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Shop Project: Lathe (this will probably time me a while)
With the compressor I waited till I was done to post pictures, but I'm starting this at the beginning to act as motivation. This is the type of thing I could easily take apart, put in a corner, and forget how it goes back together a year later.
I have been trying to buy one for about a year, but I swear there is a guy that buys every craftsman and atlas lathe from the 50's at under a grand, paints them, and re lists them for 3-4k a month later. Nothing wrong with that, but I don't even know how to use one and would rather spend the time fixing it myself than spending a miata's worth of money upfront.
The guy on craigslist said it was a south bend 8" which would have been one of their "JR" or teaching models. I gave the guy a call and when I showed up I noticed that it had more features than any of the 8 inches I had seen so I went and looked it up. It turns out it's a 10l or "heavy 10" bench top model with a 3.5 foot bed. Plenty of parts on ebay, south bend made it forever, and plenty of people showing how to use and maintain them online.
Now it's on my trailer. All the gears look to be in great condition, there is some light surface rust, but they ways don't have any serious pitting, the cross slide screws have a little play, but not so much that they will have to be replaced, and it has the Taper attachment. To be honest I only know what some of those things mean, but the check list I got off the internet says I should be happy. The only issue is with the tool holder, but I don't think the chunk that is missing will affect it that much and it's a part I have seen available in a couple of places.
It's a early model in the 10" production run probably mid 40's, unfortunately the tag on the guard is gone so I can't really tell, but the gearbox is the early style with a 3 way selector on top. The stand isn't in the best shape, but I'm hoping I can make a passable door for the motor and fix most of it's bends with a little heat. I would also like to find a original 3 jaw check. The one i have is too big and I doubt I can put a piece of stock in it bigger than 3". Still fine to learn with I would bet.
From vintagemachinery.org which is aweome.
As it sits today
On another note, that spec sheet doesn't lie. It's heavy as hell for a little lathe. It took every bit of 3 people and an engine hoist to move it.
There are a number of projects where I have either had to buy a whole new part or take a piece to a machine shop where I could have used a lathe or a mill. That will probably be it's main use, but that is a far off thing right now, I mean it will probably live on that trailer for a week or two.
Finally started to get it off the trailer this morning, but only got as far as moving the table before I had to go to work.
Since I don't have my friends to help me get it off the trailer I decided to take it off in bits. First I emptied the drawers. I didn't really look in them when I bought it so there are a couple of things I was happy to get.
This is a milling attachment. Basically you put your milling bit in the lathe and mount your work to the cross slide. You can do small milling operations this way, but you really don't want to do it all the time.
This is a steady rest that you use if you have something long, but for some reason you can't use the tail stock.
This is the collet attachment with some adapters, that is pretty refreshing to see.
the drawers themselves each have a lock with a fancy little knurled knob. Not really important, but kinda cool.
Annnnd... that's not good. He started it up when I bought it but I didn't really realize that he only had it rigged to go one way with a light switch. It should really have a drum switch and the ability to go forward and reverse.
Really? It isn't that hard to put things in the right order. Also every bolt on the motor was a different size which is something that drives me insane.
All leading to this. It isn't the original motor, or even the right replacement. It's a 1/3 hp when it should be 1/2 or 3/4hp. It also has the wrong pulley on it so it only has 1 speed. The way the belt drive works on these is you have two speeds between the motor and the drive pulley and then 3 speeds between the drive and the pulley on the lathe. So instead of 6 speeds this gives you 3... and they may be the wrong speed.
So I need to find a pulley and a motor. It may be a good excuse to go to a 3phase 1hp motor with vfd though. I don't know what my budget is really, but I'll be looking for another craigslist deal to try to make this hurt less.
It's important when working alone not to let heavy things fall on your phone dialing hand.
The carriage that holds the motor out. It weighed about 100 lbs on it's own.
The part I got stuck on this morning was the first part of disassembling the lathe itself. The 3 jaw check is a significant amount of weight so it needs to come off, but I don't have the odd size wrench for the retrofitted chuck. I used belt wrenches and they got a good grip, but I still couldn't budge it so I got out the best wrench I've got.
Heated up the collar and it loosened right off.
Here you can see the collar I found earlier in the drawers. It protects the threads while you use the collet stuff. Also if you refer to the spec sheet this is the bigger through hole of the two models listed.
The tailstock just unbolts and lifts off. Finally something that didn't take an hour.
... then the sun went down and I took everything else apart.There are no pictures, step 5 profit.
The headstock comes off with two bolts that clamp it to the bed from the bottom. Here is the back of the headstock where the power is transmitted to the gears on the bed. The position of the two gears in the middle changes it from forward to reverse. No teeth missing, yay.
These are the gears that are attached to the bed. You can see they are all mounted on a bracket that swings down so you can get access to the bolt that holds the head stock on. These take power from the head stock to the power feed transmission.
The transmission gears can't really be seen from the front without a mirror, but with the headstock off you can see them move from the back. These are all looking good as well.
This is the carriage saddle and apron. This is what the tool that does the cutting gets attached too. The lead screw seems to have a little play, but over all I think it looks good too. It will need new wipers though. The wipers are bits of felt that go in the brass clips on the end. This keeps the ways clear of metal chips so moving the carriage doesn't grind metal into the ways. Somebody sells new sets on ebay.
After going through the cardboard box that came with the lathe I figured I should put all of the accessories away, and I only want to put them away once.
I'm kinda addicted to tool boxes and pick up things like this whenever I see them for a good price.
I bought this kennedy machinist box on craigslist months ago for 20 dollars and it came with free mystery goo!
Nothing WD40 can't fix.
Anyway the lathe did come with a nice selection of drill bits for the taper of the tail stock, tool holders, tool steel, and some other odds & ends. Only the largest bit looks like somebody beat it up by putting it in a chuck. The valve from a car was mystery, but I looked it up and apparently people like to make tools from them.
I scraped all the loose paint off and started to look at the table to see what it would take to make it straight.
It feels like it's just got a couple dents... oh and a 2 foot long half inch drop in the middle.
It turns out it's actually a piece of 1/8 inch welded to a piece of 1/4 inch. Which is worse. To heat up 3/8 would be hard enough, but if there is a air gap between the pieces it will be near impossible to shrink them at the same time.
I checked the middle of the table to confirm it was only reinforced on the ends. So maybe I can live with the ends the way they are and just bring the middle up a bit
Just pull out your large vintage craftsman torch and victor bottle wrench.
And change over to a rosebud, not the sled. This one is small, but my torch set is ancient and the o-rings are dead on the large victor handle.
And I didn't take another picture because it didn't move a millimeter. Wen't home dejected, but I've been thinking on it a little. I could go through a bottle of acetylene at this rate, and that stuff isn't cheap.
I could try cutting a few slits in it and welding them up. when you do that the weld brings the two pieces together. If you ever weld two pieces of metal together without tack welds you will know they basically end up on top of each other.
I could also just treat it like a car frame. Strap it to a large I-beam and push up from the bottom with a port-a-power or jack.
I could also just cut the lip of the outside and weld it to a new piece of steel, but that would be a lot of welding.
In all seriousness, if it's not causing a problem I'd not bother trying to repair the dent. Sounds like a difficult task that has much more potential for downside than upside.
Yeah, I ended up taking my grandpa there after breakfast and he talked me out of it. If I do it in halves all I'm going to do is screw up the clearances on the pulleys as it looks like the steel has been hammered into place to make it work as it sits. Really the only solution to fix it would be to replace it.
07-30-2015, 08:49 PM
