Georgia Rebuilding - Scraping Class May 21- 25, 2017

Hi All,

I'm still here :-) Just spent the last 4 days teaching a Rebuilding Class in Georgia at Keith Rucker's Shop, the 2nd here and we have one more day to go. Started on Wednesday and finishing today, Monday. Another diverse group:
MD, 1 Tech College Teacher, 777 Pilot, Job Shop Manager, 2 IT guys, NYC Artist, 2 Engineers. Returning students Lance and Keith. Several are PM members and I have been recruiting the others. Keith will post on his You Tube soon.

First day was 90 F and we or I suffered with the heat, we had several fans but we still were hot plus this is early nat season and they drove us nuts. I will add some pic's. This class we not only taught scraping.

It's early and I woke up and figured I should say something before the last day of class in 6 hours:

PIC's L - R. Matt Scraping a 18" SE, Lance showing how we test cross-slide and bed squarness, (alignment), We Turcited his cross-slide in class and he is scraping it, Views of how we put Lance's Monarch EE lathe bed on 3 - points so we could check the saddle Turcite and use it to scrape the ccoss-slide to the ground saddle. The bed had been ground and it measured less then a tenth (alignment) sitting a 3 points, note I am using the bridge style on the TS end . More later, as we Tuctited Keith's lathe saddle, scraped many angle blocks, SE's etc. I stop the class from time to time and have the students explain what they are doing. Rich

Finished the class yesterday Monday 5/15/2017. I am whipped...the class was a dandy again accept for the nats that crawled in your ears. I worm my safety glasses tight to keep them out of my eyes. Had to spray down heavy with Deep Wood Off and scrape behind a fan, not the most ideal place to avoid temp control and dirt.....As my former students will testify to some of them take longer to figure it out then others. I was worried as 2 students could not figure out the side cross motion and just dabbed down digging holes using the Biax Power Scraper. Yesterday their light went on...and were scraping 30 PPI on the projects. I have a few more pic's. I am so tired I can't sleep...it's 1 20 EST and I'm wide awake. I need to drive to Atlanta in the morning to catch a flight home tomorrow afternoon, o I can take a leisurely ride anyway. If I turn on my alarms right....lol More Pic's to come. Rich

Pic's L to R: 2nd pic should be first, showing Keith milling the saddle to accomidate the .047" Rulon 142, Keith applying the expox before we glued the Rulon, Jeff wringing his SE during scraping, Dave scraping his Sheldon compound, Mike scraping his Atlas lathe bed.

More pic's

Oh I will be teaching another class here in Oct/2017 and Keith and I are thinking next spring or fall for more classes, He said he has a 50 person waiting list now. I am going to try like Heck to get my small work shop ready to teach in MN. I have much of the summer off for that reason. I do have the middle of September open if anyone needs some rebuilding help or can organize a class in the upper Midwest close to MN so I can drive. Rich

It looks like the CA class this spring and summer won't be happening.

Pic. Keith explaining to the class his lathe bed ( it was only worn .003" as it was a Monarch flame hardened bed so we didn't gring the bed. Note his 1 2 3 block level holder he made so he could check the ways with a level and parallelism of bed. (alignment), just applied Rulon to the .020" worn soft iron saddle. Rex measuring his box square on a Square Master and plate Adam the MD brought, Rich is watching, Mike showing off his finished 30 PPI Atlas lathe bed, Keith trimming his saddle Rulon after gluing, Matt checking the depth of his scraping and holes.

Thanks for the thumbs up everyone. I do my best to teach everywhere, especially here. It is such an honor to help. I get such a heartwarming feeling when I see a students light go on when he/she gets it. As far as Keiths lathe bed goes. He and I talked about the lathe and what the value of it would be if he sent the bed out to be ground and if we completely rebuilt it. That is something everyone who has old equipment should think about.

I am not positive how old it is, probably in the 40's and it about a 24" swing and has a 2" hole in the spindle, slow RPM. I used to sell used machinery too, and in the used market a machine that old does not go up in value if or if not it is rebuilt. The bed was worn evenly from under the chuck to about 1/2 way up the bed. The tails stock ways up near the chuck were worn, but that will never see the tailstock and the reasn it was worn so much is some crud got under the clearance surface under the saddle and scratched it. The lowest spot was only .003" low.

The saddle ways were only worn .002 up near the chuck. If he were to pull the head and have the bed ground would mean he would have to spend time to take it apart..we guessed 10 hours, clean and load it on his truck, he would have to take time off work to send it up north to have it ground, come back, assemble it rebuilding as he went...spending approx. $10,000.00 to do that. Then as the head was off he would probably replace the bearings in the head, another $4000.00, paint fix other things as he went...possibly spending $15 to $18,000.00 for an old machine that was not worth $5000.00 on a used machinery floor.

