Thread: Another New Toy

The cross slide will be sent out to have the top ground, my grinder is to small for the width, and then I'll reverify the slides for flatness.

I had the table ground on my Hardinge mill a few years ago, after scraping the bottom flat to within .0002". The table warped .002". I was not happy. the grinder claimed he used coolant, but somehow I doubt he used enough... It took me another two weekends to rescrape top and bottom. That table is about the size as the cross slide on your 61. Its strange how grinders say "its the natural stresses in the iron relieving themselves", but I find that when I scrape metal off, even .010", I see absolutely no change in the overall geometry of the part. I think its the heat.

-Dave

Dave- Thanks for the warning/heads up. I'll ask the grinder about that, especially since I just scraped the guiding dovetail slide. I ground the cross slide of my '62 EE, and several other pieces of CI, wet and not had that problem.

Set up for scraping the cross slide's guiding dovetail slide. Needed to get the slide in such position that I could see it, and not stand on my head.


The 3 holes on the right are for the cross feed nut. The 2 outer are for the screws, the center is an oil galley that oils the nut and screw. There is a hole on the headstock side, that is visible in an earlier picture, with a grease fitting. The hole to the left of the 3, is for the TA's drawbar clamping screw.


Different style of scraper blade. I tried a short straight blade, but there was interference between the cross slide, the BIAX and my knuckles. Probably a good thing, the scraping seemed to go a lot easier.

Harry

Harry,

Do you see light at the end of the tunnel or is that just a train Was, is this, more than you expected or did you go off on a tangent with getting this "tuned up"?

Steve

I am absolutely loving these pictures! Even if you're not excited about posting them, I sure am excited to see them. I find watching someone else work on their projects is almost better than me working on mine. It would be no contest if I could eliminate the guilt I feel taking up so much time on the computer when I could be working.

And as far as MY wife is concerned, she is in the shop regularly, and is a great pair of extra hands. Last week, she spent several hours cleaning old grease/tar our of the saddle of my lathe, while I scraped paint. She almost acts as an enabler at times, though mostly through her neutrality on the subject of me buying tools/machines.

Steve,
I see light at the end of the tunnel, but it seems like it's taking forever. Right now I'm at a section that eats time, scraping always does, but it needs to be done. This is SOP, in my shop, when a lathe is a keeper, from a lesson I learned 30 something years ago. I'll elaborate on this, in a few days, when I get the verbage correct.
The straight edge proved to be a little more difficult than I was expecting, and the dovetail a little easier.
Harry

In my post of 4-6, the caption for the last picture with the level checking the cross slide ways needs to be qualified. The last part about being parallel to the bed ways in both directions would apply if this were a full reconditioning job, ie; the bed scraped or ground, the carriage slides reconditioned, etc, etc. THIS IS NOT A FULL RECONDITIONING JOB.
I started then stopped, scraping the cross slide ways today, and reconducted the survey. The results are the same, what has changed is that I determined that the level readings are mostly the result of wear in the carriage slides. Yes, there is wear in the cross slide ways, and that also contributes to the level readings, but I also checked the height from the top of the dovetails to the cross slide flat ways, and those readings were fairly constant. The different readings I got, did not jump out a say this is excessive, in fact they showed very little difference from side to side or front to back. They basically agreed across the board, so to speak. This caused me to stop and re-evaluate my earlier objective, and to consider the results had I persued that course. My conclusion was that I would be making things much worse, especially in regards to the cross feed screw alignment, plus a lot of additional scraping, not counting the problems with fitting the gib.
I will still use the level as a rough control, but I will not rely on it as the sole arbiter. I will use the cross slide, and the height from the top of the dovetail to the flat ways, as the primary arbiter.
Fortunately, I had only done about 3 scraping cycles, so no great harm was done.
Harry

After consulting with the grinder about the issues that Dave(rimcanyon) raised, about warpage, I decided that it was still in my best interests to get the cross slide ground. I concluded that it was far easier to correct a minor warp rather than scraping .006-.008" off the top. Yesterday he picked it up, today it came back, and the bill was a little over half of the original quote(surprise, surprise, that's never happened before). I conducted 2 tests on each side, the swivel test on the surface plate, and with the DTI. The ground side did not swivel, and the DTI was within .0002", the slide side had a bit of swivel, but the DTI was still .0002". I found the high spot approx in the middle of both sslides and scraped them out. The high spots showed up as bright spots on the scraped surface, and it was relatively easy to see them and pin point scrape them off.
The ground top of the cross slide. I don't particularily care for the feed stripes, but they will less noticable in a few months. The grinder followed my instructions to the letter. I told him to clean it up until the compound rest area way area way good. If the ends don't clean up, don't worry about it. It is flat, there is no warping, bowing, etc.


