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W. B. KEHL lathe philadelphia pa

joem64

Plastic
Joined
Nov 12, 2013
Location
new jersey
Does anyone have any information they might share regarding the W. B. KEHL co. of Philadelphia Pa. ?
I have an old lathe by that name which appears to be missing the back gears for it. Any thoughts on where one might look for parts for this lathe ?
kehl end stock side.jpgkehl front spindle bearing.jpgkehl gear side best.jpgW B KEHL Lathe.jpgw b kehl whole-2.jpg
 
You probably can't find the correct replacement parts unless you find a donor machine.
You may have to adapt/fabricate some more common parts to fit.
Interesting to see a 5 step pulley on a lathe that small.
 
You won't find exact replacement parts, but I bet we could adapt something. Measure the outer diameter, face width (thickness) and tooth counts of both of the gears on the spinde. Then measure the center-to-center distance between the spindle and the back gear shaft hole in the headstock. With those measurements, we can find some other gears that will fit.

allan
 
thanks for your help! The measurements would be:

spindle gears - left side (smaller gear) 1 7/8" od, 3/8" face (need to learn how to count teeth yet)
spindle gears - right side (large near chuck) 4 5/8" o.d., 5/8" face (need to look into how to take accurate tooth count)

The back gear shaft holes are 3" from center to center (to spindle) with the shaft hole on left 11/16" dia. and on the right being 7/16" dia. (is the hole on left larger to engage eccentric gear engagement?)

The space between the back gear shaft holes is 7 5/16" inside faces and 9 1/2 from outside face to outside face.

Would appreciate any knowledge/help you could share with this.
 
Put a sharpie marker mark on one of the teeth, and spin the chuck while counting teeth. When you get back to the mark, stop counting :)

allan
 
thanks Allan! That worked perfectly.. why didn't I think of that? duh... lol anyway... it's 28 teeth on the smaller gear and 72 teeth on the larger gear near the chuck.
 
Ok- given those measurements, and the age of the machine, the existing gears are 16 DP, 14.5 PA. By definition, the missing gears must be the same. Given the center spacing and DP, the average number of teeth in each pair must be 48. Hence, the left side missing gear must be 68 teeth, and the right side missing gear must be 24 teeth. Overall ratio 7.29:1.

16 DP 14.5 PA gears in 1/2 or 7/16 face width are pretty common, both as used loose change gears from various lathes including the South Bend Heavy 10 or 9 JR and various small Logan lathes, and as off-the shelf parts from places like Boston Gear. They could easily be faced down to the 3/8 face width. The 5/8 face is a little less common (South Bend 11 change gears). But, given the small diameter, I would be inclined to cut those directly into the shaft of the replacement, rather than try to fit them to the OD of a shaft.

allan
 
"I would be inclined to cut those directly into the shaft of the replacement" and thus the reason why having an operational decent size lathe in your shop is so nice... you can consider projects like this without suffering too much damage to your wallet... not to mention the satisfaction that comes from knowing you're self sufficient and capable. Unfortunately this is out of my league. Is this lathe worth listing on Ebay for parts do you think? I can't find anything at all about Kehl out of Philly.

Thanks again for all your help Allan
 
There is a problem with posting photos on this forum. It appears if the photo files are too big the image posted is shrunk to tiny. The solution is to resize your own photos.

What I am getting at is it looks like your machine 'might' be cobbled together from parts. The head which just happens to have a name on it. WAG based on limited pictures. I think I see crap under the tail stock, a slopy riser. I maybe all off on that, decoding tiny image is not my best suite.

if its all right and correct, which I doubt at the moment, then it is worth something to someone as a project. If not it is still worth something in parts. Either way it would be a very low dollar value. like 50 bucks? Now, for parts eBay seems logical, get what you can. Do you feel lucky? For a whole machine craig list makes more sense, less hassle shipping. I would like to see some good pictures.

You might find a PM forum member would like that as a restoration project and maybe have some leads on a complete lathe that can do some work for you. It should be a nice project, but; for most guys time, they would want a real machine not a frankenlathe. Can you try to work the photo issue?
 
