Grinding vs Planing a lathe bed

I just picked up a SB 10L that has quite a bit of wear on the non-hardened bed. I just got it home and it is still dirty and too cold to properly evaluate, but lets say there is a ridge you can easily hang your fingernail on. I know what I was getting and the price was right. At what point does it become a planing job due to the amount of material to be removed, or is grinding capable of doing it all? Is there an amount of wear on a bed like this that would make it unrecoverable or drive the cost too high?
I can't see myself hand scraping this bed, but I will be doing the carriage components and tailstock base.

Check it out because if the whole bed was used and so wear mostly even it may not be a bad as you think from looking at the ridge. Try to get some real numbers. Plus what is the need of your work. Many older machines poor for long travel can do close for short work.
Some poor machines can even do long bearinged shafts between centers.. with applying some talent.

After you check it out and so know what to ask, and how bad/good the machine ..Cash is not far away so you might call him.
*First...Do a proper search on PM and likely find the prices..and best way to go.

Some people wan't a hobby rebuilding a machine and some want to turn work..Both are Good.

If you can find someone with a working planer, you can plane it. Most lathe beds made in the last 60 years are hardened, and would need to be ground. A soft bed can also be ground.

Either way, it will be fairly expensive and possibly cost more than just buying a better lathe.

gzig5 said:

I just picked up a SB 10L that has quite a bit of wear on the non-hardened bed. I just got it home and it is still dirty and too cold to properly evaluate, but lets say there is a ridge you can easily hang your fingernail on. I know what I was getting and the price was right. At what point does it become a planing job due to the amount of material to be removed, or is grinding capable of doing it all? Is there an amount of wear on a bed like this that would make it unrecoverable or drive the cost too high?
I can't see myself hand scraping this bed, but I will be doing the carriage components and tailstock base.

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Neither becomes affordable at any point on low-cost, light lathes. Unless.. you have your own planer or a friend who is willing to do it just to demonstrate he can do.

Current economy and labour rates, the shipping and set up costs alone - before a bedway grinder is even powered-up - are greater than what modest lathes sell for, outright.

JF live with it, trade it for better, or learn to hand scrape and put in the hours - perhaps wastefully, even if feel-good rewarding - instead of doing something more lucrative.

Even a "Grand Old" class lathe may not justify it. They are still manual machine tools in a CNC world, after all. Seriously hard to earn-back the cost of a regrind plus-plus on the rest of the fitting-up.

Someone usually has to be "rich" enough - in time if not also MONEY - to adopt them as a pet.

They may make their own mess of chips and such, but at least they don't bark at the postman, tear up the curtains, scratch the furniture, piss on the carpet, or shit in the middle of the kitchen floor. DAMHIKT.

Tom Utley ( member here ) had Cash at Kinetic grind his SouthBend bed and it was worn on the order of 050" if I recall correctly...

I also had Kinetic grind my 10EE bed.

Cash does have a Rockford planer capable of doing the job, but I doubt he would be interested in setting it up for just one bed. You can always ask...

Good luck.

EDIT - If you do decide to go that route, I might be interested in having my own 10L done at the same time. Might save both of us some money...

Zahnrad Kopf said:

Tom Utley ( member here ) had Cash at Kinetic grind his SouthBend bed and it was worn on the order of 050" if I recall correctly...

I also had Kinetic grind my 10EE bed.

Cash does have a Rockford planer capable of doing the job, but I doubt he would be interested in setting it up for just one bed. You can always ask...

Good luck.

EDIT - If you do decide to go that route, I might be interested in having my own 10L done at the same time. Might save both of us some money...

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I have two 10EE in need under the same roof. Even so, I cannot readily justify the overall cost and effort. Nor do I expect a SB bed is that much less work for a resurfacer than a 10EE bed. Not sure doing two at a go saves him on much of anything except generating one invoice instead of two, either.

Perhaps Cash will drop by and advise?

Assessing, planning, and setup have to be done, man and machine time clocked, regardless of the "intrinsic worth" of the bed or the machine it was born to.

A newer, and far, far, less worn Cazeneuve HBX-360-BC was my option, and I got longer c-to-c daylight, more useful TS, and set-a-lever-easy bilingual inch/metric threading as a package of freebies.

I had may short bed heavy 10 reground a couple of years ago for $245. American Grinding, Chicago.

Tom

TDegenhart said:

I had may short bed heavy 10 reground a couple of years ago for $245. American Grinding, Chicago.

Tom

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Lowest I have seen recently and "sort of published" is just under $900 a pop, and nowhere near where I sit, geographically.

Bothway transport is a non-trivial exercise / expense on the heavier 10EE beds. So is re-mating them to the massive cast-iron "kinematic" base.

Time was, SB sold rather more than a few brand-new beds as repair parts. Once in a great while, one comes out of hiding as NOS, too.

