Heavy 10 delimna

I looked at a Heavy 10 yesterday. This is the version with the cast-iron pedestal under the headstock, and legs on the right. It was a father-son restoration project that was all but finished. Looks gorgeous, except the bed is pretty rough in that first foot right of the headstock. Actual wear ridge is not quite enough to hang a nail on, but the surface looks rough, like too many things had been dropped on it over a period of time.
Also has no tooling with it, but it does have a new single-phase motor plus the original 3-phase, and some extra parts.
Anyway, I offered $500 for it, and the offer was accepted. Now I'm wondering if I can come out on it, even parting it out.
What are the chances of finding a decent bed? That's all this thing needs to be a real keeper.
Opinions?

Location is Ft Worth TX if that's a consideration.

I would not get too excited about the ways,
Heavy 10s were often used as training machines and saw a lot more abuse than ware. Take an oil stone and knock down any high spots arond the dings and dents. See how she runs, cut a few parts and see if you can live with the "taper" that results from the bed ware. Rember, a drop in tool hight of a few thousants results in only a few tenths cange in diameter. Unless your doing very small parts.

Also, verify that everyting is adjusted properly when you set it up. A SB 10L on cast legs is not all that rigid. The bed will twist some and that can put more taper in a part than the ways will.
(most 9s & 10s have bed untwisting screws at the tail end of the bed.)

If you do need a bed, watch E-bay. Beds show up from time to time and are not all that popular.

Also, old SB beds are soft. They can be planed or ground back to speck.

My only other adivse on the heavy 10, engine lathe configuration. Put it up on some blocks. They are toooo short for most of us to run without bending over.

If its not beat into junk somewhere thats a reasonable price. You'll spend at least that much again on tooling. Make sure you pull the carriage & examine the oil bath inside the apron, theres supposed to be oil in there but it will often be full of greasy dirt & chips. 10L's are neat machines, have fun!

Regards,

Greg

Don't freak out about the bed near the
headstock.

I guarantee my first 10L had a bed that looked
three times worse than yours does!

And if you shim the right hand side legs
correctly, I suspect you will find that machine
turns and bores straight within better than a
thou, over at least a six inch length.

Do you need better than that? (serious question)

If you do, this may not be the machine for you.

But if you can live with that, then by all means
install it and run the heck out of it.

Do check inside the apron pocket for the
spooge factor. Do be careful if/when you
remove the gearbox/leadscrew, as they are
somewhat fragile. Don't drop the gearbox
on the tumbler.

Those are workhorse machines and the price sounds
like it was tolerably good.

Jim

Well, that makes me feel a bit better about it. This machine looks so good I hated to pass it up, but it would also be a shame to have to part it out.

Thanks guys

"Location is Ft Worth TX if that's a consideration"

If your machine is otherwise A-OK, you might want to keep the bed, but have it ground.

Commerce Grinding in Dallas can make quick work of grinding the bed to standard.

They've done 10EEs, both bed and carriage, in a day.

Peter
Thanks for the tip.
Are they familiar enough that I can tell them what I have and get a quote?

One the bed is ground, I presume I will have to raise the apron. Is that as simple as milling an appropriate amount off the upper surface where it contacts to bottom of the carriage?

Any other adjustments?

Hi There,

One the bed is ground, I presume I will
have to raise the apron. Is that as simple as
milling an appropriate amount off the upper
surface where it contacts to bottom of the
carriage?

Click to expand...

That is a no-no. If you do that, the gear
on the cross feed screw and the gear
in the apron that drives it won't engage
correctly.

There are two things you can do. Most people
have the bottom of the saddle (where is rides on
the bed ways) built-up with Turcite, a
slippery glue-on plastic like wear resistant
material. Check with the shop that regrinds
your bed to see if they offer this service.
Many re-builders include doing this service in
their quote. This re-establishes the original
apron to bed relationship.

The other way is to lower the QC gearbox,
lead screw support and rack gear the same amount
as the bed is ground down (plus whatever wear
and/or re-scraping there is on the saddle). You
can buy long strips of shim stock of the proper
thickness and epoxy it to the underside of the
front way of the bed and then bolt the rack, QC
gearbox and lead screw support back on.

The end gears can be re-adjusted to compensate
for the lower position of the input gear on the
QC gearbox.

You may want to check the alignment of the
headstock to the tail stock while your at it.
Often the base of the tail stock will wear down
and the center of the tail stock will be
significantly lower than the center of headstock
spindle.

