My South Bend Lathe Identification and Restoration

Hello,

I am new to this site, but what a great website! I have been a member over at ADVrider for about two years now, and rebuilt a 1986 XL600R and I am currently turning a 1975 KZ400 into a bobber. However I was recommended by some of the machinist people to this place. And wow, what a great site this is.

Here is the story, my Dad owns a machine shop here in NE Ohio and I grew up working there all through college and then for the first part of graduate school. I did a little of everything, but I am not going to lie, mainly my job was deburring and sweeping! Lots of sweeping. I have been looking for a lathe to make some various parts for my motorcycle builds (i.e. wheel spacers, stuff like that) and kind of was set on a SB lathe. I emailed and called a guy last weekend about this lathe. He stated that his Dad bought it and him and his father were in the process of restoring it. So I went and looked at it and, yep they were not lying, everything was apart and a fresh coat of primer was applied in some places. From what it looked like, they were just "freshening up" the lathe and not really doing a total tear down and cleaning. But whatever, I bought it. I thought to my self, "self...you can put together a motorcycle, why not a lathe?"

Hopefully I don't let myself down!

The guy knew that the lathe was a 10" South Bend...but that was it. He told me that the motor was 3 phase, which is going to be an issue since I do not have a 220 3 phase in my garage.

Okay so here is my plan...

1. The threads on the lead screw near the middle of the length of the lead screw are pretty thin, I am thinking about replacing the lead screw...what do you guys think? Where can I buy a new lead screw for this machine? Also, on the "apron" (I think it is called the apron) The two half nuts that encompass the lead screw appear a little think as well. What can I do about this? Again sorry for my ignorance.

2. Obviously tear down and paint. I have heard that Sherwin Williams oil based works great...thoughts?

3. You will see the motor in the pic, it is a GE 3 phase motor. However that's all it is, just a motor. It did not come with a mounting bracket to mount the motor to the "frame" of the serpentine belt drive. What can I do about this? I have heard about a VFD, who sells these things? Or should I just go with a 1/2hp 110V motor from Northern Tool or something like that? Will the forward/reverse switch still work with a 110V motor?

4. The ways are in pretty rough shape. Well as far as I can tell they are. I am going to take some pics of those so that somebody can tell me what I should do with them. It seems like the roughest part of the ways is the way on the operator side of the machining about 2 inches from the chuck. It is almost non-existent. Pretty bad. What can be done with this?

Other than that there is really nothing else going on with this. I did start to take apart the head stock and quick change threading gearbox. I have a parts washer, which did an awesome job!

Here are the pics, if I forget anything I will post another post.

Thanks,
Jack

http://i477.photobucket.com/albums/rr139/jgrady1982/south bend lathe/DSCN2239.jpg

http://i477.photobucket.com/albums/rr139/jgrady1982/south bend lathe/DSCN2240.jpg

http://i477.photobucket.com/albums/rr139/jgrady1982/south bend lathe/DSCN2241.jpg

http://i477.photobucket.com/albums/rr139/jgrady1982/south bend lathe/DSCN2246.jpg

http://i477.photobucket.com/albums/rr139/jgrady1982/south bend lathe/DSCN2243.jpg

Motor minus the mounting bracket...

http://i477.photobucket.com/albums/rr139/jgrady1982/south bend lathe/DSCN2249.jpg

http://i477.photobucket.com/albums/rr139/jgrady1982/south bend lathe/DSCN2225.jpg

http://i477.photobucket.com/albums/rr139/jgrady1982/south bend lathe/DSCN2231.jpg

On this pic you can see a small broken piece of metal just below the top handle on the top of those bearing thingys...(sorry I have no idea what those are called) and between the two upper most gears in in the picture. What was that? I would love to order another one on ebay, buy I would love to know what it is called first!

http://i477.photobucket.com/albums/rr139/jgrady1982/south bend lathe/DSCN2236.jpg

One last thing...how do I get a manual for this machine? I have searched on google and came back with nothing.

Thanks again,
Jack

Ouch, they primed some bits that are meant to be bare!

Half nuts - Jayhawkman refurbs them and does a part exchange I think.

Lead screw - Ouch that's one of the big parts. SBlatheman might have one, there are a couple of other guys (John Poyser and....) who managed to pick up a lot of the old SB parts stock, Grizzly have some old parts too. Between them someone may have the right lead screw. Cross feed screws are much easier to find or repair if that is bad too.

The manual was the edition of How to run a lathe (HTRAL) from the year it was built, people are able to buy these (the PO of my lathe got one for it) but I don't know where. Much older editions and other useful info is on Steve Wells website The SBL Workshop - Home or in the various yahoo groups dedicated to southbends (there is one called southbendmanual).

