What Do I Have Here?

[Johnwright]

A friend of mine showed me an old piece that he has had several years. Something that was sold out of a small rebuild factory after it closed down. I ended talking him out of it and have cleaned up the bed and other pieces, while still working to disassemble the spindle. The piece looks "lathe like" in appearance in that it has a bed, a type of cross slide, and a spindle. It is branded "Hardinge" with a serial number on the spindle frame. The "cross slide" is able to slide on the ways of the bed, by loosening a wheel below that draws the slide down against the bed. A lever causes the cross slide to move across the bed about 3.25 inches using a small gear working against a rack gear on the bottom of the slide. There is the remnants of what I'm told is a collet closer, although I am very much a neophyte about such things. (My experience is limited to my 9X20 Jet). Is there anyone who can tell me (1) what was this piece originally, (2) is it worth looking for the missing parts and (3) what a hobbyist could make out of it. I am posting pics of the piece to help identify.

 

[TOOLMASTER]

IT'S a collet lathe but missing lots of parts

 

[toolroom]

Johnwright,
THAT, my friend is the manual workhorse of the industry. There many still in use today, and I believe that many of the parts are available should you restore it. This was strictly a production machine, for doing thousands of small parts. The push/pull lever had the cross slide set with two tool blocks one fore and one aft. so, as to face and part. There was a tailstock with turret station on it where , by pulling another lever, the operator could center drill, drill, tap, c'bore.
Nice find!

 

[mmcmdl]

What John^ said . Plus , it's a Hardinge ! Very nice find indeed . The tooling is high dollar but available .

 

[Kernbigo]

i belive a friend may have a tailstock for that

 

[cvairwerks]

Predecessor to the DV-59 second ops lathe. A call to Hardinge with the serial number should get you the model number.

 

[Bill Gruby]

You guys are on the ball here. It is indeed a Hardinge secondary production lathe. Saying it was a workhorse is selling that lathe way short. I'd like to be able to hear some of the stories that old timer could tell.

"Billy G"

 

[Johnwright]

Well, I'm back here asking for help from the professional chip slingers. After my OP, I disassembled and cleaned the spindle due to some serious grinding heard from the collet end of things. I found one of the 3 ball bearings had crapped out so i took the bearings to a nationally known bearing supplier and after a few minutes was handed a "quote sheet". A "quote sheet"????? It became clear after looking at the sheet that I probably could not afford to replace the 3 bearings at........$640.00. I know, right?..I don't know what I will do now, but after cleaning and polishing, I sure have a nice looking piece of old iron! Just so I have something to show off, I reassembled the spindle with no balls in the defective bearing (using just the inner and outer race as spacers! I think this project will rest in the corner of my very small shop for some time.

 

[Andre]

Some bearings can be expensive, and that's why my mill bearings haven't been changed yet. On that same front your machine tool will never preform well with bad bearings. Chatter, rigidity issues and a noisy spindle are all ill effects.

Disassemble the bearings, research different types, measure the race diameters, thickness and you should be able to source some new ones. It's possible they quoted you very high because they don't wan't your business, selling a handful of bearings just isn't as profitable to them as selling thousands to a wholesaler. Sadly a lot of places do that.

I have no idea what your bearings are, nor any experience with Hardinge lathes, but I have a feeling they would be angular contact taper roller bearings instead of your standard deep grove (or angular contact) ball.

 

[george wilson]

I have a Hardinge HLVH. Fortunately my bearings are good. But,when I got it,I called the factory about replacing the bearings should they go bad. They quoted me something like $1250.00 for the bearings at that time (1990's). Also,they said I'd have to remove the headstock and send it to them so they could properly PRE LOAD the bearings. That would cost even more.

Since you removed a bearing,you have also destroyed the pre loading,though it couldn't be helped. I don't know what to advise,except to say that many fine lathes have been made that used plain bronze bearings. You may consider removing all the bearings and making plain bronze bearings for your spindle. But,you will also need to incorporate some means of tightening or loosening the bearings. And,some way of drip feeding oil to the bearings.

You will have to determine by experimentation how much to tighten the bearings. You really want them to run on a fine film of oil,with the spindle not actually in contact with the bearings themselves.