# Back To It



## farmersamm (Nov 2, 2017)

Started a full rebuild on this old thing last Winter. No work done during the Summer months, naturally. Now I guess it's back to it. Should finish it out sometime before Xmas (yeah right :lol: )







Before teardown

Headstock is ready for reassembly. New bearings, bull gear, and chrome/grind on spindle. Countershaft rebuilt.

Saddle is mostly done. New cross slide leadscrew, mods on cross slide screw retainer, power feed worm gear rebuild, new gibs made. Saddle ways need to be bronze shimmed to compensate for wear. Bed ways are in reasonable shape for something this old. luckily Clausing had started building these with hardened ways at the time.

Tailstock needs shimming to compensate for ways wear. Tailstock ways are not a high wear item, so I'll just live with what wear there is, and compensate with the shims for tailstock alignment, and height.

Quick change gearbox is the only thing that didn't need attention.

Worth it????????????? Hell, I dunno. Could have bought a new Chinese 13x40 for what I have in the restoration, and I'd be making chips by now. One of those things you get started on, and don't realize how far you've gotten buried. And, when I'm done, I'll really have a lathe with less-than-perfect geometry.

Saddle ways are gonna be the biggest challenge. Impossible to build them up without applying too much heat (brazing, or spray welding with a soft metal). Too narrow for successful Turcite application. So the only alternative is to epoxy bronze shim stock to the ways, then scrape to fit.

Found the ol' girl in a junkyard. Plunked down 400 clams, they brought it over, I unloaded it...&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;..and it sat under a tarp out in the yard for about 5ish years, then got moved into the shop, where it languished for another 7ish years, then I got sick of looking at it last year, and decided it was time to do something with it. Geez.

Looked real good all those years ago...&#8230;&#8230;.little did I know the heartache that was to come








Probably start back working on it today, still waiting on parts for the Oliver. I've had enough vacation from the thing to sorta get back some enthusiasm for it.. Oh the things we do in life


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## farmersamm (Nov 2, 2017)

Today was decision day I guess.

I sort of back doored this job. Started with the headstock, and worked my way East out to the tailstock. THEN DECIDED TO LOOK AT THE WAYS DEAD LAST. Which shoulda been done FIRST.

Bed is level enough to test.












Leveling a lathe is really only a term, it's mostly about it being planar/flat. Long as there's no twist on the bed, it can be measured. The lathe is solidly bolted to the floor of the container, but the container ain't level. Not a problem long as the ways have no twist on them.

Ways are worn around 18" to the right of the headstock. To be expected, it's where most of the work is done.

Horizontal runout. Where the runout starts






and where it stops near the headstock






The saddle is wanting to run to the left of the headstock, or towards the operator.

Vertical issues. The same wear area is causing the saddle to rock on the ways. The far side flat way is the culprit.

Measuring setup






The saddle is sitting on an unworn part of the ways, while the indicator is set up to measure the deviation in the wear area ahead of the saddle as it's moved towards the headstock.

Bingo! Reading at beginning of the wear






. And as it nose dives towards the headstock






There, my friends, is the source of the rocking  About 10 thou

To verify, a .010 shim was placed under the part of the saddle that rocks






And the rocking goes away. To further verify that the saddle isn't the culprit, it was moved to virgin ways, and shim added to see if it raised the saddle






Which it did

I was expecting some wear, but not to the degree that I actually found. I feel it's possible to work around this if a guy adjusts for the worn area while working. The transition between good metal, and the bad spot would pose a problem though I'm thinking.

As far as the wear on the far side flat way, I feel that a guy could get around that by using a bronze shim under the corner of the saddle while working close to the headstock. I'm not sure whether it might even be needed. Most of the force when cutting is towards the back side of the front v way. A mallet test near where the toolpost is mounted, yielded no movement in the saddle. This ain't a real good test, but it's far more stable than I thought it might be.

I know, by the rebuild I've done so far, that this ol' gal wasn't cared for. It's possible that the wear at the front of the saddle, if any (saddle ways are worn about 15 thou based on a quick eyeball assessment), is from running over dirty ways for years. I need to put some blue ink on the saddle, and run it over the virgin ways. This will tell me whether the wear in the saddle is uniform, or mostly in the front quadrant. If it's just the front right quadrant, then I have no qualms shimming it during use. If, on the other hand, I find that the saddle ways are worn uniformly along their entire length, then shimming will cause the right rear quadrant to wear badly because it becomes a point load instead of a uniformly distributed load. Probably do this in the morning.

So, here's the big decision. Continue the rebuild, which is near completion, but involving throwing another handful of 100 dollar bills at it...&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;.Or make a run to the dealer, and plunk down 4K for a new Chinesium lathe.

I'm no machinist. I mostly do quite a bit of work on the mill, and have no real experience on a lathe. It's never been high on my priorities. I feel a milling machine is probably the most versatile kind of tool for what I do. Consequently, I'm not sure that my thoughts on a workaround to compensate for the bed wear is feasible. It's real tempting to just hook up the trailer tomorrow, and drag K'kins off to pick up a new one, but I hate to see all the work be for nothing on the ol' gurl. I'd like to see her run just for my own satisfaction. And I love that it's 50" between centers, not like the new one that's available (40" between centers)


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## farmersamm (Nov 2, 2017)

Took my lumps, and called it a day (very long sigh)









Even bought K'kins some new gloves, don't want her to get splinters


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## somedevildawg (Jun 20, 2011)

Scrap has made a bit of a rebound here lately.....

Enjoy!


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## farmersamm (Nov 2, 2017)

No scrap dealer for the old one. No way Jose.

It's going on the Alter of Stupidity, and Wishful Thinking 

I wanted American, but it just wasn't gonna be I guess. Lord Knows, I tried. She has an immaculate headstock now, working apron, etc.

Shame it's come to this. We try to rehabilitate old stuff from back in the day. Days are gone, and gotta accept it. New world.

There's one, far as I know, lathe builder left in this hemisphere. Standard Modern. BUILT IN NORTH AMERICA. They don't say built in USA. North America covers a lot of ground.

Have a good place for the ol' thing. Put it all back together, and keep it. Use it for hogging once in a while, just for the pleasure of seeing it turn.


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## somedevildawg (Jun 20, 2011)

A few years ago when metal was higher than giraffe knees......I went to a old machine shop auction, the old machines didn't bring much to anyone but the scrap guys, they were payin' high dollars. Of course, the manhole covers were missing in downtown Atlanta, couldn't keep an air conditioner in the window or in the roof, pivots had the wire stripped off of them......we can't stand scrap to be too high


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