1944 14C repairs and more

[wildo]

Hi,
My name is Will. I am self employed, primarily I have a service truck and do mechanical repairs on heavy equipment and industrial machinery, I also have a climax line boring machine. I was a machinist before I was a mechanic, and I am slowly piecing together a small machine shop, mainly to support my tools and equipment and for one off repairs. I am a new owner of a Monarch 14C 1944.
The following will be a rough account of repairs in the goal of getting it back into working condition. It is not in bad shape, relatively little wear, it's just had a lot of hack repairs throughout it's life. I will not be reconditioning it; just making it right. I purchased it online sight unseen. Had it picked up on a backhaul and loaded into an open top sea can. I was quite nervous when the seller sent me the photo of the lathe being lifted on his end! It was not particularly fun to unload back at my shop. Hard to get level and no direct line of sight with crane operator from inside the sea-can. But we got it done!









I wasn't quite sure I wanted to pull the headstock, but I decided to do it to make cleaning easier. The paint is in great condition considering, but had a layer of dried on grime which only was coming off with a scraper, but was taking the paint with it.





It would've been a lot cleaner and easier if I'd pulled the bed all the way outside, but there's a bit of a drop off where my bay door is, and I didn't want to risk skating it over that.

 

[wildo]

The first thing to fix was the clutch pressure plate. Not the first and wont be the last WTF repair. I couldn't get any cast iron up here, so I used some 3/4 steel plate. I started roughing it out on the Logan in a determination to be self sufficient. I came to my senses and borrowed my buddies lathe.
There was one release spring missing. Maybe more I guess but 4 seems to work and provides equal spacing. I also welded up the wear on the friction plate drive keys and made a new pin/key for the pressure plate oversized for a snug fit.
Onto tightening up the clutch linkage/levers; I couldn't get full throw without hitting the chip tray.

Now I realize this is because it was a tooth out on the bevel gear, but at the time I was determined to make new square bushings for the carriage handle.
This was my first time using the alba shaper, and my first time ever using a shaper! I have since gotten an angle plate so I can hang the dividing head further off the table and get some more room. Also added a lock for the clapper box, which would've helped while cutting the internal square.

I drilled and bushed some of the control linkages at the back of the headstock. The clutch seems ok, but the cone brake tends to stick on and needs a good jerk to release it. I wonder if an adjustable rod would help alter the throw like the 60s/61's have? Anyone have any wisdom?





Some quick and dirty leveling feet were made, headstock oil changed, and it was just about time to power up the lathe !

 

[wildo]

Before powering up the lathe I turned the chuck throughout the speeds and feeds to make sure the was no binding/crunching. The chuck was mighty hard to turn with the feed rod engaged. Upon closer examination, what looked to be hammer marks in the feed rod were actually hammer marks (and heat!) Someone in it's previous life had attempted to straighten the feed rod in 2 localized spots. Boy it had a good bend in it, a solid inch run out in the middle of the shaft . Resulting in a lot of wear to the bearing surfaces on the rod and on the bed/apron.



I got it respectably straight but decided to order 8ft of 1" key shaft to change it as there was a whole lot of different planes it was bent in. I also ordered some oillite to change the feed rod bearings on the apron and bed/gearbox supports. I also made some v-blocks on the shaper to use on the press. The shaper is a lot of fun. Does anyone have any pictures of the downfeed trip arm for an elliot/alba shaper? My one is missing and I haven't been able to find a good picture of what it should look like



While waiting for parts I pulled off the apron to clean it up. I didn't intend to get too far into it, but sure enough I had it all stripped down on the bench in a couple of hours. It was mostly in great original condition.






Aside from cleaning, the only things I had to fix were the long. feed handwheel had been brazed back together at some point. But it was on the piss and had a good wobble to it, which I could not live with. So I bored it out true and make a keyed insert. I flanged the insert on the outside 1/8" deep and dowled it. Because of the flange the dowels don't appear to go into the handwheel - but they do (I don't have a drill press or mill so the drill would be pretty prone to walking more into the cast iron if it was directly on the seem of the steel insert)

I had to make a new bronze bushing for the longitudinal friction gear. Once I re-assembled it I found the long. feed friction clutch had a lot of play in and out, to the point where the lead screw interlock wouldn't function. I had to remove the friction clutch assy again to figure out why. The cause was one thrust bearing had been replaced at some time, and was around .060" thicker than the originals.

This forced the friction gear into the housing of the apron, wearing the face of it. I cleaned up the wear on the friction gear and made a 0.030" thick washer for it, then I ground down the thrust bearing to original thickness.
After that it worked good.

 

[wildo]

The pinion shaft bearing arrangement is great. 3 double row ball bearings on a shaft like 8" long!



The feed rod bushings bored out with bronze bushings installed. One side the original tapered pin went through the bronze bearing I installed, so that didn't need an additional pin put through the face to retain it.