Once and a while, Monarch Lathes LP has also had fully reground and certificated ones. For about the price of a right decent used car, which is not unreasonable atall.

By the time I had the spare cash for a 30" as would have been a nice upgrade, (over four large, and then one needed a new lead screw, surfacing driveshaft, and an extra 10" rack section....) those were long-gone. And then there are still 10EE bearings to sort.

To the good? The French lathe, entire, cost me about the same as a 10EE bed update ONLY.

Resurfaced bed won't be the only thing a SB needs, either. Might be wise to do some sharp pencil work before going too far. Several generations of machinists HAD to compensate for crap lathes in our Day Jobs. We didn't own the "company" lathe as was under our hands - weren't ordinarily even permitted to try to improve it. Work still got done, and for over a hundred years.

The OP asked about what's the difference.

It sounds as if he knows what he is doing because he said he can scrape. Not many South Bends had hard beds that I have seen. I have seen them, but the majority are soft and he should be able to push his scraper into the bed and it's easy to figure it out. South Bend planned the beds to approximately .001 to .002" (depending on length) accuracy and then hand scraped the bed to break up the surface. If he can get it ground in Chicago for $245.00 which is a deal and its a soft bed I would suggest he scraped or "square cut" the bed. We have discussed "stick slip" in the past and flat soft bed will get it faster if it surface is not broken up to get high spots. The Studer Grinder that Ballen just shows in the Abrasive forum is a good example as to why you need to cut the bed.

If I were you i would call that company in Chicago and see if they will do it for $ the deal of your lifetime, if not call around and find someone with a planer. I also doubt Cash Masters would do it that cheap on a grinder. He told me the planner is in storage and if it wasn't I doubt he would turn it on for $500.00.

A&D Machine rebuilding in Roberts Wisc could do it and he has a SB rebuild You Tube show on his web-site he did for a hobbyist, so give him a call. Also up here in Northfield MN Images of Machine Tools has 4 planners.

Sounds as if the OP wants to have fun rebuilding his lathe and if he's retired he can scrape it for fun and isn't worried about his labor $. If he does I hope he does a thread on doing it on here. Rich

I guess I don't get it. If you know how to scrape in a lathe and have the time to do it....you spend ~1k to regrind it and $600 for shipping. Total is sub-2k to get the basic regrind done. Lathes in the PNW where I'm at sell for a lot of money for clapped out crap. Maybe I'm missing something?

Monarchist said:

I have two 10EE in need under the same roof. Even so, I cannot readily justify the overall cost and effort.

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Some things are done irrelevant of cost considerations, at the very least with less regard for them.

Monarchist said:

Nor do I expect a SB bed is that much less work for a resurfacer than a 10EE bed.

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It is a bit different.

Monarchist said:

Not sure doing two at a go saves him on much of anything except generating one invoice instead of two, either.

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I am. Sure, that is. But then I have the experience of knowing just what the concerns are without speculating.

Being friends gets me no economic benefit regarding business**, but being there when they've ground a variety of lathe beds has allowed me to learn some of the considerations and the impact of some choices. It has a lot to do with setting the machine up to do a bed versus doing some of the other work that specific machine also normally does. The difference between breaking down to set up for one lathe bed as opposed to two or even three is a very real one. Also, some lathe beds have a larger number of critical surfaces than others. So, one can see how that relates to the time involved. My own 10EE had all Twelve surfaces ground. A SouthBend can usually get by with Eight, I believe. That's a fair amount of difference, right there. Then, there are Hardinge beds...

There are a number of other concerns, but the bottom line is that it very much can matter.

However, I don't and won't speak for Cash. I'm sure he will weigh in at some point if he sees the thread. And I will still consider adding my own to the pile if OP chooses to go that route. It's obvious that OP is not ignorant of all of this, having scraped other projects before.

** - If it did, I would have had the bed ground a long time ago, now.

Why would a guy buy an old rust bucket and spend $$$ to rebuild anything, a 57 Chev, a Bridgeport Mill, paint the Bridgeport to look like the 57 chev rebuild?? Because he can and wants to do it.
Bridgeport Mill - Rebuild

Zahnrad Kopf said:

..then I have the experience of knowing just what the concerns are without speculating.

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"Speculating" of course being how those of us who know less trigger those who know more to step up and share the particulars.



I mean - PM has run this forum for "a while" now, specific fees have been posted several times for various grinders around the USA, yet we've not really covered the economy of scale if more among us could schedule our needs so as to "pool" them into the same time-window at a grind shop. Given we now know that "it very much does matter".

Possible goal?

What if.. a grind shop could schedule an annual "South Bend week" or a semi-annual "10EE week", and folk in need then make pre-commitments to participate at a known, averaged-out fee? Use it or lose it, even - onus on each to get their bed on-site in time or stand a forfeiture of some sort?