I hope this helps. Good Luck!
-Blue Chips-
Webb

"Often the base of the tail stock will wear down
and the center of the tail stock will be significantly lower than the center of headstock
spindle."

I'd be willing to bet good money (a case of
beer, anyhow...) that this machine already
has a shim in between the two tailstock parts.

By the time the bed gets a ridge like that,
the bottom of the tailstock will be 10 or 20
thou low as well, which is easily corrected
by shimming.

Jim

"There are two things you can do. Most people have the bottom of the saddle (where is rides on the bed ways) built-up with Turcite, a slippery glue-on plastic like wear resistant
material. Check with the shop that regrinds your bed to see if they offer this service. Many re-builders include doing this service in their quote. This re-establishes the original apron to bed relationship.

"The other way is to lower the QC gearbox, lead screw support and rack gear the same amount
as the bed is ground down (plus whatever wear and/or re-scraping there is on the saddle). You
can buy long strips of shim stock of the proper thickness and epoxy it to the underside of the front way of the bed and then bolt the rack, QC gearbox and lead screw support back on."

The third, and preferred way is to raise the entire carriage using Moglice.

For this to be successful, the bed should be ground so that the flat ways are at identical heights, and the V ways are at identical heights, too.

Then, the underside of the carriage is relieved slightly.

Then, the bed on the base is leveled to absolute standard, and the carriage is prepared for fitting to the bed, using fixtures in place of the wipers at the four corners of the carriage.

When the bed is level, and the carriage is also level, and the relationship of the apron to the leadscrew is standard, the fixtures have been correctly set for application of Moglice.

Moglice fills the void, and when cured it is ready for final scraping. Usually a little is needed. Not very much.

This process was successfully done on a complete rebuild of a 10EE.

See This thread for a complete play-by-play.

Rex Tex, I am going to assume from your questions and the information that you provided that you are a relatively inexperienced hobbyist. In order to tell you whether you got a good deal, we need to know more about the machine. Heavy Ten’s are the most desirable of the South Bends, and unless it is totally dogged out, almost any of them with a QC gearbox in running condition will be worth more than $500, especially in Texas, where they aren’t all that common, so you shouldn’t worry too much. The models with a cast iron base are less common than the bench lathes, and normally bring less money for a machine of equal condition. Here is what you need to check

Does it have a single lever quick change gear box? These are the older ten inch lathes and have the lowest value. If it is the new double lever quick change, is it the one with 48 threads and feeds, or the newer 70 feed wide range model?

Is the spindle the newer 2 ¼ TPI or is the older 1 7/8? (with the older spindle and the single lever QC gearbox you just can’t justify a bed regrind in terms of increased resale.)

Does the machine have a taper attachment? (indicates more valuable toolroom model)

Did it come with any chucks at all? Does it have a thread dial?

You need to get the serial number of the tailstock end of the bed ways, and post it here, someone will be able to tell you when the lathe was made.

Get a copy of How to run a lathe from off the net, EBay, or Lindsey Publications. Also buy a parts list or get one from the web. In addition study up on some general machine safety before you start using the machine.

In general, for most South Bends, you can’t really justify a lathe bed regrind in terms of increasing the resale value more than what the regrind costs. This is especially true for the older models. My advice is that you get the lathe operational, start using it, and see if it can do all you want it to do. You may find it works fine for your needs. If you love the machine, and really feel it needs a bed regrind, you can always do that down the road, or you can search for a better machine, buy that, and then sell this one. In the meantime, you don’t need to worry about ruining this machine, because you don’t have much in it, and you can learn a lot from using it.

Post a couple of good pics(clean the ways of all old oil/grease) detailing the area that worries you, that'll give everyone a better idea of what to recommend. Most have told the truth on the desirability of the Heavy 10, and the difficulty of finding machines in TX. We aren't exactly in machine tool heaven.

My 10L(heavy ten) set me back $594 at a local auction. I don't think anyone there knew exactly what it was(including myself), or it would have gone much higher. Mine only came with a 3 jaw, faceplate, and a few cutting tools. In addition to being 3 phase, it was missing the threading dial, which I have since acquired, but is in reasonably good shape. Depending on what tooling your's came with, you may have gotten a heck of a deal. Pics of mine(if you haven't seen it) are here http://www.practicalmachinist.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=17;t=000534

BTW, I'm only a couple of hours away(assuming traffic is decent).

http://www.moglice.com/

They will send you a nice pack of information if you ask it of them.