Something looks odd about the saddle - has the cross slide been put on backwards?

I can see the motor mounting plate in the cabinet, the motor should bolt to the underside of that (usually with studs) - are you saying that the motor itself is flange mount rather than base mount?

Not all the parts are in the photos, are you sure they are all there? I assume you have an apron because you have half nuts, is there a tailstock, compound rest, spindle, cone pulley..... Something doesn't add up, just wondering the sellers were trying to assemble a lathe from parts and didn't complete the set, or if it's all there out of view?

Is it the V way or the flat way you are worried about? Both take a battering near the headstock if people drop work, or chucks, but if only the flat way (and the middle V way) are bad, then consider that only the tailstock runs on these and it would be highly unusual to need to get it within 2" of the headstock. The saddle has to run on the outer ways when working close in though.
Broken tooth on the large backgear, maybe someone was hamfisted at removing chucks...

You will have fun restoring it, unless the ways are really bad they can be worked with, if they are really bad it may be possible to have them re-ground but that's a last resort for most people.

Hi Jack
Some people thrieve under challenging conditions. I hope you're one of them! If that lathe is missing half the parts that it appears at first glance. You may be spending more than you can pickup a decent lathe for. You might want to just part it out. And put the money towards another SB. If you have more parts, post some pictures. Maybe it's not as bad as it looks.
Clay

Hey Jim thanks for the reply. I just got back from the car wash, the super extreme pressure wash to be exact. I took the bed there to spray off all the gunk and caked on grease and oil. It did a pretty good job. The bed looks a lot better now than it did before.

I also took some pics of the lead screw and the two half nuts that ride on the lead screw. You can see the area of the "thin" threads on the lead screw. Also, are the half nuts "thinned" as well, or are these okay?

Those "members" that you mentioned, should I just PM them about the parts? What is going on with the yahoo site, every time that I try and go there a web page error comes up. You wouldn't happen to have a link, would you.

Thank you so much for the reply. Here are the pics:

http://i477.photobucket.com/albums/rr139/jgrady1982/south bend lathe/DSCN2252.jpg

http://i477.photobucket.com/albums/rr139/jgrady1982/south bend lathe/DSCN2253.jpg

http://i477.photobucket.com/albums/rr139/jgrady1982/south bend lathe/DSCN2254.jpg

http://i477.photobucket.com/albums/rr139/jgrady1982/south bend lathe/DSCN2255.jpg

http://i477.photobucket.com/albums/rr139/jgrady1982/south bend lathe/DSCN2256.jpg

http://i477.photobucket.com/albums/rr139/jgrady1982/south bend lathe/DSCN2257.jpg

http://i477.photobucket.com/albums/rr139/jgrady1982/south bend lathe/DSCN2258.jpg

Welcome to the forum!
The machine can be cleaned up and used for general hobby work. The leadscrew would be an issue if you wanted to cut any accurate threads and the half nuts are shot. The bed has taken a bit of abuse and the ways has a very defined wear ridge, from the pic it looks deeper than the ridge on my 1928 sb. If you look under the saddle where it rides on the ways you will likely find a ridge there as well, oh yeah.. the cross slide is installed backwards on the carriage as Jim mentioned. The only way I know of to fix the bed is to have it reground and when this done the carriage would need to be done as well. I like fixing old stuff and getting it back to usable working condition but if I were in this situation I might consider Clay's suggestion. I would clean up and inspect what you have then start looking for another 10" sb, when you get that one you have some parts that will work on it that it may not have ie the Qc gearbox, gear cover, ect. After that part what you have left. I am usually much more optimistic in threads like this and always encouraging to our new comers, I hope I did not take any wind from your sails.
Cheers,
Mitch

Nice pictures, Jack, but the recommended maximum recommended size for direct-posted images is 800 x 600 (640 x 480 would be even better, if you have a whole bunch of them). See the sticky at the top of the topic list for more information. Good luck with your project!

http://www.practicalmachinist.com/vb/south-bend-lathes/posting-pictures-south-bend-forum-128994/

Paula

It will make a perfectly functional lathe. After all, you are not planning to make parts for NASA.

