kastein
Plastic
- Joined
- Aug 7, 2017
- Location
- Central Massachusetts
I'd been wanting a lathe for many years, but could never justify the cost. One day a friend of a friend messaged me on facebook after seeing our mutual friend comment on pictures of a $FREE$ broken Sharp First HMV-1 I'd picked up the day before. He had the deal of a century waiting for me - a free Southbend lathe of uncertain age, condition, and specs, if I felt like picking it up and using it instead of scrapping it. Naturally, I did.
Life got busy and it sat in the basement for a few years completely soaked with WD-40 to keep it from rusting (any more than it already had when I got it.) Fast forward to today and I've finally gotten it situated in my hangar/future machine shop and put it back together, since it was partially disassembled to load it into my Jeep back in 2014.
It's pretty beat. The ways are definitely quite worn, there were a multitude of loose nuts and bolts holding it together, everything's filthy and packed with chips, etc. But it should do until I can fix it up properly or justify buying a better condition machine and pass this one on to the next lucky owner. In the meantime, I'll probably post whatever I did with it/what I have questions about/what I fixed this weekend in here.
My serial number is 5345KAR7. First few questions:
- this tells me it's the 5345th machine in this series to be built, according to WSWells excellent site. Further, the K tells me it's a light 10K - but the threading gearbox cover plate says Model A. Are these contradictory? Is this machine a Frankensteins Monster of parts from two or more other machines?
- anyone have a favorite supplier/manufacturer for chucks with the 1.5-8 threaded mounting style? I'd like decent quality, but I'm not afraid of chinesium if it gets the job done. Remember it's going on a beat lathe. I'm looking for a 4 jaw since I already have two 3-jaws that came with it, and need to be able to center existing workpieces as precisely as possible (given the condition of the machine) to repair worn surfaces and such.
- there's definitely a few thousandths of play in the headstock spindle bearings. Is there a good writeup I can follow on either adjusting this out, or repairing it properly?
- where can I buy a set of metric threading gears for it? I know I'll end up needing them since I work on custom parts for a variety of vehicles including Audi, Subaru, Jeep, and GM.
Any or all of these questions, if there's a wealth of info on them already on the forum, feel free to just tell me what terms to try searching for and I'll dig around myself. I don't even know what I don't know yet, so searching is likely to be less than fruitful.
The first project I tackle (once I stop making horrible parts with even worse surface finish) will be remachining the swollen bearing journal on the end of a differential locker carrier. I only get one try at it since the manufacturer doesn't sell replacement parts, so I need to get plenty of practice first.
Life got busy and it sat in the basement for a few years completely soaked with WD-40 to keep it from rusting (any more than it already had when I got it.) Fast forward to today and I've finally gotten it situated in my hangar/future machine shop and put it back together, since it was partially disassembled to load it into my Jeep back in 2014.
It's pretty beat. The ways are definitely quite worn, there were a multitude of loose nuts and bolts holding it together, everything's filthy and packed with chips, etc. But it should do until I can fix it up properly or justify buying a better condition machine and pass this one on to the next lucky owner. In the meantime, I'll probably post whatever I did with it/what I have questions about/what I fixed this weekend in here.
My serial number is 5345KAR7. First few questions:
- this tells me it's the 5345th machine in this series to be built, according to WSWells excellent site. Further, the K tells me it's a light 10K - but the threading gearbox cover plate says Model A. Are these contradictory? Is this machine a Frankensteins Monster of parts from two or more other machines?
- anyone have a favorite supplier/manufacturer for chucks with the 1.5-8 threaded mounting style? I'd like decent quality, but I'm not afraid of chinesium if it gets the job done. Remember it's going on a beat lathe. I'm looking for a 4 jaw since I already have two 3-jaws that came with it, and need to be able to center existing workpieces as precisely as possible (given the condition of the machine) to repair worn surfaces and such.
- there's definitely a few thousandths of play in the headstock spindle bearings. Is there a good writeup I can follow on either adjusting this out, or repairing it properly?
- where can I buy a set of metric threading gears for it? I know I'll end up needing them since I work on custom parts for a variety of vehicles including Audi, Subaru, Jeep, and GM.
Any or all of these questions, if there's a wealth of info on them already on the forum, feel free to just tell me what terms to try searching for and I'll dig around myself. I don't even know what I don't know yet, so searching is likely to be less than fruitful.
The first project I tackle (once I stop making horrible parts with even worse surface finish) will be remachining the swollen bearing journal on the end of a differential locker carrier. I only get one try at it since the manufacturer doesn't sell replacement parts, so I need to get plenty of practice first.