Finally got a hard look at the apron innards today, and underneath all the crap, it's still crap. There are 2 compound gears and 3 spur gears that need replacing. One of the spur gears I knew about when I pulled the apron at the start of this project, but the rest are for dire emergency use only. The rack pinion gear 15T 14DP, that I knew about, that one is worn, and still usable. I could get by using it, but I rather replace it now, instead of having to pull the apron in the future. The ones in the picture below are beyond use. I tried to get a close up of the tooth faces, but it was too blurred. The tooth faces are so bad that these gears will probably consume each other in short order, that's how rough they are. Rusty, I can tolerate; rough, pitted faces that look like cutters are another story. My dilemma is determining the most economical way to do this. I can fabricate the compounds buying a couple stock spurs, making what I don't have and buying 2 cutters; or I can make all of them, buying 3 cutters. That part is a wash, but I have a future project making change gears for my #2 K&T's DH's lead attachment for which I pretty much need a few set of cutters, and hence the quandry.
Anyway the gears in the picture are all part of the internal feed transmission from the feed rod to the cross feed clutch.

Harry

If you were to make all them gears with a rotary milling cutter, how are you going to make the compound gears? I thought you would need a gear shaping machine. I can't really tell how much space is between the coumpound gears.

Each gear of the compound gears will be made separately, and then welded together. I've got to check with the fellow that does microscopic welding to make sure this is feasible. He's in Las Vegas right now. I hope he wins, maybe he'll be inclined to take it easy on the pricing.
I've also heard about a few possible sources for the gears that I'll check into, although I'm more inclined to make them.

On another issue, I need a dimension in the apron pump assembly, if anybody has their pump out for servicing. The dimension I need is from the shoulder to the bottom of the ball end of the "piston" for the pump's bronze cam follower. The ball has eroded away, or was badly repaired, as you can tell from the picture below. I believe it's about 1.632", but would like confirmation.

Harry

It would appear that there is meat enough to bolt/pin the new gears together as an assembly and cutting them seperately....the more labor intensive part will be rounding the ends of the teeth.

I suppose they are hardened ....

Dave

Harry,
I've got my 1950 apron completely disassembled right now. I'm reading 1.624 from the shoulder to the end of the ball. There is some wear on the end- your 1.632 is probably spot on.
Gill McLane
Navarre, FL

Dave,
The gears are heat treated about as hard as 4140 PH, which is what I'm planning to make them out of, if I don't find an alternative source. To me, the intensive part is the teeth cutting, the tooth rounding is bench work, at least for me it is. It won't be pretty, but it will suffice.

Gill,
Thanks for the confirmation, that's what I thought it was, but this lathe is so screwed up, who knows.
Harry

Are these gears still available from Monarch?

Torque loads on the coupled gears are well within the capabilities of anaerobic retaining compounds if you'd consider them. The joints can be configured at diameters and lengths to get plenty of area so shear stresses remain far below the retaining compound capability.

It would be bad news for the micoscopic welder, let's hope he won in LV.

Another option is 2% silver bearing soft solder. It's shear strength is overkill for the job and it flows below the 4140 HT tempering temperature.

Or, drill and tap for setscrews axially at the joints to mimic the Monarch technique on all those plugs and bushings.

Dave,
I had already considered the options you mentioned, but the welder said he would do them as a courtesy. Besides I got another little job for him, that is below. BTW, he wouldn't tell me if he won, or lost, but I think it's the latter.

Peter,
Monarch may have the gears, but I don't want to hear the price.

Bottom of the apron oil pump. Note the holes in the shroud and the corrossion around the edge. Anybody got any ideas on what caused this, I sure don't.


Busied myself, in between jobs, finishing up the handwheel rebuild. I've finished shaping the welds around the hub, and working the wheel welds. The spoke in the center was completely missing, and the replacement is 6061-T6. It is also a bit crooked.


The other side.


Drill the hole for the handle, and a little paint, and you would have hard time telling this was 4 pieces.

Harry

Some of the parts you’ve shown in pictures look like they’ve had water on them to me. I’d say that little shroud proves it. It wouldn’t take long to make those holes if it sat idle after someone pressure washed it at some point, e.g.- to sell it.


Danny

That the machine was exposed to moisture, condensation most likely, is unquestioned, but I can almost guarantee that pressure washing wasn't involved. With the exception of getting the motor overhauled, the rest of the electricals weren't touched except to reconnect some transformers, and the machine ran when tested a few weeks ago. In addition the inside of the headstock was extremely clean, and I could see no evidence of moisture contamination in the rest of the headstock/gearbox areas.
The machine sat in a metal sided building for at least 6 years, on a gravel floor about 10-15 feet from the door. It was never hooked up.
Harry

The damage of the gears and pickup all look like moisture. Since the headstock inside looked good, and that non-sealing chrome plug on the headstock shows it was not washed or left in the weather. It would seem the water was from the oil put into the apron as lube. How many times have you seen oil drums lined up by the back door of a shop. Pumps screwed into the bung hole, and the little plug off or loose. All this maintained by the shopboy. Rainwater ran into the drum, then pumped into the apron.

During the restoration of a 31' chev. When I pulled the oil pan it had about 2" deep sludge covering the bottom. After cleaning there had to be 100+ pinholes in the bottom. The dipstick had shown full, the car had been sitting for 35 years, no leaks. The water collected under the sludge and rusted right through.

That makes sense.

My 10EE also had evidence of about 1" of water in the apron sump. No coolant on the machine and no evidence of water exposure elsewhere (with the exception of the cavities in the bottom of the taper attachment casting.