Clean it up, chase all the threads, put it back together and give it a spray-can rebuild. Grease all the right places (after scraping off the paint), and make some chips. If you keep it well oiled, it won't get any worse. In two years, you can decide if you use the thing enough to get a replacement or get the bed reground, etc...

allan

Well I don't much experience but they are the worst ways anyone has posted a photo of since I've been using the forum (almost a year I think).
The tailstock ways are not a problem, those chips are in an area the tailstock will never go. The nearside Vee way for the saddle though - that looks like a masive dent in it at the bottom left of this photo/:
http://i477.photobucket.com/albums/rr139/jgrady1982/south bend lathe/DSCN2253.jpg
I may be wrong, it's hard to see from the photos, but that looks really horrible. Someone with more experience than me would have to say if that can be workd around.

I noticed on the first set of photos as well as the apron photo in the latest set, it looks like the machine has a heavy coating of cast iron dust? I thought initially it might just be bare iron showing through following an aggressive paint clean up, but now I'm more convinced it's cast iron dust. That stuff is incredibly abrasive and could explain the heavy wear on the bed and leadscrew. When I machine cast iron I avoid moving the carriage as much as possible and vaccum the dust away as soon as I can.

Sorry if that comes out negative - it might not be, we need someone more experienced to jump in. There is a lot of restoration experience out there we may be over-reacting.

And yes, it should be OK to PM those members about parts if they don't join the discussion anyway.

Try:
southbendlathe : All about South Bend Lathes: All Models
for the main yahoo group.

Jim

There are a number of critical parts left out of the photography, and I hope they
are present in your boxes of goodies.

1) spindle

2) bronze bearing shells. They may be *on* the spindle.

3) bearing caps.

4) rack that drives the carriage along the bed. The missing screws
from those holes in the front of the bed mean, the rack's been taken off.

5) Check to see if any of those are present. If not then you have
a good machine to part out, you will make a bit of money off it.

If they are present, you could have a working lathe with a few weeks
worth of effort. It won't build any precision items but it will run, and
turn parts for you to some reasonable degree of accuracy - within five
thou or a bit better.

The main job is to verify that all the vital parts are present. If yes, then the
next job is to remove the years accumulation of dirt from all the parts.

This will take at least a week of hard work.

The bed is not the best, no doubt. But it will work and even that bad-looking
ding can be scraped out to some degree. It's not a total show-stopper,
given the condition of the rest of the bed.

Hey guys I have a couple updates...

First off sorry about the picture sizes. I am used to posting pics over at ADVrider.com and they do not limit the size of the photos, so I did not think to "crop" them here. So sorry about that.

Next, I went to my Dad's machine shop today and brought the bed, lead screw and apron for my dad's lathe guy to take a look at. He told me that he had an old South Bend 9" at home, but the belt broke about three years ago and he has yet to fix it. Anyways, he said that the ways are not that bad and that messing with those without messing with the saddle would be the worst thing that I could do. He looked at the lead screw and said that it looked okay and had a lot of life left in it. I also asked him to check out the half nuts, he said that they looked fine and that I should only replace them when they will no longer engage the lead screw. He did also state that he is an expert at operating lathes, not restoring them. So with that in mind I figured I would give you all an update here.

Next, I am pretty sure that I have all the parts for this lathe. I feel kind of like an idiot because I am posting these pics without all of the parts in the pics, so that is my fault for being a ra-tard . They are all in about four big boxes in my garage. I do not have to be at the hospital tomorrow until 6pm so when I wake up in the morning, before I read my 100 pages for chapter review, I will go out to the garage and organize all the parts from each box onto my work bench and take pictures of everything. This way you guys can really pick this project apart and let me know what I have and what I am missing! I do feel kind of ignorant trying to explain what I have with this lathe, not using the proper terminology. I have to work on that.

Everybody who has responded so far, thank you so much for your input. I have wanted a lathe for so long, and to finally have found a SB10 is "decent" shape made my month! All the critiques and advice, even the "duh, what are you serious" replys will go a long way!

My plan for this lathe is to be able to fabricate simple pieces for my motorcycles, garage, other tools, stuff like that. When my Dad first came over and looked at it, he may have said it best by saying, "it's fine for what you are going to use it for, your not going to use it to make a living or anything." And he was right, I would never buy a 40-50 year old lathe and try to make high precision parts with it, and expect the lathe to. I just want a simple, tight, accurate machine for my garage to mess around on. Something fun to "play" around on. I am sure that you know what I mean! And don't worry I have a big collection of safety glasses!

Okay, I gotta get going on this reading for tomorrow. Does anybody have a good recommendation for a lathe operating textbook? Something that everybody should read before they try and operate a lahte. No like a safety maual, but more like an operation manual for the basics of turning parts?

Thanks again, and check tomorrow am for some better, more detailed pics of exactly everything that I have.

-Jack

Jack...the book you seek has been mentioned...