While I was waiting for the return of the cross slide, I scraped the the swivel slide of the compound rest, and got started on the compound top's slides. This is about the 7th cycle on the top's slides. When I started the spotting was only on the 4 corners.

Harry

30 something years ago when this was still a hobby, I learned a valuable lesson that has stayed with me, in fact it is SOP in my shop. Whenever I buy a "new" lathe, the carriage and cross slide gets checked out and scraped if necessary. This is all about the ability to cut/part off successfully.
When I was young and dumb, I was trying to cut off in an Atlas 6" lathe, which was essentually brand new. I wasn't having any success at all. I asked a machinist friend if he could help. He took one look at the lathe, used it a bit, and said it needed scraping in. I asked about scraping, and he gave me a very brief description. It went over my head. A while later I bought a 9" South Bend and Connelly's book "Machine Tool Reconditioning". I didn't know what MTR was about, but I read and reread the book and various sections several times until I felt that this was something I could do. I reworked the carriage on the SB, fortunately it wasn't in bad shape, made a square tool post for it, and tried cutting off. What an eye opener, no problems. I quickly found the limits of the SB, and as long as I worked within those limits, no problems. I then took another look at the Atlas, and noticed as I was in feeding, there were oil drops/bubbles coming from under the cross slide. I took the cross slide apart and spotted it on the surface plate, and only 3 corners barely had any blueing. I scraped the entire cross slide assembly as well as the carriage slides, reassembled the lathe, made a square toolpost and tried cutting off. Another eye opener.
I had tried all the remedies that we've read about here and on HSM. Not one of them worked, and yet I keep reading the same crap, all these years later. I guess nobody has investigated the root cause of the problem, rigidity, nor cares too. Scraping is not the total answer to the cutting off problems, but it is the biggest contributor to success, IMO. I have never been able to consistently grind a cut off blade, and still can't, which is the next biggest problem, but I solved that problem with inserts.
I've told a modified version of this story a couple of times in the BBS's, but I guess it's not the easy way.
My friends get on me about my workup procedures, and I explain my reasoning, but all I get are rolled eyes, and "hell, just put it back together and make chips". One of them is/was a machine shop owner, he told me his machinists couldn't cut off, so they just cut the parts long on the saw, and go from there. He came into my shop one day while I cutting off, and was amazed to see the results. I told him the same story. He had bought all new machines, and his machinists couldn't cut off. Go figure.
I've moved on since the Atlas and South Bend, and these Monarchs, Pacemakers, L&S's, etc, etc., are in a different class. I don't think I would have to many problems using the machines as recieved, but I'm not interested in problems after the machine is up and running.
Harry

Harry, regarding your compound. On all of the used lathes I have owned, both near to new condition to heavily worn, the compounds have not shown any sign of much use at all. There has been almost no backlash, no grooves worn in the slides, gibs not worn at all or adjustments showing any tightening.

I have never tried spotting the compounds slide surfaces in , so don't know if this would be possible or not.

Is it possible Monarch machined your compounds slides so they would "wear in" before they "wear out", thus increasing the life span of the slides and the machine?

I have noticed this on the slide surfaces of the carriage on my Harrison L6. I.E. the wings of the saddle and the oil grooves in the slide surfaces show contact wear in the ends of the saddle, both headstock and tailstock ends, but none in the middle 2'3 rds of the slide surfaces.

This makes me wonder if it was not fitted this way at the factory?

Quasi,
I've heard those claims for years. They are akin to the tailstocks being left high to allow for wear. I'm not familiar with the manufacturers practices regarding this, but it reminds me of a line from the Brit-Com "Are You Being Served"- it'll ride up with wear. IMO, it's a croc. I had a Harrison L-6 and did not notice the carriage slides having partial contact like yours. I have noticed on Monarchs, South Bends and some others that there is not 100% carriage slide contact, the area under the bridge being non-bearing, but the rest of the slide bearing. The Harrison has a very short carriage bearing on the bed, compared to the SB, and definitely the Monarchs; maybe this is what you're observing.

