[Rex Walters]

I need to remove the remaining portions of the webbing on either side.

To be clear, I need to mill out these areas:

 

[Richard King 2]

Rex you are a perfectionist, but my God your working on a lathe. How many hours do you have in it now? 500 or 1000? If someone had me quote an Atlas I would have said at tops 100 hours plus parts and planning or grinding the bed. If I were to scrape the bed. Maybe an extra 20 hours.. The spindle test bar would have been so simple if you had used plastic shim under the head to get it straight then relieved the middle and only scraped where the head bolts to the bed. Scrape the opposite side of the shim. Then leave out the shim. I would swear I showed everyone this technique in the classes. You would have to use the math to figure out how many time you needed to blue and scrape using the blind / step cut method that Jeff used and also learned the hard way to figure out on his angle block.

You have to learn how to relieve the middle and pre check surfaces like the tail stock bottom (base) with a straight-edge. Trying to follow and then quote the Connelly book on such an easy thing to me is insane. You could have called or written me. Remember Connelly was not a scraper, he was a organizer of thoughts from several craftsmen, much of that book is wrong in my opinion and one has to say...now is the best way before following that advice. My Dad said to never follow whats in the book, but for a beginner he might read it like the bible verse by verse.

Your doing a service showing and writing about your machine, but your giving examples of bad examples. Next time you start a thread or a You Tube show I would suggest you do a couple machines to learn from your mistakes before teaching others all the mistakes along the way. I love you as a student, but please don't give a step by step and assume it is right on your first attempt rebuild. Like you using the angled camelback SE when I told you you would regret it. You have a lot to learn young man. It would be like me hiring a first year college grad to program a Cray computer.

 

[Rex Walters]

Wow, Rich. Glad I know you or I'd take offense. I'm a full grown 57 year old man, it's been a while since anyone laid the "you've a lot to learn young man" line on me. <laugh>

I DO have a lot to learn, about many things. With all due respect, I hope you think so too. The day we stop learning is the day we die.

Rex you are a perfectionist, but my God your working on a lathe. How many hours do you have in it now? 500 or 1000?

I think we've had a fundamental misunderstanding.

This is a hobbyist forum. I'm a hobbyist, you're a professional.

I've no idea how many hours I've put in scraping the lathe specifically, nor do I care. At all. Think of me like a teenager spending every weekend lovingly washing and waxing his cherished piece-of-junk car. Or the rich guy doing the same with his Ferrari. This lathe is my pride and joy and my absolute favorite toy.

As a hobbyist, this is FUN for me, not billable hours. I cherish every day I get to spend a few hours in the shop. I expect to make mistakes, and I value the learning and the doing every bit as much, if not more than, the final result.

Honestly, though, since I rarely get to spend more than 2-3 hours in the shop any given day for any project, I'd be shocked if I've spent more than a hundred hours on the lathe specifically.

The spindle test bar would have been so simple if you had used plastic shim under the head to get it straight then relieved the middle and only scraped where the head bolts to the bed. Scrape the opposite side of the shim. Then leave out the shim. I would swear I showed everyone this technique in the classes. You would have to use the math to figure out how many time you needed to blue and scrape using the blind / step cut method that Jeff used and also learned the hard way to figure out on his angle block.

Apologies, but I've no idea what you're talking about. The aligning the headstock with the test bar in the spindle ws by far the absolute easiest and trouble-free part of the process so far. The near perfect result in the first video of comment #44 took very little scraping to achieve.

You did indeed show us the "shim to remove any rock" then step scrape as much as you needed to shim technique in your classes. Possibly even with my lathe at the last class (I didn't get to spend much time working on it at the class).

I didn't have to use that with the headstock when I got it home, though, because at no point was there enough rock to insert even a 0.001" shim.

You have to learn how to relieve the middle and pre check surfaces like the tail stock bottom (base) with a straight-edge.

Again, I don't know what you're talking about. The headstock on my lathe only bears at four points, two vees and two flats, there is nothing to relieve. Here's the bottom view.



If you're talking about the bottom of the saddle, that I did relieve when I did the rough scraping with a straightedge prior to fitting it to the bed.

Here's how the underside of the saddle marked up before I fit it to the ways:



As you can see, I'd already relieved the vees in the middle and the flats are separate on this lathe.

