I've spent the past few weeks taking the lathe I purchased apart. I'm hoping I documented the process well enough to put it back together so here's the, euh... 20%-of-the-way point? or 3 weeks of progress. I'll disclaimer you, I've never owned a lathe, so 3 weeks time most of which was spent gathering info on whatever I was doing so I didn't destroy anything. I've been looking into machining (pure hobby) since November-ish knowing pretty much nothing, and after much reading, learning, and wearing a stupid smile while watching thisoldtony, this is my first leap.
I never intended to go the second-hand-lathe-route, but this thing was far too pretty, and only cost its kilogram weight in Euros... That's for always giving me inches when I google things by the way, imperial dogs! Wait, why is this cross slide dial multiplying everything by 25.4? I should look into that.
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2058RKX9. ~$560. Micrometer stop, that multifix thing (don't look at me I didn't put that tool in there), Rohm 3 jaw and smaller Cushman 3 jaw, South Bend 4 jaw and an 80mm 4 jaw with “The Burnerd” on the face. 2x Albrecht, a Rohm, and a Kawasaki keyless chuck so big I have to hold it by the shank and heave it onto my shoulder to move it. Seller also threw me a bunch of bronze stock he had lying around. There are a fair number of gears as well, some with serious rust, most fine.
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Headstock plate is worse off than the gear box plate. There's another plate from the factory that purchased the machine in '49 according to the Serial Number card. They merged in '67, so the paint job is at least that old. They're also likely responsible for taking the original switch off and putting the service hour counter up in its place.
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QCGB. Bit dirty, but no rust except on the tumbler from what I could tell.
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I eyeballed the lead screw. I'm sure there is wear I just didn't have the experience to see it. I tried to lock the carriage down to test bed wear, but couldn't quickly figure out how (Mr Ficken is dissapointed). In order to not look as stupid as I felt I just ran it left to right and checked resistance. There was some, but with no frame of reference I couldn’t say more than that. The biggest mistake I’ve made is taking the lathe apart before figuring out wear on the ways. Backlash on the carriage was 1/15th of a turn maybe? I'm guesstimating, but it felt like nothing. The cross slide had near-none although the compound had this weird thing where the dial pulled away from the plate when drawing it back:
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I still don't know why this is. To take the assembly out I'd need 1 or 2 spanners, and they are a little expensive.
Right, so about that gear train.
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I have 36 different gears in a box, not counting 2 different OD 40T gears that fit the spindle or those twin gears. Not one of them centers on that shaft and meshes properly with the twin, never mind the appropriate stud gear. I imagined one day I would get a neat-o import lathe with a disgustingly written manual and pretty drawings to ease myself into understanding gear trains, not this. But it gets worse.
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Treachery! I'm fairly certain this reversing lever doesn't belong on my lathe. Is that even a reversing lever?
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This doesn’t fit on my gearbox. I've not seen this in any of the parts manuals I've read. I've seen the banjo with the two fixed holes for the idlers/compounds (I think this is the one that is supposed to go on the single tumbler lathes), the single slot banjo, and a double slot though that has the shorter slot at an angle to the longer, not running parallel.
I sat down and started indexing all the gears I had. I counted teeth for any that didn't have it printed on them, noted hole sizes, pitches, and anything out of the ordinary. So far all I have is mostly 16DP gears, some 17 and a few odd ones I can’t place. What looks very much like it goes onto the gearbox shaft has a DP (18) that makes it not mesh with anything else. Someone also DIY-ed a compound gear out of an 85 and 40 tooth gear. It has a bushing and a nut that holds it in place, but maybe also serves to lock the gears. I can’t get it off. When I found it, it had a nut and bolt that allows me to strap it to the banjo. The gearbox shaft key is also missing, though I do have the original nut.
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Don’t know what to make of these. I have 3. 34T, 42T, and a 45T. They have “Upper 20 TP1”, “Upper 14 TP1”, and “Lower 14 TP1” on their faces respectively (it is a ‘1’ not an ‘I’). I’m starting to think someone used this box as a gear dump, and I’m sitting here thinking it’s for my lathe and I’m an idiot for not knowing where it goes, when in fact it belongs in some manual blender from 1950 or something.
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2x 100, 2x127. What bothers me is that these 127T gears are here, and someone even went through the trouble to make one of them usable, yet there is pretty much nothing else facilitating metric conversion. I’m also missing several gears for standard imperial functionality. This is why they recommend to not start your ‘career’ with a restoration project. Learn how a machine works, then build it, not the other way around. If you can’t tell where a gear belongs, or whether that gear even belongs on the machine you have, you’re in over your head. I’m at collapse depth.
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Moving along further into “why the hell did you buy this thing?” territory. That poor bull gear has 6 missing teeth. It’s unusable in this state, and why I originally considered just greasing and stashing the machine as a future project when I bought it. I enjoyed disassembly and cleaning so much I’d have a hard time making myself do that now. I’m missing a bearing adjuster screw, and the shims were bits of broken off feeler gauges. Metric ones! The pin in the bull gear that engages the cone pulley feels extremely loose, like I could blow on it to move it over. The spring hardly does anything. Back gear + pin slipping back into pulley seems like it could rip those teeth off, though that’s amateur conjecture.