Cal

While waiting to get a reply on the availibility of apron gears from an aquaintance, I cleaned up the cross slide and the handwheel assembly. This lathe is going from bad to worse, in so far as rust damaged gears are concerned. The telescoping cross slide gear is also bad. That should be very interesting.
BTW, the gears aren't available, so it's on to plan B.
I also started scraping the flat slides of the cross slide, at least this is going fast. The following picture is the 6th spotting. There is a deep gouge on the headstock side flat slide, that I don't think I'll be able to completely eliminate without taking a substantial amount of material off. There is about a 1/16" of slide outboard of the gouge that I'm going to try and take advantage of. This is an area where the clearances are limited, and the less taken off the better. Once the slides are finished, I'll grind the top of the cross slide. This is the first time I've seen oil grooves in the flat slides.

Harry

Plan B is to make the gears, and I spent some time today locating some gear cutters. More on that later.
Finished up the cross slide. The remnant of the deep gouge is in the upper right corner. It goes to just shy of the second vertical oil groove. Originally it was about twice as long. There is a small border, that will hopefully keep stuff out, once the wiper is in place.


The top before grinding. The original owners did a lot of compound swiveling, the groove doesn't say much about their maintenance.


Ground the top and both sides. Got rid of the wear ring, but my wheel needed dressing, or I needed a different wheel. I'll see if stone the lines down a bit.


The compound rest taken apart. The 2 gib screws are to the left of the feed screw. Note the thinness of the screw head on the right. The position of the gib in the top slide is approx where I found it. The original owners of compensating for wear was to thin the screw head and have the head of the opposing screw bear against the side of the gib. If the gib is correctly positioned, it needs to be approx .030-.060" thicker.
Note the head of the screw in the feed handle. No holes for a pin spanner, or slot for a screw driver. I was able to get it out with a pair of pliers.
I've seen bonehead repairs before, but I think these deserve a some type of award.


The compound's swivel slide.


Despite the wear ring and bonehead repairs, the compound rest is in fairly decent condition as far as indicator checks go, so far.
Harry

The first 2 pictures are of a scraping situation that arises/occurs as scraping progresses. I don't recall if Connelly mentions this in MTR. It is; not enough spotting medium on the surface plate, straight edge, or whatever one uses to spot, in essense giving erroneous spotting, which I usually associate with to much medium and smearing. IME, it always occurs extremely close to finish.
In the first picture, and I've posed the top slide spotted slide's next to the spotting medium on the surface plate. Due to the location of the surface plate in a poorly lit section of the shop, I have a very hard time judging the distribution, and density, of the medium on the plate. I did move the plate for these pictures. So after the previous spotting, which showed a very nice distribution of spots, I reworked the medium on the plate and spotted the slides again with 2 very short strokes, flipped it over and saw about half of what you are seeing. What you are seeing is when I used a very large circular stroke, approx 2", and re-did the spotting and picked up some of the thicker medium, and that is the result. Got out the "tenth" indicator and started checking. Checked a blued spot and then checked an area next to it. If the needle moved, it was hard to tell. Did this in several spots, and the needle did move, barely, in a few areas, but never more than half a division.
In the second picture, I've applied more medium to the plate, a bit too much as it turned out, but this a more realistic picture of the surfaces. The slides were finished in 3 more cycles.




I have stoned the top slide's ways to highlight the diagonal "stripes" in the ways. The stripes, or lack of a better term, are oil pockets, and look like they were made with a cold chisel. The surface texture leaves a lot to be desired, although the stripes are approx.001" deep. The only other lathe I've seem something similar is my 16" CY, and the are round dimples.
Also, a good arguement can be made for washers under the T bolt nuts.


The top slide's nut is solid, but has anyone ever seen 2 taper pins in their nut, and what is their purpose. The pins are approx 1/16" below the major diameter of the threaded hole.

Harry

My compound nut (1952) did not have taper pins in it. I have no idea what purpose yours were intended for.

My compound base was knackered by the nuts too. It took about .015 to clean up both ears using a boring head to match the radius. The compound was fitted with thin hardened AN washers under new high quality hardened nuts with proper washer faces.

The work on the compound rest assembly has been, mostly, completed. The flat ways and slides were scraped, the dovetails weren't. I may scrape in few oil pockets, but really don't see the need. I did spot a couple of the surfaces, and they are flat.
The gib was the bigger problem. It was a badly fitted replacement, I could tell by the saw cuts on each end. If this was an original, it would have fit much better; as it was, I added a 3/64" shim made from A-2 precision ground flat stock. The shim was pinned using 3/16" drill rod. I pinned the gib and shim, to keep the shim from moving when turning the handle. The shim was pinned on the fixed side of the gib, whose big end was worn by the screw.
The handle screw, without holes, or slot, was re-worked. It was shortened, a shoulder removed, holes added, and head radiused. It is 3XX SS, not surprising since the original owners worked mostly SS.
I reassembled the compound rest, and bench tested it. There doesn't seem to be shake, and very minimal screw backlash, and no binding when turning the screw.
You can see the dowel pin ends on the sliding side of the gib. I have also counterbored the screw holes, using an end mill, in the rest's bottom.


The other side of the shim. You can tell where the pins were ground flush.


The re-worked handle screw.

Harry

Harry,

Very nice work, as always.

Were the pins for gib shim held by a press fit, Locktite, or some other method?

What was the reason for counterboring the holes in the rest bottom casting?

Cal

The drill rod was polished down to about .1870" and are a press fit. The two pieces were stacked and clamped on a subplate on the mill table, the holes were drilled using a #19 drill bit and reamed using a .1860" reamer. I gauged the holes at approx .1865-.1867".
The holes in the slide base were counterbored to get rid of the chewing they took from the nuts. I'll make up a couple of thin 4140PH washers and use them under the nuts. If past history is anything to go on, I don't make use of the top slide, except when I'm using the TA.
Harry