For the record, here it is after some light scraping to fit it to the ways. Still not perfect, but quite a bit more bearing, and good enough in my opinion. I did start to see a few bearing points in the relieved section after a couple passes of fitting, so I relieved it a bit more:

Trying to follow and then quote the Connelly book on such an easy thing to me is insane. You could have called or written me. Remember Connelly was not a scraper, he was a organizer of thoughts from several craftsmen, much of that book is wrong in my opinion and one has to say...now is the best way before following that advice. My Dad said to never follow whats in the book, but for a beginner he might read it like the bible verse by verse.

I'm extremely appreciative of your willingness to take questions of me and others, but as a beginner I often don't know what the right questions even are! I've got hundreds of questions, and most are too big and vague to ask. "How do you scrape in and align a lathe?" takes Connelly most of 500 pages to answer — I doubt you'd want to put it in email.

My way was to take your classes, read up on what's available (your handouts, Connelly, Moore, Schlesinger, youtube, this site and others like it, etc.) then try to do it, definitely making some mistakes along the way. I'm only now starting to understand what some of the better, smaller questions might be. If you've a suggestion for a better way to learn, I'm all ears, but, respectfully, I'm not going to stop documenting my journey.

If I was truly a perfectionist, and all I wanted was to have my little Logan "perfectly" reconditioned, I'd have definitely asked you for the name and contact info of a good reconditioned, then paid to have it done.

My goal, though was to have some fun learning how to do it myself. So far I'm succeeding in this goal.

Please don't take it as a personal affront when I quote Connelly or anyone else rather than you. It's only because your handouts are about the mechanics of scraping, not machine tool reconditioning.

With all due respect, "much of that book is wrong" is a cop out without specifics about what is wrong and why. You've mentioned to me in person that nobody in practice actually uses the water leveling methods he describes. What else is wrong?

Your doing a service showing and writing about your machine, but your giving examples of bad examples. Next time you start a thread or a You Tube show I would suggest you do a couple machines to learn from your mistakes before teaching others all the mistakes along the way. I love you as a student, but please don't give a step by step and assume it is right on your first attempt rebuild.

There's a lot to unpack there.

Firstly, I've tried hard to make it clear to anyone reading my posts that I'm a hobbyist and a beginner, that I'm figuring things out as I go along, and to talk to professionals like yourself if you want to know how to do it right. I create these posts for just two reasons:

1. To document my own progress and learnings for myself. This site provides a nice way to include diagrams, photos, and videos inline with the text) — much more useful to me than greasy and ink-stained scribbles in a shop notebook. That I can share it with others is a bonus.
2. Several people have expressly indicated that, like myself, they enjoy reading the play by play and actually like reading about the mistakes as they are caught. In my very strong opinion, you learn more from making and correcting mistakes than you do just watching a professional do it perfectly.

In short, I think showing mistakes is a service (as long as I or someone else catches the mistake).

Secondly, please correct me if I ever assume or even appear to assume that I'm "doing it right on my first attempt" or giving a bad example. But pointing out what specifically is wrong/bad is a lot more helpful (and less likely to create ill will) than just saying "that's a bad example".

Finally, it may not be obvious, but my youtube videos in this thread have always been unlisted. The only way to find them is from the links in this thread. I've done this intentionally in case I post something flat wrong (fewer places to chase down and correct the error).

Like you using the angled camelback SE when I told you you would regret it. You have a lot to learn young man. It would be like me hiring a first year college grad to program a Cray computer.

I honestly think you've mixed me up with someone else sometimes. I own a Montgomery Wards branded Logan lathe, not an Atlas, and I bought that angled 36" straightedge expressly to rebuild the only two machine tools I own, the lathe and a Grizzly square column bench top mill. I simply reasoned it better to have the dovetail feature than not, didn't want to buy two 36" straightedges, and it was only chance that I chose to do the lathe first.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to using my angled straightedge someday to scrape in the mill, and I don't regret the purchase. I am extremely appreciative of the gift of the lighter straightedge to the group, of course. It has made scraping in the lathe much easier.