I saw Halligan142 press his bull gear onto the spindle with a screw through the spindle bore and figured I could do the same. After “pffft”-ing through numberous “use a press” suggestions, I found "this man doing it the screwy way.". I’ll leave it on until I find a replacement gear. I can’t tell the difference between my bull gear and the ones on Ebay, but the part numbers don’t match and I think the spindle size might be smaller (mine is 2”).
I shouldn’t have removed the headstock. I googled “aligning headstock” and all I got was guides on how to align the tailstock. I presumed that if nobody asked it couldn’t be that hard, so I took it off to make moving the bed easier. I’ve since found out that it’s probably because nobody is stupid enough to remove the thing. I also didn’t mark the front of the back bearing when I took it off.
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This was far too dry when I removed it. The bearing oiler cups are full and the wicks drenched, but the cone pulley was apparently not worthy of lubrication. I can barely feel grooves with my finger, so it might look worse than it is. I tried to clean the thrust bearing but it sounds and feels like there is dirt stuck in the rollers.
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Can’t feel grooves here with my finger. I don’t understand what caused the indentations from the bearing expanders. They’re supposed to pull up, and I’m 100% certain I removed the screws and cover in the correct order. Here I tried to put the sleeve back on because I realized I had forgotten to mark the front and wanted to see if I could tell the difference. The expander is marked, fortunately. The retaining nut just has the washer-bearing-thing, I’ll replace that with an actual bearing should I ever get that far. Apparently you’re supposed to hold the wick down with a rod stuck in where the cups go when you replace the spindle. I had the wicks out, but I don’t understand why this is recommended. Unless you’re channeling Michael Jordan and slam dunk the spindle into place, I don’t see how you could possibly crush the wicks or springs. You’re more likely to push the tube into the housing. The spindle is flawless from what I could tell, can’t feel a groove or mark with finger or nail. Nothing wrong with the back gear, I left it where it was.
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I read that the back shaft (from this view) is a hassle to remove and replace. The gear that meshes with the clutch lever has a silly offset pin. I figured I’d leave that alone and just remove everything else. I didn’t have a wrench that fit the nut on the front shaft to remove that either, so all I could do was work my poor toothbrush to death. The clutch lever was difficult to move left at times. The oil tube was bent so I pushed that back to line up with the distribution hole in the tumbler, and then understood why the gearbox plate says to put the tumbler on 192 before oiling. I put the shaft and tumbler back in. If it turns out I’ll rebuild the machine I’ll do a better cleaning job than picking individual chips out of the gears in the back with tweezers.
2 parts due to image limit
I never intended to go the second-hand-lathe-route, but this thing was far too pretty, and only cost its kilogram weight in Euros... That's for always giving me inches when I google things by the way, imperial dogs! Wait, why is this cross slide dial multiplying everything by 25.4? I should look into that.
""
2058RKX9. ~$560. Micrometer stop, that multifix thing (don't look at me I didn't put that tool in there), Rohm 3 jaw and smaller Cushman 3 jaw, South Bend 4 jaw and an 80mm 4 jaw with “The Burnerd” on the face. 2x Albrecht, a Rohm, and a Kawasaki keyless chuck so big I have to hold it by the shank and heave it onto my shoulder to move it. Seller also threw me a bunch of bronze stock he had lying around. There are a fair number of gears as well, some with serious rust, most fine.
""
Headstock plate is worse off than the gear box plate. There's another plate from the factory that purchased the machine in '49 according to the Serial Number card. They merged in '67, so the paint job is at least that old. They're also likely responsible for taking the original switch off and putting the service hour counter up in its place.
""
QCGB. Bit dirty, but no rust except on the tumbler from what I could tell.
""
I eyeballed the lead screw. I'm sure there is wear I just didn't have the experience to see it. I tried to lock the carriage down to test bed wear, but couldn't quickly figure out how (Mr Ficken is dissapointed). In order to not look as stupid as I felt I just ran it left to right and checked resistance. There was some, but with no frame of reference I couldn’t say more than that. The biggest mistake I’ve made is taking the lathe apart before figuring out wear on the ways. Backlash on the carriage was 1/15th of a turn maybe? I'm guesstimating, but it felt like nothing. The cross slide had near-none although the compound had this weird thing where the dial pulled away from the plate when drawing it back:
""
I still don't know why this is. To take the assembly out I'd need 1 or 2 spanners, and they are a little expensive.
Right, so about that gear train.
""
I have 36 different gears in a box, not counting 2 different OD 40T gears that fit the spindle or those twin gears. Not one of them centers on that shaft and meshes properly with the twin, never mind the appropriate stud gear. I imagined one day I would get a neat-o import lathe with a disgustingly written manual and pretty drawings to ease myself into understanding gear trains, not this. But it gets worse.
""
Treachery! I'm fairly certain this reversing lever doesn't belong on my lathe. Is that even a reversing lever?