How to Run A Lathe (a.k.a. HTRAL)...South Bend Lathe Works published it through a number of editions...Steve Wells site mentioned in this thread is a starting point for HTRAL.

And when you've a moment, check out this site:

Page Title

I know you're excited--and all I can tell you is "enjoy the journey" of learning about "your" piece of history...as you look down (from the top) looking at the lathe bed, on the far right from the headstock between the front "v" way and flat way, there should be a number--this can be used to date your lathe.

And since its already in piece parts, heck, why not take the time to bring it to the place you'd like for it to be?

Welcome aboard and my best...super people here that can and will help you get the "puppy" going...

Joe

small parts pics

Hey guys,

Okay so I went out to the garage this morning to take all of the small parts out of their boxes and get some photos of them. It feels like Myrtle Beach here in NE Ohio right now. Man I can't stand hot weather!

Anyways here is the link to the pics that I took this am. Help me identify this lathe? Pics included - Page 2 - ADVrider

It is much easier to post pics over at ADVrider, they do not make you make each pic smaller, so I think what I will do is just post the pics there in full size and then place a link here for that page. I think that I may be a little too lazy to make each pic smaller. I tend to take and upload a lot of photos and I may end up pulling out my hairs if I have to do that to every pic. If I offend anybody by placing pics there and not here I am sorry. This is a great site with very knowledgeable people, it's just a laziness factor on my part.

So...with that said let me know what you think of all the small pats in the pics.

Okay thanks,
Jack

Glad to see you have more parts than first posted. Looks like you have most of the main parts. Find some of the rebuild threads here and you'll learn alot. I don't know how to do the link, so I'll bump them up. Some of the work here that people can do are works of art. Clean things up, do some reading and you'll be making chips in no time. Besides having fun and saving a old piece of american iron.
Clay

Hey guys,

I wanted to take some more pics of that missing/broken piece that I was talking about earlier on the headstock part of the lathe (I think it's called the headstock). I also took some time and resized these next pics so hopefully they will work. Anywho, also there are these felt oil filled things with a spring around them that it looks like lubricates the two main bearings on the headstock. Where can I get a replacment for these? You can see them in a baggie in one of the pics. I also took a pic of the "tooling" that came with the lathe.

Where can I buy a Jacobs chuck for the lathe? What size chuck do I need. It only came with a live center. Can I get one of these used off of ebay?

Also, any ideas on a quick change tool post? I have seen some on ebay for like $100. Chianese I am sure, but I think that might be okay for me. What do you all think?

Assembly lube? Should I use the way oil? If yes, which brand? Mobil 1...etc

Again thanks for looking...here are the pics:



On this pic, you can see a hole right under the handle. There was a piece of cast iron there held in place with a flat head bolt. The cast was broken. What is that? Where can I get a new one?






Thanks again,
Jack

There was a guy on ebay recently selling new oiler felts (they are for the spindle bearing as you guessed) built apparently to original spec. I don't know if that's true but I installed a set in my 13" because my previous attempt to repair the existing ones was not fantastic (it was working though) and they are doing the job fine. The springs round mine were bit worn out and I only had one grade of felt handy - the 13" oilers use 2, but I'm not sure if all the sizes do. Keep an eye on ebay, I'm sure he will be back.

Looks like you do have the whole lathe - I always suspected you had more boxes

The broken bit on the headstock - have a search for 'handlever collet closer', it is a popular if hard to find addition which a few people have written up the installation of. I don't see any of the rest of it in your photos but it's the only thing I can think the broken bit of metal belonged to, unless it's something a previous owner made.

Anyway, good verdicts from your Dad and Jim Rozen - it's really all about how much error we can live with, which depends on the jobs we are going to do. Even with wear you can learn (I bet your dad will show you) how to compensate for it, and how to use other parts of the bed if you need a bit more accuracy.

In fact, if you make wheel spacers the way I make them for my kite buggy, then the carriage doesn't actually need to move along the ways at all, I take pipe, face it square, either cut it or part it, put back in the opposite way and then face it using the compound to move the tool longitudinally between cuts until I get to the exact length I want. For my spacers length and squareness is everything, the pipe has inside clearance and outside clearance so I don't even touch the diameters, the rest can be done with the saddle locked, so as long as the saddle isn't badly twisted the bed won't affect the operation - and if it is twisted, over the wall thickness of the pipe, I'd never measure an error!

Glad it's turning more positive again!

Have fun!

I am sorry, but maybe I missed this somewhere, but what lathe do I have exactly?

Do I have a 10K? I know I don't have a heavy 10, but what exactly do I have?

Thanks,
Jack

It's a heavy ten, also known as a 10L.

Good machine.