With regard to what I'm seeing on this compound, I don't think what I started with can be totally attributed to wear, perhaps there is a bit of age related stress relieving, or maybe there was a lot short movements. I'm just dealing with what I find. I wasn't planning on doing the swivel or the compound, it's already been painted, but I had a little free time, and thought I'd check it out. Now, I got a little extra to do. Go looking for trouble, and I'll find it.

With regard to the screw backlash, there is a lot in these Monarch compounds. Almost has to be, considering that the nut is part of the casting. This is not something that has bothered me with the CK, or the CY.
Harry

Harry,

As I have said before in this forum, I spent my teen years wondering why I couldn't do a decent cutoff with my 9" Logan, bought new. An old timer said the same thing about my Logan that you said about your lathe, that it looked like there was sufficient area in the slides, but the fit was poor. With my R15 Sheldon, also bought new, I just make sure the cutting oil is going the right place, hit the power feed and let 'er rip. The only problem I have had is a tendency to bend the cutoff blade toward the chuck a little, maybe .030" cutting off a 4.5" 6061T6 bar. I get the same effect with a HSS blade or an insert. If you really want to chogie with a HSS blade, grind a step in each side, just enough that you get three narrow chips, so they don't jam in the groove. I grind them on a two axis sine chuck on a surface grinder. You have to put in the clearances just like any other tool, so it takes a while, but it pays off in production.

Bill

Bill,
I find far more productive to use carbide inserts, I don't have to grind them. I don't do much cutting off on the engine lathes anymore, but I do run these inserts hard in the turret lathes. I can always tell when the insert is getting dull, the cut starts curving. Really gets interesting when you're cutting off 2-1/2" D 1018 at 734 RPM and the inserts starts acting up. Those Manchester inserts ain't cheap.

Spotting the top slide ways, about the 7th cycle. When I started the spotting closely matched the bare area in the 2nd picture of my 4-11 post. Every so often I will check the parallelism on the surface plate. The spotting sequence used the the top slide's slide for 2 cycles, then an angled straight edge for 2 cycles, to get ubder the dovetail. This spoting was done with the top slide. You can see where the tapered gib goes on the left side. It was finished about cycles later.


Checking the parallelism of the guided dovetail way to the guiding dovetail way, which was scraped earlier. I made the dovetail block that the mag base is on, when I did the same check on the 12" CK 6 years ago. The dovetail has 2 raised pads that contact the dovetail face. Notice the nut that is partially obscured by the knob.


I forgot that I took this picture of the raised pads. I used a die grinder to get rid of the excess material after I cut the dovetail.


About the 4th cycle, also a better view of the integral nut. The left side needs approx .0015" scraped off to obtain parallelism. As this prgresses the spotting will start increasing to the right.


Spotting the tapered gib, the gib is held in postion with the block and 3 nails. The big punch is used to seat the gib, firmly, in the assembled compound rest. The smaller punch is used to remove the gib after spotting. The gib was finished about 3 cycles later.


The compound rest is ready for the cross slide. The last operation was surface grinding the top for the toolpost. Size is a little decieving, the top slide is approx 12" long, the swivel base is approx 8-1/4" D X 10"+ long. The compound rest assembly weighs 49 LBS and the cross slide weighs 55 LBS.

Harry

Harry,

This is a nice charter to a book here. I realize that it is not a full reconditioning but it is certainly a lot farther than I will have time to do to my Monarch. I really enjoy this thread and want to thank you for it.

Jay

Jay,
I have searched for words in the past when presented with your situation, and I just don't know what to say except to wish the best.
I'm glad you are enjoying this topic, and I think you will really enjoy your Monarch. When they are "tuned up", there's not much that can touch them.