Thanks for your input. I have issues getting rid of anything when it comes to tools so at $50 dollar value I'd just assume take a crack at using a treadmill motor with as largest hp rating I can find. I don't see myself trying to cut into anything more substantial than bushings, sleeves etc and I don't have any gears for threading that came with it so the lower speeds may not be needed anyway I'm thinking ? Any thoughts on variable dc treadmill motors on these bench top lathes ?
 
I'm a bit more generous than most, I'd give you $150 for it, if it was nearby. I think you might surprise yourself at how useful it is to have a lathe around, and at how easy it is to make small items you have always purchased before.

The lathe could be used to fix the back gear, with a little creative scrounging. It is a good beginner project to bore a shaft and some gears.

Treadmill motors run fast, so you would need a countershaft between it an the lathe.

allan
 
*update* After finding some time and finally working up the courage to remove the spindle from the lathe and then holding the chuck in a vice and unscrewing the spindle carefully, I then reinstalled the spindle in the lathe and noticed the run-out went from 19/10,000 to just 4 or 5/10,000 suggesting it's the chuck that's mostly buggered. As a result I'm going to try powering the lathe with a treadmill motor (since I don't have either the flat belt drive pulley set or back gears). The problem I'm going to have is finding and replacing the chuck and holding it to close tolerances.. but before I proceed what is acceptable run out on an antique lathe ?
 
In your other WEBO Drill Thread you suggested that there was .019 “ Wobble which is a lot .
5/ 10,000 ths. or .0005 is not too bad for an old chuck or even a much newer one depending on where you are measuring .
Measuring anything in tenths of a thousandth on a machine of this age and condition is really for the most part not realistic.
You may not be used to dealing with these measurements or I’m misreading something myself.
Could you could clarify this ?
It looks to me like the the adapter plate or back plate as the are commonly called that adapts the chuck body to the spindle is much longer than necessary possibly the original back plate next to the chuck had a thread or bore too large for the spindle of this lathe so someone threaded in another adapter to make it fit.
This moves the body of the chuck rather far away from the support of the headstock bearing and amplifies any wobble that may be there.
To improve the situation you will likely have to make a new back plate for your chuck that will let it sit back closer to the headstock bearing.
There are some other threads on here that deal with fitting chucks and back plates to spindles .
I seem to recall Joe Michaels writing about it some where but can’t remember the thread for the moment .
Joe or someone else can likely tell you how to go about this better than I can.

One thing I can tell you is that by allowing a little extra material for a sacrificial chucking piece on a shaft or turning up a stub mandrel with out removing it from the chuck to finish turning a pulley true with the bore many perfectly useable parts can and have been made in a wobbly old chuck.
It just takes a little more patience and understanding and there and it won’t work for every job .
You have to plan your job so that all but the last non critical surface are machined with out removing the part from the chuck between operations.
I dare say its possible to make a new back plate for the chuck you have using that chuck and finishing the back plate directly on the spindle .
You would however need the back gears or some other means to run the spindle slow enough to turn that diameter and cut the threads.
I’m out of time for now.
Regards,
Jim
 
Happy TG Jim and to all of PM, thanks for replying. I'm certain you are correct and that I'm misreading the indicator but here's what I did. I re-installed the spindle without the chuck and took readings directly against the side of the spindle shaft just before the threads (which are 1-1/4 by 8 tpi) I the only indicator that I have (so far) which is a Mitutoyo surface(?) indicator? I don't even know.. I've attached pics and maybe you can tell me? I placed the indicator on an area of the tool post with a small c-clamp and touched the side of the spindle as close to 90 degrees as possible, then went deeper until the dial hand read .003 I then spun the spindle slowly by hand and the most jumping that I observed was between .0004 and .0005.. half of that movement I thought might be from roughness on the surface of the spindle.

"It looks to me like the the adapter plate or back plate as the are commonly called that adapts the chuck body to the spindle is much longer than necessary possibly the original back plate next to the chuck had a thread or bore too large for the spindle" That's exactly what it looks like they did. I'm not even sure if they are threaded layers or just pressed in and then fine tuned with set screws. I plan to try to pull those layers apart when I get a chance and I'll post it here.
So far I'm not seeing much (used and affordable) chucks that fit a 1-1/4 by 8 tpi should I assume this is a harder to find sizing?