He also said he doesn't turn shafts longer the 3' and the bed was worn evenly up to there. So he decided to just do a repair with new Rulon on the saddle, scrape the saddle and cross slide square to the bed like the way I taught Keith to scrape his Monarch EE. I believe Keith shot some You Tube on that process so you can see what and how we did it (alignment). He said he had other places he would like to spend his money then that old lathe. It was fun as those sorts of projects make the class more fun for me. Both Keith and Lance were second time students so they began their projects on day one as the others spent days 1 & 2 learning to scrape (even though a few didn't get it then, I kept the class moving and by day 3 they were working on there personal project.

One of the students was tired on day one plus he had an attack of arthritis and had to take off Tuesday, came in later in the morning, but by day 5 he was scraping and testing his project as good as the rest. It's like riding a bike, some take longer then others to learn to ride. A BIG THANKS to Keith for giving us a great place to teach and earn. My old friend Edgar stopped bye and said hello too. Keith drove me from the hotel, it was a pleasure talking to him about his in and out of his shop life. Matt who in a propulsion Engineer for Mercury Motors as Tom (oops Mike) Jeff's, Rich, Rex, Dave, Adam, Matt, Mike's and the others. I hope we can meet someday again, if not pass on my knowledge please. Oh and not to labor the point, as you can see I teach Alignment of all sorts in these classes. Rich

Pic's

Keith's lathe before Rulon application using plastic wrap so epoxy didn't stick to bed. We set the saddle on the bed so the Rulon formed to the bed squeezing out the glue to compensate for the off angles. Matt bluing the dovetail angle of his SE and Mike being a detective scoping out the wear on his Sheldon Lathe saddle / bed way; Dave and Mike (another You Tuber) ALIGNING the bed using a level on the top of the compound. This method follows to tool path on a worn bed. When we took the 2 collar test cut it tuned with-in .0005" first try.

Richard thanks for posting the pictures and especially for teaching the class!! It was a great 5 days of learning!! I especially enjoyed the opportunity to meet you and all the guys and get to know them a little bit. We hobbyists come from all kinds of different backgrounds and make our living in all kinds of interesting ways but we share one thing and that is making things and we want to make those things as good as we can. We spend lots of time toiling in our small basement shops (or large barn like workshops like Keith's) by ourselves striving to make that ball handle or refurbish that old machine that followed us home. We watch YouTube, read books, and interact here on the Internet trying to figure it out and we get close but we want to take it to that next level. You can't learn craftsmanship on TV. You need a craftsman to pass his knowledge on to you by showing and doing. Then you go back and practice, practice, practice. The "classroom" environment was great. Being able to walk around and look at other guys progress or call your table mate over to look at your work and get feedback on what's working for him was great. Now it is back to dragging the wife down to the basement to look at what I'm working on and get the "That's pretty...what is it?" response.

Thanks again Richard for passing on your knowledge and Craftsmanship. A special thanks to Keith Rucker for hosting the class in his first-class workshop. To all my classmates, Scrape On, and keep in touch.

Cheers,
Mike Ritchey (aka Tom)
Acworth, GA

Thanks for posting the pictures, Richard. I'm sure the class was a dandy, as usual. I wish I could have made it down again, but this is my busy season.

Typo....Lance drove me to and from the hotel as we stayed at the same one.. I swear I am going nut's mixing up Keith and Lance's name when I talk and write about them....I need to retire ....go Muskie fishing at my new cabin in Hayward, WI. I'm sorry Lance. Rich

Richard: Just wanted to post a quick note to tell you how much I enjoyed the class. I learned an awful lot, and I'm itching to put it to use. It's probably no surprise, but I've already got a used biax scraper on order. I've got no end of things I want to work on in my shop!

I sincerely appreciate your willingness to share your knowledge and experience at these classes. I know the travel has to get old.

Enjoy fishing at your new cabin!

Regards,
--
Rex (AKA Tom, Mike, or Dave)

Keith did a Awesome Movie for you tube on the class. Rich
Richard King Scraping and Machine Rebuilding Class - May 217 - YouTube

No worries Rich, the most important thing is we remember who you are.... I can't thank you enough for all the amazing training. Especially the "a-- chewing you gave me over giving Jeff C some advice that would slow his progress!! Lmao. It is all a learning process! Again thank you for sharing your knowledge and for all the help with my 10ee!! Be well my friend!