Power feed woes...

When I purchased my model 60/61 I knew the power feed didn't work and I wasn't told why when or how. I'm finally ready to fix it. I started by taking the bracket off the right side of the lathe that the rods rest in. clutch rod and feed rod came out simply I wasn't aware of the nut on the backside of the lead screw until reading a post by beckley on another apron removal thread that took the longest Bc the nut was fine threads and in a tight spot. After removing the nut I removed the leadscrew and threading dial. Next was the four* bolts holding the apron. I say four because I have four going down and it took me a few minutes to find the other four came from underneath. So I put two of the bolts back in ontop and removed the other four. I used a ATV jack underneath the apron held it up with a little bit of pressure and looses the last two bolts until they were free. I then lowered the jack enough to clear the gears and moved the apron to a work bench. After a quick wipe down getting all the loose crud off I started to remove the gearing I took a big peice of cardboard like what comes between plywood and layed the parts out on it writing next to it the corresponding location order and part number from the monarch parts catalog. I've taken things apart before and failed to remember exactly how to put them back so figured this would help. Now to the cause of this power feed issue gear 44 and 49 mesh together and provide you with your "power feed" I could see the teeth gone as soon as I lowered the apron but got a better look at them when they were removed. Apparently this has happened before because this set of gears has been molested. Previous owner had taken and turned the gears down to a shaft and pressed on a new gear welded it and called it good. I think I will do the same but use diffrent metal when I make the gear as the metal he used seems to be soft and almost gummy. My main purpose of this post is to ask how you guys would handle this? I would love to have the $3,000 to just buy the gears from monarch. But I've been on the stale bread and ramen diet for some time. I have a dividing head and I have a mill I could in theory make the new gears. I could also buy gear blanks and machine the center out to press in the old shaft weld and they be as previous repaired. Thoughts? Thanks -John

I would make the gears out of 4140PH.
Harry

Make the entire assy or just the bad gears and press on/weld like the previous repair? -John

It depends on how much gear cutting you want to, but I would probably make all new gears, even the good gear looks knackered.
Harry

I've never made gears before but this gives me a reason to learn. I'll try and document my process.

You wont want to cut gears from alloy, if you are going to make them use something free machiniing they will last forever under normal use. The amount of pressure it takes to destroy a gear like that is huge. I doubt you would do that to your lathe.

"4XXX or 86XX are no harder to mill or shape well than 12L."

That is utter nonsense. Please disregard for people out there who are learning about machining.

Anyone encouraging replacing Monarch gears with butter metal gears are creating pieces of sh-t. They are all straight cut spur gears, the easiest on earth to make. Read a book and you know how to do it.

Monarch gears were done far above regular gears and those engineers knew how and why.

Bill my plan was to separate them and see what kind of damage has been done to the original and Yes i received a quote for one of the gears before i pulled apart my apron i asked for several gear prices and the gear 049 smaller and less complex of the two was $1725.00 so at the risk of shoving my foot in my mouth I ASSumed 3k would be about right. i did not think to see if anyone has a pull out or replacement i will start a thread. the bad part for me is i only have one lathe so i need to re assemble to preform operation on these gears. -John

Post the numbers up on what you have, likely a low cost solution available by using stock parts from Boston gear or Martin and a little machining.

Good luck
Matt

On edit after seeing your post - the stock gear mods could be done with a mill if you have one.

What do you guys think about gear blanks? Used them at the farm I used to work at told them the tooth specs and you get a gear that just needs center hole. I say this because I have little to no tooling for my mill and a holder for the gear cutter isn't one in my arsenal.

John, see post #12... You're posting too fast.

Matt

I just noticed it haha

I am willing to bet that the gears that were in that lathe are messed up not because of metal choice but from abuse. I have replaced and made tons of gears for aprons on lathes, most are bronze so that when some nimrod thinks he can take a 2 inch pass in chromoly at 30 inches per minute the gear breaks and does not shred the whole drive train. Leblond used to make hard gears for the feed train and they broke the houseings on the apron before the gears failed. If used properly and not abused standard gears not hardened should out last the owner of the lathe. But what the hell do I know, I have only repaired shit loads of lathes.

Seeing as how I also have power annulars I wouldn't doubt it was abuse.

My mill is a Bridgeport Interact series 1 I could try and find all the tooling I need.

The least fooling around will be

A. Make drawings that can be used in a machine shop
B. Make or have made blanks - one piece - prehardened stock (I would use 4150S used to be called Maxel 3 1/2)
C. Send to gear shop with gear shaper

As John says, you need to invest in or borrow a gear pitch gage...to establish the diametral pitch.

Then with some basic equations, establish the OD of the blanks which will be needed no matter what method of tooth forming is used. (and ID, thickness, other features from reverse-engineering)

Next you will need some way to index the blank in a series of precision steps and cut it, no matter whether using vertical or horizontal milling or a garden variety crank-shaper.

Since this is a pinion I'd rule out the classic gear material of grey cast iron...not enough strength per small tooth...which doesn't have a lot of "buddies" to help share the loads. The gnarly deformation, while ugly, probably saved a bigger crash. Anything heat-treated is bound to have deformation after the process, requiring some kind of finishing that's above the capability of a milling cutter....hence the recommendation for a pre-hardened material. I like the idea of a 4140 PHT steel.

Another challenge is figuring out how to connect all these reliably and still be able to manufacture them.

I think some savings is possible over the Monarch quote, but its not a $5.00 endeavour either.

Posted many times on the forum is the basics of nailing down Diametral Pitch - tooth size

Mic OD, record

Count teeth, add TWO

Divide the sum by the OD

Example:

32 teeth

2.125" OD

32 + 2 = 34

34 divided by 2.125 = 16 DP

This process is naturally complicated by gnarly damage, but their running mates may not be as bad and will have the same answer for both gears - or they would not be running mates.

This likely will not provide perfect round numbers for the simple reason these gears were made on gear shapers - and Fellows had their own system - but the gear shaper shop chosen will know all this.

In case you have never seen a gear shaper.....

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v337/johnoder/OldFellowsNo6.jpg

johnoder said:

Posted many times on the forum is the basics of nailing down Diametral Pitch - tooth size

Mic OD, record

Count teeth, add TWO

Divide the sum by the OD

Example:

32 teeth

2.125" OD

32 + 2 = 34

34 divided by 2.125 = 16 DP

This process is naturally complicated by gnarly damage, but their running mates may not be as bad and will have the same answer for both gears - or they would not be running mates.

This likely will not provide perfect round numbers for the simple reason these gears were made on gear shapers - and Fellows had their own system - but the gear shaper shop chosen will know all this.

In case you have never seen a gear shaper.....

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v337/johnoder/OldFellowsNo6.jpg

Click to expand...

There you go! The gear shaper is only $650.00..less than half the price of one gear

The two that are mates are the ones that are destroyed. I will do my best to take measurements and see what I can figure out. Also I would enjoy attempting to make these gears on my vertical mill if it's possible. I do have a dividing head and watched a YouTube video by the lazy machinist so I think I'm good machinist friend said since these are gears that mesh together it technically doesn't matter the specifics as long as they are the same? I do have access to a horizontal mill I could make the gears on also.