Todays post is a bit complicated. I'll start by saying that Monarch works with some very tight clearances, where you least expect them, at least on this particular lathe.
The original clearance between the cross slide and the carriage in the area between the dovetails must have been no more than .003". The cross slide was in contact with the top of the dovetail ways. In addition the wear difference between the headstock way side and the tailstock way side, was about .002", as measured from the top of the dovetails to the ways with a dial depth gauge, and very consistent. I know I didn't scrape off very much on the cross slide's slide to get them flat, the time was spent in getting them into shape to use as straight edges.
Once I discovered the that above contact was being made, the hard part was deciding which way to attack this problem. One avenue was to remove the material, about .015" from the top of the carriage, but that would have necessiatated the removal the carriage, or scraping it off, and reworking the TA drawbar, none of which I was not interested in doing. The other avenue was to remove the material from the inside of the cross slide, which is the avenue I chose.

The first spotting of the cross slide ways with the cross slide. This is definitely not what I expected to see. There was no spotting on the headstock side of the ways. This was when I discovered the contact between the cross slide and the carriage, and was not scraped.


The cross slide set up on the #4 Cincinnati for removing approx .015" from the interior to provide the clearance. This will require 3 passes, and one reset of the cross slide for the tapered gib side. There is a fly cutter in the holder, that cuts a 3"D approx.


The center cut has been made, and this is getting the guiding dovetail side. The cross slide was reset for the guided side to account for the tapered gib.


This is the first spotting with the reworked cross slide. Notice the big difference in the spotting pattern on the guided side, from today's first picture. There is some spotting on the guiding side, mostly under the dovetail. I've darkened the picture some, and you've really got to look for the spotting. It's mostly next to the dovetail's edge.


The picture is a little blurred, but this is how I get the cross slide on the ways to spot without cutting off fingers. It ain't easy.


Progress is being made. This is about the 9th cycle. To speed things up a bit, I used the angled straight edge for several spottings on the tailstock side to get the bulk of the material off and to equalize the heights between the 2 sides. The rest of the spottings will be to improve the bearing surface, and will mostly be done using the cross slide. Checking with the depth gauge, it's closer than it looks.

Harry

Harry,

I know this is a loaded question but, how long would it take somebody who has good bench work skills ie filing and such to feel comfortable scraping in a productive manner?

Steve

Steve,
You're right, that is a loaded question. Don't know.
I don't consider myself to be a particularly productive scraper, I don't have any deadlines to meet. I don't think my scraping is particularly pretty, but I manage to get very accurate machines when I'm done. I think coming up with a sequence of events is very important, and having the necessary tools is also high on the list. Ad libbing something, or getting in a "hurry", can be costly in time wasted. That's happened a time, or two.
Harry

One thing I forgot to mention about scraping gibs, is to make sure both sides are checked. There can be slight changes in the dovetail angles, after they have been scraped.

Got the flat ways finished up today, sorry no picture, the spotting was too faint to show up. I could hardly see it, but it was there. The cross slide is out of parallel to the bed ways by about .0015" longitudinally and .005" transversely, from what I could determine using the level
The next step is to take care of the guiding dovetail way, which has to be square to the spindle to .0005" concave/12". This necessiated the mounting of the 4 jaw, and indicating a parallel to be square. This is done by rotating the chuck 180*, and making any necessary adjustments so that a 0-0 reading is obtained. This is also means I have to mount the job crane to mount the chuck.
Don't laugh at my crane, I'm not exactly tickled with it, and I do need to remount the winch so that I can get rid of the bucket to stand on.



Indicating the parallel. I had to put a .0015" shim under the parallel to get the 0-0 reading.
I also made sure the parallel's face was square, you will get false readings if it isn't.


The test is done by starting the cross slide in the above position and moving it to the rea in this picture. It's convex about .005". I've got a lot of scraping to do. The BIAX isn't the easiest tool for me to use when I half standing on my head trying to see what I'm doing. I just may have to use the hand scraper.

Harry

Harry, I've been enjoying this series a lot. Especially since your progress is so rapid. By comparison, I started on my fp2 about 6 weeks ago, and have only got the column and one of the headstock ways done - I still have the knee and saddle to go. For me, it will be a 4 month project to recondition a machine, but I only get to work on average one day each weekend. If I am lucky. Another thing I have enjoyed seeing in your pictures is something it has taken me a long time to learn: the right amount of spotting compound. I tend to use too little, and it makes the scraping take much longer, since I am working only the highest spots. Thanks for all the pictures and progress reports.