Ted

Oh, I should probably add to the chorus - Don't get too uptight on the lathe bed issue. I can hang 4 nails on my 9" lathe bed, but it has not stopped me from making small parts on the lathe for the last 5 or 6 years.

If this is your first lathe, the wear usually looks much worse than it is. The real thing to look at is the condition of the headstock bearings. A so-so bed can still produce good parts, it just takes a bit more thinking & time. Also, I doubt you are going to be sending parts to NASA, a goal of ±.005 on parts is quite doable.

The more you use your lathe, the better you will get at it and the less the ways will matter. If you are looking to plunk down a few hundred, better you spend it on a good (read new) 3 jaw chuck than a bed job. A good chuck can turn better work on a so-so bed than an old chuck on a new bed. I'd suggest a 6" or 8" Bison, either the self centering or adjust-tru type.

Ted

Hi There,

There is a lot of truth in what Ted said. IF
the wear of the lathe bed is equal on both the
front and rear ways, so that the turning tool is
affected in the vertical plane and not in the
horizontal plane. The accuracy of the lathe
will not be affected as much as you might think.

For example, if the bed is worn so that the tip
of the lathe tool drops .010" vertically (and no
horizontal movement). The affect on turning a
1.000" diameter part is negligible. If the
cutter is set to turn exactly 1.000" on an
unworn section of the bed, when the saddle
rides over the worn section and the cutter tip
drops .010", the diameter will will be affected
by .00005".

Unfortunately, bed wear usually isn't even
between the front and read ways. The only way
to know for sure is to cut some pieces and
measure the error.

Also, you can "tweak" the bed to compensate for
the wear. This won't work for turning long
parts over the entire bed length. But seeing
that most for your work will usually be within a
foot of the front of the chuck, it will work
well within this limit.

Good Luck!
-Blue Chips-
Webb

KrisG
I'm a semi-experienced hobbyist. I have had a Logan 9x17 for 4 years. I've rebuilt a 10" Atlas and several 109s. Currently working on a 10" Enco, which will probably become my primary tool (with apologies to the purists).
I have How To Run A Lathe as well as quite a few other books. I sort of collect those.

Single lever QC. I presume that means it has the smaller spindle thread?

No taper attachment, probably no chucks, although there were lathe parts scattered all around the shop. All lathe items are included, but I saw no chucks. I know a toolpost is not included, but I have some that will work.

I'll get a S/N and pics next week.

I talked to the machinist at Commerce Grinding in Dallas. They quoted me $75/hr, estimated $625 to regrind bed, no other fitting included.

Rex,
You mentioned " ... but the surface looks rough, like too many things had been dropped on it over a period of time."
The crest of the v-ways can be really beat up and not affect machine accuracy at all. Nothing rides on the crest of the v-ways.

Rex Tex, Sorry, I was assuming this was your first machine. I probably didn’t phrase my previous post all that well, but what I was trying to say is that doing a lathe rebuild on one of these older machines is harder than it looks for a hobbyist, and can’t really be justified on economic grounds. I don’t know if you subscribe to home shop machinist, but there was a nice series of articles last year on lathe rebuilding that you might want to read. Since you have other machines, I think your best bet is to use this machine for a while, and then decide what you want to do. Even if you do all the refitting yourself, the bed regrind alone puts your investment up over $1100, which you probably can’t recover on these older machines. Any way, good luck with the machine, and some pictures would be great. After you run the machine for a while, I would be interested in hearing how you compare it to your other lathes.

My 10L left the factory in 1952 and has the 2 1/4"-8 TPI spindle nose, and a double lever QC.

I'd be inclined to believe that it could go either way. The larger spindle has roughly a 1 3/8" through hole. The best bet to find out would be a set of calipers and a steel rule.

KrisG
Yes, that's pretty much my thinking. There are a few guys locally that are specifically looking for a SB, so I may give them a shot at it. Otherwise I'll sort the pieces, set it up and see how it works out.

Imakechips: This thing has a big spindle through-hole, pretty sure it's the larger spindle thread (2.25). But that doesn't appear to jive with the single-tumbler QC.

I looked this over Sunday and commited to pick it up next Monday, so all this is from memory. I took a digital camera with me and then forgot to take pictures.

This guy had found a source for screen-printed brass plaque and QC chart, so those look (and are) brand new. I intend to find where he got those so I can see about having some made for my other projects.
The whole thing was abviously a labor of love, father and son project. Dad passed on 2 years ago, and son lost interest. Everything is clean, painted, polished, or replaced with new.