Peace.
--
Rex

 

[Richard King 2]

I wasn't trying to hurt your feeling, just bringing to back to reality. Just so much info and writing it as if it's a novel. It's a long drawn out story and if you had waited and did this drama on your 2nd machine you could have had a shorter story. But hey ejoy the story. I am just telling the readers rebuilding is not this difficult. Especially a Atlas lathe. I have had students spend less time on a Monarch EE. I am suppose to be the senior rebuilder here. Your a young man and a student with what 3 years part time experience? Someday when you have say 10 years experience....come back and read this and you will see where I am coming from.

 

[Rex Walters]

I’ve replied to Richard privately and won’t be posting any further updates until we’ve both had a chance to cool down and reflect for a bit.

 

[Richard King 2]

I am sorry about causing an upstir here. I have tried to support you here, but when you made the fixture to scrape the tail stock I just had to say something. I consider you a friend and have knowledge. If I hadn't I would not have asked you to help at the CA class as my assistant. As I said, spending months rebuilding an Atlas is not something one needs to do. I understand you have a full time job, but I was starting to see your project scareing (I have seen this happen before) people away from rebuilding because you made it so complicated and the way you go so deep into experimenting on new ways that take hours and hours, weeks and weeks, months and months.. when it should take others a few weeks or a month. I had to say something. Rebuilding and scraping is easy and not so complicated. One your issue about filing the Tailstock key to get alignment I tried to be diplomatic about your guess or experiment. This plate to scrape the TS just set me off....way to complicated for a Sears or Atlas lathe. The saddle is relieved but was the tailstock top you blued up? I would have been checking that and normally the underside of the TS top is relieved.

You are doing a service but I had to step in and say to Joe Public rebuilding and scraping need not be this complicated. Please continue on, but to the others reading this. Rebuilding is a whole lot simpler then what Rex is showing you. I have been saying this for years "if I see something not correct no matter who says it I will say something" If that hurts your feeling, that the way it goes. The Industry has to come before friendship and feelings. Please keep writing your documentary. It's like the Connelly book...some great info, but don't read it in bed and you can't take it as gospel.

 

[Rex Walters]

when you made the fixture to scrape the tail stock I just had to say something.

Ah! So that's what set you off. I honestly had no idea what specifically made you mad. I wish you would have said so earlier.

Please, please call out specifically at least one or two instances of anything I'm doing wrong in the future, don't just say I'm giving bad examples and leave it for us to guess which of the things I've talked about are wrong. Hopefully they aren't all wrong!

Milling the slot in one side of my box square is just to make the marking and scraping cycles quicker and easier for the top of the tailstock base (or anything similar in the future that has a protrusion in the way like that).

I just finished epoxying phenolic to the top of the tailstock base. Once it dries, I'll need to scrape the phenolic and that will be pretty much the end of the scraping work.

If I hadn't milled the slot in the box square it would take longer and be more difficult to ensure both surfaces remain coplanar as I scrape away several thou of phenolic. You obviously hate the idea, but I had the box square just sitting around not doing anything useful, it was quick and easy to do, I find it a convenient tool to have, and I have a strong suspicion I'll find other occasions to take advantage of that slot in the future.

All that's left of the project is:

- Reassembly of all the precision bits and final alignment checks.

- Cleaning, sanding, and painting (which I hate, hate, hate, so will probably take me forever, but while I have it apart....)

- Final assembly of everything including gearing, motor, etc.

- Re-leveling, a two-collar test, and then start making chips.

Sorry to irritate you further with another long comment, but once its completely done I'll post one with my takeaways from the experience. Again, I'm doing it as much for my future self as anything, I find it useful to get things down while they are still fresh in my mind.

Regards,
--
Rex IAHNAPDTAISAG* Walters

* I'm a hobbyist, not professional, don't take anything I say as gospel.

 

[eeler1]

I've painted old machines. Hated the whole process, from prep to paint, but was able to get a bit of a premium when the machine was sold. I don't paint anymore. Not as important as function and operating condition. And not a big enough premium to make it worth the hassle.

Ok, I understand that the purpose of reconditioning a machine is so you can then use it to make stuff. But also that, for us hobby guys, reconditioning is a journey. And the journey can be satisfying as well. Building skills and learning is part of what makes this hobby enjoyable.

Nothing but love for you guys. All of these posts are going to be really helpful for any of us who decide to take on a similar project.