-Dave

Dave,
It's taken me a long time to learn the right amount of marking compound to use, and I have to relearn it every time I do a machine. I use the Canode product, and I learned not to apply too much, I only get smeared spottings, so I use less and recharge the surface plate, straight edge, or template more often. I become very stingy on the recharge as I get nearer to the finish, don't need any oops.


The scraping of the dovetails is very difficult, physically. It's very hard to see what I'm doing, and I'm twisted like a pretzel. I'm not able to do this for long periods with out taking some breaks, and letting my back relax. Don't need any back spasms, and I came dangerously close yesterday while moving the cross slide from the lathe to the bench. The BIAX is more a hindrance than a help; I have a very hard time controlling it, so I'm using the hand scraper to do these dovetails.
The progress is very slow for the time spent. I've checked and rechecked my clearances, thinking I'm getting some interference somewhere, I've tried the red Canode, hoping to see the spotting better, which was less visible, so back to the blue. I've checked the guiding slide of the cross slide, which I'm using to spot the dovetail way, and improved it's bearing surface, etc., etc.
I did do one check of parallelism/squareness from the guided dovetail way which was very revealing, and truly surprising. That way needs some attention, but I did get what appears to be a 0-0 reading for squareness. The tapered surface for the gib in the cross slide appeared to have a crown in it when I indicated it in on the mill the other day, that will be rechecked soon.

This is about the 7th spotting of the guiding dovetail way. At this point about .003" of material has been removed from the 1st 18" or so. After this spotting the progress gets extremely slow.


This is about 5 cycles later, and the spotting is mostly staying on the end and very sparse isolated high spots. This is one of the exceptions. There is still about .0015" to go.


The first 2 pictures were taken Friday, this is from late Saturday morning just before I called it quits for the day. This is about 10 or so cycles later, after a fresh coating of spotting compound was applied. It looks encouraging, but is a bit to heavy to be reliable. It was very lightly scraped, and probably shouldn't have been. The very next spotting showed very few high spots, which are mostly on the end. At this point the way is only few tenths from 0-0 and I should start woking on bearing surface(as if I haven't).

Harry

After my last post, I figured getting this CS scraped in would be a "piece of cake", how wrong I was.
I fell into the trap the Dave(rimcanyon) mentioned, not using enough marking compound on the tool. When I'm very close to finishing way, or slide, I don't want a lot of compound on the spotting tool, and the nearer I get, the less I want. When circumstances require, I do recharge the tool, but I'm stingy. As this worked out, I had 0-0 readings on Monday using the CS as the spotting tool, however if I used the small dovetail block things were a little different. The block showed what I think were 0-0 readings but the needle was bouncing all over the place from -1, -2, +2, etc, etc, in no particular order. What I determined was happening was that the block was reacting to all the surface irregularities, and needed further improvement. In addition when I recharged the tool, I would get some questionable spotting, with one basic result. I would get spotting like you see in the picture below, but on the next cycle, the spotting would mostly be on the rear half, behind the oil slot, with a very few spots on the front half. Being the optimist, I continued this routine for some time thinking that the next spotting would be it, after all I very close. Eventually I figured out that I was victim of my own optimism. There were a couple of factors that contributed to this; I was scraping in a very awkward position and could not see to full advantage what I was doing, the lighting was not the best, and I had to take breaks and give my back a rest.(I was contorting myself in ways I thought had vanished years ago, old dogs relearning old tricks). Once I figured out what was going on, I took corrective actions and things improved.
As I progressed, the indicators readings using the small block settled down to a stable +- .0005" or less, and very stable 0-0 readings. The readings with the CS stayed at 0-0 through out. Once I was satisfied that the guiding way as good as I could get it, without spending a great deal of additional time, I turned my attention to the guided dovetail way. The small block indicator reading were a surprise, they were basically 0-0, with a few minor glitches. 3 scraping cycles and all was good.
The picture below, the spotting looks pretty evenly spread, but the next cycle was as described above. This picture was taken yesterday.


Just checking to see what lies ahead. The CS nut is attached to the CS, the gib is reasonably tight, and the screw turns easily, all things considered. The gib does need to be blocked out approx .030", and I can't figure out why yet. I didn't remove that much material, and the gib doesn't look that bad. In fact the gib had a lot built up goo on the side next to the CS. I can only think the gib was backed off, and rendered mostly useless for its intended purpose.

Harry