Hardinge UM

Thought I'd share my eternal work in progress the Hardinge UM. It was a free hunk of rust and now works very well. I added a vfd recently what an amazing upgrade!

Good save of an excellent machine. We have one that we turned into a production cutoff machine for Hypo tubing, yours into a universal lathe/mill is a nice touch. Does yours have the hardened wear strips in the dovetails?

CutTubing - YouTube

Nice paint, came out nice. Not many folks appreciate how great these are as a huge swing lathe. I've turned entire
motorcycle drums, still laced to the wheels, on that machine. Mine had to have the handles replaced, it came with
home-made ones. Made from welded-up rebar!

Where are you located? Any interest in an M head for that?

FredC said:

Good save of an excellent machine. We have one that we turned into a production cutoff machine for Hypo tubing, yours into a universal lathe/mill is a nice touch. Does yours have the hardened wear strips in the dovetails?

CutTubing - YouTube

Click to expand...

Yes the gibs were badly abused it took a very long time on stones to make a nice clean face on them. Currently I'm facing badly worn acme screws on Z and X, I definitely need the acme nuts as well. Anyone have dimensions of the nuts? I have some aluminum bronze handy for such a part if that would work.

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jim rozen said:

Nice paint, came out nice. Not many folks appreciate how great these are as a huge swing lathe. I've turned entire
motorcycle drums, still laced to the wheels, on that machine. Mine had to have the handles replaced, it came with
home-made ones. Made from welded-up rebar!

Where are you located? Any interest in an M head for that?

Click to expand...

I'm located near Tulsa. Right now I have a vertical head for it but I've yet to even mess with it. Its a Bridgeport head but the collet is a non existent size these days and only opens to 3/8". That is pretty much useless for me when I can run the vice standing and utilize the table indexing. The index marks are very accurate for my tinkery purposes. I would however love to have the original hardinge vertical head. They look stout as hell but the travel is very limited. I'm not sure what I really want to do with this thing I need to find a working lathe to accompany this antique. I do enjoy turning with this machine

How do you guys fight runout in the spindle? This year I pulled the front spindle bearings for a proper cleaning and greasing as they were spewing out nasty old grease when the spindle was warm. I currently measure .0007 runout at the taper and quite a bit more with tooling in collets. This is unacceptable but I'm not sure how to compensate.

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jordan6679 said:

How do you guys fight runout in the spindle? This year I pulled the front spindle bearings for a proper cleaning and greasing as they were spewing out nasty old grease when the spindle was warm. I currently measure .0007 runout at the taper and quite a bit more with tooling in collets. This is unacceptable but I'm not sure how to compensate.

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Click to expand...

This is a high mileage machine. Put a good indicator inside the spindle bore on the taper where the collet seats.
Mark an index on the spindle with a sharpie. Measure the runout in about ten spots as you rotate the spindle by
hand. Plot the results.

You will probably find there are three high spots and three low spots. The high spots are where the 5C collets have
slots. The low spots are where the the collet seats in the bore. It's wear from the collets, most likely.

Alternatively check the OD of the spindle on the straight section. Put the good indicator on the OD and put a
broomstick in the spindle, and gently rock the spindle back and forth. See how much TIR you get. If it's a lot
then replacement of the bearings is suggested.

Hi Jordan

Thanks for sharing your refurbishment, good work ... the Hardinge UM and TM are not often seen this side of the Atlantic but it's on my list

John