The good news is you have the spindle and bearing caps and bearing shells
which are still on the spindle.

The bad news is you need to go find the person who pried the bearing caps
off the headstock without removing the bearing expanders first.

This damaged the bearing shells to some degree. YOu can recover from that, but:

UNDER ABSOLUTELY NO CIRCUMSTANCES CAN YOU RE-INSTALL THE SPINDLE WITH
THE BEARINGS SHELLS, AND THE BEARING CAPS ON THIS LATHE RIGHT NOW.
DO NOT DO THIS.

You need to disassemble the spindle, bull gear, and bearing shells, so they can
be slid off the journals, checked for distortion, and have the bearing expanders
re-installed properly before the headstock is re-assembled.

If you put the spindle back in the headstock, and torque down the bearing
caps the way it is right now, you will ruin the bronze bearing shells, and be on the
hook for many hundreds of dollars to replace them with new.

The person who took it apart should have read up on the machine, and realized
that the two small screws, under the pipe plugs on top of each bearing cap,
have to be removed before the caps are taken off.

The fact that the bearing caps had to be pried off with, what was it, a screwdriver,
should have been a sign something was wrong and that the procedure should have
been checked before going on.

At this point the shells are probably OK and can be re-used. If the expanders
are jammed down on top of them, though, the shells are pretty much toast.

ooooooo maaaaaaannnnnn! That sucks!

How do I do that?

I saw on ebay a 9 and 10 inch SB lathe tear down and rebuild manual. Would you recommend this?

How do I check them for distortion?

Great catch, I would have never thought to do that so thanks! I owe you a cold one!


-jack

Hi Jack,

Ryan Battelle has made a great photo documentary of his strip down of a 13" SB, this is the section on the spindle;
Headstock Spindle

It is worth noting that the 10L (Heavy 10) has more in common with the 13" (and 14-1/2") than it does with the 9" or the 10K (Light 10) so bear that in mind before choosing a rebuild manual. 10R is also a heavy 10, it has a smaller diameter spindle but otherwise should be the same. Of course there were also variations over the years so make sure you find one for the right period - did you find the serial number yet to guesstimate the age?

I think you will be fine - anything you are unsure about ask here before forcing thing together, you probably would have done anyway...???

Jim

Updates, updates, updates!

Okay...so on Saturday I drove the 3.5 hours down to Dayton, Ohio to buy a new to me motor and some various South Bend parts. Ken had sent me a PM and said that he had some old SB parts lying around including two motors and that I was more than welcome to come take a look, he wanted $50 for a motor, and since Northern Tool wanted $189.00 for their cheapest motor, I thought this was a good idea. Saturday also decided to be one of the hotest days of the year as well. Which sucked.

Anyways when I get there he shows me around his shop and shows me the two motors that he had for sale. I ended up picking the one that was off of his old SB 10. The motor looks like it was in great shape, I was not able to see it run, but I have no doubts that it will. He also sold me a SB 10 complete headstock assembly with the larger threaded output. Mine is the smaller of the two sizes, while the one that he sold me has the bigger threads. I am sorry, I cannot remember the exact size off the top of my head, and it's about 95 degrees with about 1 million percent humidity, so I am not going out to the garage to measure! Anywho, along with the larger headstock he also gave me a backing plate? I think it is called a backing plate, the 3 and 4 jaw chucks would bolt to this thing and this thing screws onto the headstock. Anyways, I only have one now for the new headstock, but I have two chucks. My question is this, where can I buy 2 more of these backing plates at? What sizes do I need? That would be a huge help if anybody knows the answer to that question. Ken also gave me some threaded rod, and some other small parts.

O yeah my other question, what do you all recommend for stripping the paint off of the new headstock? Should I take it apart CORRECTLY and go through it? Could I sand blast this thing together or would that risk getting sand into places where it should not be?

Thanks for the tips on the rebuild manuals. O yeah, I also need a jacobs chuck for this thing. I was looking on ebay last night, does this machine use an MT2 chuck? Ken told me that it uses a size 2 chuck, I would assume that is an MT2, correct? Any recommendations on where to buy one of those?

So right now I want to get this backing plate issue solved and then work on the reassembly, wiring and paint.

Thanks again, here are the pics:











New threads


Old threads


You can see the "new" backing plate that Ken gave me in this pic, and the two old plates mounted to the chucks.


One more quick thing, on the new headstock there is some side to side play when I push on the threaded part, about 1/16 or less. There seems to be no up or down motion, I have an indicator and a magnetic base, but again, hot + lazy = have not used it yet. So is that normal to have some side to side play?

Thanks,
Jack