South bend bed regrinding

I have a well used 9" SB lathe model B which was given to me by a friend. The bed shows wear on the rails, and I was wondering if it is possible to get them reground or should I just look for another in better condition? What does it mean by hand scraping? Is that just stoning the surface after grinding? Thanks

Grinding is an expensive method of restoring the bed. Hand scraping is a whole process unto itself. You bring the ways back into line with reference gages using scrapers made just for this purpose. The tools and gages are expensive, and the work is all done by hand. Use the forum search here, you'll find some topics about all this. BTW, I have a SB 9" that I'm intending to scrape. Welcome to the forum, you're gonna love this place!

It depends how much tooling do you have with that lathe, and how connected to it are you? The reason I ask is if it is a real beater of a lathe and it will cost too much to get it reground, I can't remember his name but there are a few guys in Worcester or maybe http://www.stanley-engineering.com/ or
Monarch Mach Wks Inc
110 Broadway
North Attleboro, MA 02760-2248

But that lathe may be worth more as parts which you can sell individually working your way up to a better lathe then it is worth as a machine. Search completed auctions on ebay to get an idea at how much money you are looking at. I sold a Southbend to a guy once and was supprised to see him turn in $1500 on a $700machine. Then again it had a taper attachment which he sold for $400 alone on it.

Adam