Do you think if I take a 2.5 hp treadmill and stripping the d.c. motor / power supply / speed controller would produce enough torque at slower speeds to try finishing a back plate project as you suggested?


mitutoyo back angle.jpgmitutoyo dial face.jpg
 
Happy TG you and others who are celebrating as well .
If you are running with in .0005” on the indicator I don’t think that you will get much better than that for run out on an old lathe.
Once you get the spindle running you can polish the surface of the register ring and the shoulder where the chuck threads up against with some fine emery cloth to give a smoother reading on the indicator.
You will need to check that the spindle bearings are not too tight or too loose .
Joe Michaels explained how to do this in this thread
http://www.practicalmachinist.com/v...r-d-m-company-rockford-il-275904/#post2167549
Most of this would apply to your lathe as well .
I know its long but if you read through Brian’s thread ,http://www.practicalmachinist.com/vb/antique-machinery-history/john-bertram-sons-lathe-saved-230971/ .
You will see how some one else with minimal machining experience over came many of the issues you might encounter fixing up your lathe .
Even though the lathes are not the same make Brian has some good photos and descriptions of his rebuild including how he managed to fix things with out the proper tools.
There are several links to other books etc. in there that may help as well.
As far as the tread mill motor I don’t know anything about them so I can’t comment on that .
You may be able to get some use out of the lathe with that but I think to get the full use from your lathe I think you will eventually need some back gears for it.
You can see how they are typically set up in Brian’s pictures .
Regards,
Jim
 
A treadmill motor will be fine if you add an intermediate countershaft. They turn much too fast for direct connection to the spindle. You will likely never find a 1.25x8 chuck backplate, but no matter, you can make or modify one pretty easily, all you need is a lathe. Unfortunately, backgears do make that easier.

allan
 
Thanks for the links Jim, great stuff! Reading the "Joe Michaels" now... great stuff on tuning and shiming bronze spindle bearings on antique lathes. I'll get to the 2nd link after I absorbed as much as I can from the 1st link. Thanks again!!

I've attached a few pics of the chuck just in case there is something unusual about it (that might account for so much "wobble") that perhaps jumps out to the expert eyes here on pm. I tried to take a close up one of the screws, how it looks like a cavity was chipped or gouged into a sleeve to make clearance for the screw heads. Does this look right ? I know almost nothing about lathe chucks and even to me I suspect something is wrong with this rig.

chuck backing screws.jpgChuck front.jpgChuck backing.jpg

btw the treadmill motor via it's variable speed control would provide a range of 0 to x rpm's of the lathe which I would limit the top end with some kind of rigged up cheap tach so as not to spin the lathe above it's limits... or so my thoughts go.

EDIT: to Allan, just saw your post after I posted this one... thanks! I'll look into an intermediate counter-shaft for the rig.
 
The chuck is just small and ancient and battered. It might still be useful. In fact, you might get a bigger 4 jaw, and hold the old three jaw (without the backplate) in the 4 jaw when you need to do something small and/or repetative. In the short term, leave it alone. You can use it to make a clone of your spindle, and a backplate for another chuck, even with its runout. The trick is to not unchuck the work.

allan
 
I agree that with Allan that your chuck really has seen better days and to make an other back plate you would likely need the other set of jaws that normally comes with the chuck to hold the larger diameter of the back plate.
There may be a way to do it with out but I didn’t take the time to figure out how to do yet .
There is probably a thread about fitting chucks using a dummy or clone spindle that Allan mentioned.
I have attached some pictures of a dummy spindle of a dividing head of my father’s.
He made it to use when he made the 5”dia. aluminum back plate for a 5” chuck for the dividing head .
I showed the thread , register and shoulder parts of the spindle that I mentioned earlier just in case some folks use a different term for these features.
You can see the proportions of the back plate and how it threads right up to the shoulder in the last picture .
A back plate to fit your chuck or another one should look similar .
For safety reasons I would not recommend cast aluminum for a lathe back plate cast Iron would be the most common material for this .
Regards,
Jim
 

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