2CW, but...

That sort of package could pop my two 10EE beds out of limbo 'coz a professional re-do makes them attractive to the next minder, even if I've not followed-up with the saddle & TS refit, but left that for better hands.

Part of my "first, do no harm" position from the old medical surgeon's maxim is to recognize that there ARE "better hands" for many things than my own, and that their task will be more easily done if following untouched straightforward wear AND NOT a half-vast scraping job, partially botched, then abandoned midway that screws-up the baseline assessment measurements. Or worse.

Over to Richard & others, but I'd bet it is easily as frustrating to follow Bubba-butchery as for a Barber to 'fix' a homemade haircut. Far better a worn machine not yet messed with, no?

American Grinding
2000 North Mango Avenue
Chicago, Illinois 60639-2899
(773) 889-4343
[email protected]
Welding & Fabrication - Chicago, Illinois - American Grinding & Machining Company
ASk for John in grinding

Tom

For those worried about the financial impact, I could sell the two chucks and steady rest the machine came with and scrap the rest of it and I'll still be money ahead. This is a well optioned machine and in good running condition should be worth something in the $2500 ballpark. I do this for fun and to keep me out of the bars, not to feed my family. I am by no means a "scraper hand" but I've been reasonably successful so far in my scraping endeavors. I'm looking forward to developing my skills further. I learned the basics from my dad who was a machinist and then an engineering manager at Continental Can Co. Rich, I'd be surprised if you or your dad hadn't crossed paths with my dad at one of the upper Midwest plants back in the good old days. I currently have five working lathes from itty-bitty up to an EMCO Super 11. I have a lot of time to get this SB into shape before I'll "need" it.

Back to the original question. I inquired about the difference in order to streamline the search for someone to take care of the bed, if I go forward with it. Sounds like either methods will be viable. I'll know more in coming weeks but I'm guessing there is .020-.030 of wear through the middle section of the bed. Cash gave me a reasonable quote on the 4' hardened bed from the machine I sold last year. I didn't go forward with the work because the wear on that one was minimal. I'll be contacting him to get his input as well as the shop in Chicago that Tom references. There was another grinder out towards Rockford that quoted my 14" Rockwell bed at $600 several years ago. Kinetic is less than 20 miles away, so that would be nice. I think I have enough potential grinders to get a good start.

There is also Precision Scraping and Alignment up near Appleton. Does anyone have any feedback on them?

medsar said:

I guess I don't get it. If you know how to scrape in a lathe and have the time to do it....you spend ~1k to regrind it and $600 for shipping. Total is sub-2k to get the basic regrind done. Lathes in the PNW where I'm at sell for a lot of money for clapped out crap. Maybe I'm missing something?

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I think the price to do the bed will be well under 1k all in if I do all the other work myself. We shall see. I'm looking into having it ground/planed because the thought of moving 20-30 thousandths on three prismatic and one flat ways, over the length required sounds like it would take quite a while by hand. I'm OK with doing the touch-up but I sold my Biax to ewlsey and I don't think my shoulders would take the abuse.

Im on the wrong end of the country, but should have a 40x10' planer running here soon. Just need to find a transformer to power 440v only motor.

I haven't run it yet, so don't know what kind of accuracy it's capable of it, but visually it's in pretty good shape.

But I don't have a surface plate large enough to put even a small lathe bed on, would be nice to do some measurement/investigation to make sure the bed isn't twisted. And then get some measurements after planing.

Just musing, mind you... but if I were not SO buried in customer work and looking for a new building for the shop, I would not mind one bit setting up the Rockford Planer that Cash owns and running the beds on that... that could actually be kind of fun... And, there is a BL40 within spitting distance of me right now... sigh... of course, I really do need to focus on the new shop building and my own scraping projects... oh well...

alskdjfhg said:

Im on the wrong end of the country, but should have a 40x10' planer running here soon. Just need to find a transformer to power 440v only motor.

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I have one surplus you can have, but the freight might kill the both of us - right about 400 lbs, Avoir 'coz it is sorta Rolls-Royce-ish as transformers go.

15 KVA R.E. Uptegraff, eliptical coil, all copper, nominal 220 <==> 440 and Delta-Delta.

Monarchist said:

I have one surplus you can have, but the freight might kill the both of us - right about 400 lbs, Avoir 'coz it is sorta Rolls-Royce-ish as transformers go.

15 KVA R.E. Uptegraff, eliptical coil, all copper, nominal 220 440 and Delta-Delta.

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That would probably be about right. But shipping does not sound like fun.

I was gonna ask at work where they got their step down transformers, they have a bunch of 440-220 running stuff, and go from there. I know some transformers work in either direction, but some dont. Also thinking about just changing the motor out, it's only 10hp.