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14x30 Hendey lathe

John0030

Plastic
Joined
Feb 19, 2018
I'm looking for help to find a resource to replace the oil sight glass lenses on this lathe I just purchased. Can anyone help?
 
I'm looking for help to find a resource to replace the oil sight glass lenses on this lathe I just purchased. Can anyone help?
Picture of where the glass is to go,
Maybe McMaster Carr
Edgar

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I'm looking for help to find a resource to replace the oil sight glass lenses on this lathe I just purchased. Can anyone help?


Hendeyman's email in this linked thread. Drop him a line with the serial number of your Hendey, which will be right end on top stamped into machined cast iron in between the two front ways adjacent the pair of screws holding up the right end lead screw bracket

http://www.practicalmachinist.com/vb/antique-machinery-and-history/hendey-12x5-346311/
 
Check with the Ernst gauge glass company. They make a line of "bullseye" sight glasses for verifying oil or water flows, and may have a replacement lens that will fit your Hendey lathe headstock.

My other suggestion: get some clear Lexan or Acrylic (aka "plexiglass" or "Lucite") and cut the lenses from it. Lexan is a little more durable than acrylic plastic. Get a piece of it and you can cut it with a jig saw or band saw, and finish to diameter by filing and using a disc or belt sander. An old trick I saw done on a Hendey lathe where the sight glasses were long gone: discs of sheet metal were cut to fit where the glass lenses had gone. A small hole, on the order of 1/16" diameter, was drilled in the center of each disc. This was a "tell tale" hole, and as long as oil seeped out of those holes, the lathe headstock bearings had enough oil. This was many years ago in a shop I worked in. The discs of sheet metal were cut from galvanized steel and put in with gaskets and the old thick black "Permatex" gasket compound.

If you have access to an operational lathe here is a nice little trick for machining plastics: chuck a piece of flat wood such as plywood in your four-jaw chuck- a rectangular of square piece of wood works fine for this. Mark the center of this piece of wood with pencil lines and adjust the chuck jaws so the center you marked lines up with the tailstock center. This gives you a set of "crosshairs". Leave the protective paper on the Lexan or Acrylic if you have some new material to work with. If you are working with scrap where this protective shipping paper was removed, no problem. Mark the centerlines on the pieces of Lexan or Acrylic with a pencil if the shipping paper is still on them. Assuming you have cut the Lexan or acrylic into squares, and Using double faced adhesive tape, stick the Lexan or Acrylic to the double faced adhesive tape on the board you have chucked. Roughly center the Lexan or acrylic using the centerlines- either drawn on the protective paper, or by looking thru the clear Lexan or acrylic. Press firmly so the adhesive tape gets a good bond with the Lexan or Acrylic.

With a sharp parting tool or a sharp tool bit, with the lathe running at maybe 150-200 rpm, part the material to cut an oversized disc from the Lexan or Acrylic. Finish to diameter with a very sharp turning tool.

This is a trick I learned in about 1971 while working as a machinist in the instrument shop at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Research Hospital in NYC. We used to get all sorts of jobs in that shop, and machining plastics was a routine thing. Using double face tape was a trick the machinists in that shop used regularly. It will allow you to hold thin work so long as you are taking light cuts and not getting things too hot.

If you find some scrap plastic for the lenses and it is cloudy or scratched, a buffing wheel with some buffing compound (there is a compound made specially for buffing plastics) will restore clarity. We used to scrape edges with a piece of hacksaw blade or edge of a parting tool, then buff machined surfaces of acrylic plastics in the hospital machine shop. The result was the proverbial "crystal clear". You can use automotive polishing or rubbing compound made to take out fine scrathes and swirl marks and get the same result.

No law says the lens has to be glass on the headstock of your lathe, and acrylic or Lexan will do the job handily and is lots easier to work with than glass.
 
What I have been using (for my Hendey 12") for replacement oil sight windows are watch crystals. Get the sapphire material, virtually unbreakable. They are sold in many sizes and are @$10 each. I used 32.5mm from watchmaterial.com. I think they are on fleabay also.
 
My solution is not quite as elegant but I measured the old window material and it was .020" acrylic. I purchased a sheet. You can easily cut out a replacement with tin snips. It fit the window frame recess perfectly, I sealed with some black automotive RTV of high quality. Been doing a fine job for years now on my Hendy and a Cincinnati Bickford Super Service drill. I have quite a bit left over. If you would like some, I can mail some in a business envelope if I had your address, free of course. here is my email: snipesb(at)cnw.com
 
Made these for the 36" Ohio shaper (2004 - still looks great, no cracking/crazing or lack of clarity). Lexan in the window glass department at HD

While I was at it made some worth while 410 SS rings to hold them on using o-ring - which required new tapped holes in machine

First thumbnail is Ohio's POS sheet metal idea with super el flimso window
 

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