""
This doesn’t fit on my gearbox. I've not seen this in any of the parts manuals I've read. I've seen the banjo with the two fixed holes for the idlers/compounds (I think this is the one that is supposed to go on the single tumbler lathes), the single slot banjo, and a double slot though that has the shorter slot at an angle to the longer, not running parallel.
I sat down and started indexing all the gears I had. I counted teeth for any that didn't have it printed on them, noted hole sizes, pitches, and anything out of the ordinary. So far all I have is mostly 16DP gears, some 17 and a few odd ones I can’t place. What looks very much like it goes onto the gearbox shaft has a DP (18) that makes it not mesh with anything else. Someone also DIY-ed a compound gear out of an 85 and 40 tooth gear. It has a bushing and a nut that holds it in place, but maybe also serves to lock the gears. I can’t get it off. When I found it, it had a nut and bolt that allows me to strap it to the banjo. The gearbox shaft key is also missing, though I do have the original nut.
""
Don’t know what to make of these. I have 3. 34T, 42T, and a 45T. They have “Upper 20 TP1”, “Upper 14 TP1”, and “Lower 14 TP1” on their faces respectively (it is a ‘1’ not an ‘I’). I’m starting to think someone used this box as a gear dump, and I’m sitting here thinking it’s for my lathe and I’m an idiot for not knowing where it goes, when in fact it belongs in some manual blender from 1950 or something.
""
2x 100, 2x127. What bothers me is that these 127T gears are here, and someone even went through the trouble to make one of them usable, yet there is pretty much nothing else facilitating metric conversion. I’m also missing several gears for standard imperial functionality. This is why they recommend to not start your ‘career’ with a restoration project. Learn how a machine works, then build it, not the other way around. If you can’t tell where a gear belongs, or whether that gear even belongs on the machine you have, you’re in over your head. I’m at collapse depth.
""
Moving along further into “why the hell did you buy this thing?” territory. That poor bull gear has 6 missing teeth. It’s unusable in this state, and why I originally considered just greasing and stashing the machine as a future project when I bought it. I enjoyed disassembly and cleaning so much I’d have a hard time making myself do that now. I’m missing a bearing adjuster screw, and the shims were bits of broken off feeler gauges. Metric ones! The pin in the bull gear that engages the cone pulley feels extremely loose, like I could blow on it to move it over. The spring hardly does anything. Back gear + pin slipping back into pulley seems like it could rip those teeth off, though that’s amateur conjecture.
I saw Halligan142 press his bull gear onto the spindle with a screw through the spindle bore and figured I could do the same. After “pffft”-ing through numberous “use a press” suggestions, I found "this man doing it the screwy way.". I’ll leave it on until I find a replacement gear. I can’t tell the difference between my bull gear and the ones on Ebay, but the part numbers don’t match and I think the spindle size might be smaller (mine is 2”).
I shouldn’t have removed the headstock. I googled “aligning headstock” and all I got was guides on how to align the tailstock. I presumed that if nobody asked it couldn’t be that hard, so I took it off to make moving the bed easier. I’ve since found out that it’s probably because nobody is stupid enough to remove the thing. I also didn’t mark the front of the back bearing when I took it off.
""
""
This was far too dry when I removed it. The bearing oiler cups are full and the wicks drenched, but the cone pulley was apparently not worthy of lubrication. I can barely feel grooves with my finger, so it might look worse than it is. I tried to clean the thrust bearing but it sounds and feels like there is dirt stuck in the rollers.
""
""
Can’t feel grooves here with my finger. I don’t understand what caused the indentations from the bearing expanders. They’re supposed to pull up, and I’m 100% certain I removed the screws and cover in the correct order. Here I tried to put the sleeve back on because I realized I had forgotten to mark the front and wanted to see if I could tell the difference. The expander is marked, fortunately. The retaining nut just has the washer-bearing-thing, I’ll replace that with an actual bearing should I ever get that far. Apparently you’re supposed to hold the wick down with a rod stuck in where the cups go when you replace the spindle. I had the wicks out, but I don’t understand why this is recommended. Unless you’re channeling Michael Jordan and slam dunk the spindle into place, I don’t see how you could possibly crush the wicks or springs. You’re more likely to push the tube into the housing. The spindle is flawless from what I could tell, can’t feel a groove or mark with finger or nail. Nothing wrong with the back gear, I left it where it was.
""
I read that the back shaft (from this view) is a hassle to remove and replace. The gear that meshes with the clutch lever has a silly offset pin. I figured I’d leave that alone and just remove everything else. I didn’t have a wrench that fit the nut on the front shaft to remove that either, so all I could do was work my poor toothbrush to death. The clutch lever was difficult to move left at times. The oil tube was bent so I pushed that back to line up with the distribution hole in the tumbler, and then understood why the gearbox plate says to put the tumbler on 192 before oiling. I put the shaft and tumbler back in. If it turns out I’ll rebuild the machine I’ll do a better cleaning job than picking individual chips out of the gears in the back with tweezers.
2 parts due to image limit