I then brazed up the clutch lever on the gearbox side which had broken around the square insert. I also brazed up the trip arm for the shaper. I need a picture of the piece that attaches to the end of this trip arm.





Upon cleaning the leadscrew bearing housing I found more great work. I assume this is not factory because of the rough grinding marks, and heat marks. Some more brazing later





Apron back on and gearbox re-assembled I could not get the feed rod gear engaged. Much to my disappointment at least some of the grinding must be factory to allow clearance for the feed/lead screw selector gear. Eating some humble pie, I broke out the angle grinder. I think someone had ground out more than what was required as I had sufficient clearance with maybe around 1/16-3/32" wall thickness for the thrust bearing bore after grinding the relief.

 

[wildo]

Once again ready to power up the lathe and I found the gear selector was out of index. I was trying to ignore the obvious relocation of the selector pin, hoping it would be fine. But alas. After seeing the rest of the repairs on the lathe I thought it would be wise to give the headstock a more thorough looking at than I initially had.


I rigged up my filter cart and filled the headstock with varsol. I don't think it had been thoroughly cleaned in a while as there was a lot of sludge, filings and grime. The filter cart puts out a fair amount of flow. It was messy for myself and the lathe, both of us finishing the night covered in varsol.







Pretty upset as to whoever had removed the spindle to change the camlocks for the chuck. Every set screw was barely tight. I am very happy this set screw from the main spindle shaft gear did not run through the gears. It would not of been pretty. I hemmed and hawed and decided not to remove the spindle to address the gear selector issues (the gear selector yoke was spinning on the shaft as the set screws were not tight.). I had to pull the oil pump and then tighten the set screws with a 5/16 wrench held on with pliers. Not very fun either job.

Is there supposed to be taper pins in the gear selector yokes/shafts?

After getting the selector yoke tight back in its original position the P.O's new and improved (seriously wtf guys) location pin would not line up (shock horror). I made a new pin and put it back in the original spot.




I also cleaned up the drip sight glass and made new glass for it. First time cutting glass! I used a carbide scribe and ground it on CBN wheel

 

[wildo]

Finally I was ready to make some chips. First job; a center to hold the reamer to clean up tailstock taper.



2 majorish things to address.
First; the compound repair, pretty self explanatory. The gib does not have enough travel to tighten up. I am going to make a new lower from durabar, unless someone has one they'd like to part with. The actual compound slide is ok.





Second. The tailstock which the previous owner thought was damaged from spinning drills has actually been bored out to #5mt. Just to clear the air: I don't believe a lot of these repairs are the fault of the person I bought it off, but likely whoever he bought it off (sorry to give that impression if you're reading this, Graig)



Anyway they did a horrible job boring it oversize. I think they must of gone too large on the id and then welded it up in the middle. Or maybe they tried cutting it with the compound as it currently is. either way its so far from straight and true there is not much point going further with cleaning it up I don't think. I would have to remove 1/2" from the face of the quill before the taper cleaned up

So the options I see are; making a new quill from scratch, or boring the quill straight and pressing a straight or tapered permanent sleeve in. I'm not sure if I would want to go back to a #4 tailstock. Part of me wants it original but the other part of me wants bigger (better, right?)

Making a new quill is appealing because it would give me a chance to bore/hone the tailstock and making a new quill to suit the changed ID. Not sure.

Now you're all up to date on my past 2 weeks at my rapidly filling up small shop. Thanks

 

[Cal Haines]

Great work and a really nice write up! Keep it coming.

 

[Joe Henderson]

Amazing. Thanks. I always regretted selling my 16CW when I moved but my grandson has a 12CK he's going to pick up soon so we'll have a rodeo to go through. I hope it's not as extensive as yours.

 

[wildo]

I received the ductile iron to make a new compound slide base with. But first I had to remove the carriage. Initially I wasn't going to, but one of the wiper covers for the tailstock slide was broken and had filled up the slide section with chips, plus a couple oilers weren't working.

Hindsight being 20/20... should've just torn it down all the way when I first got it. I wanted to do that, but it makes me feel guilty when I am pushing other customers work back for my own jobs.

I got caught up on a rock drill undercarriage I'd been slugging away at for a week on and off (20+ broken lower roller bolts) so I had no guilt hiding away in the shop for a couple days.

I use a ultrasonic cleaner for most of my small parts cleaning.
I find TSP is the best solvent to use in it, though it tends to strip paint, but will not tarnish brass or aluminum like some other degreasers do. Home hardware no longer have the gallon jugs so I am stuck with general degreaser from Wurth which isn't great. Multi-klean by klean-flo is my second favorite after TSP.







There was one broken oil line for the flat carraige way, and both cross slide lines were plugged. While I was at the scrap yard dropping off tracks from the rock drill I found a bunch of plumbing stuff which had copper tubing in the size I would be needing (3/32"). Also some nice compression springs for the junk drawer.
Ideally I would've ordered the correct size tubing in steel like oem, but the copper stuff will work. It's a fraction smaller ID, but I don't think the ol girl will mind. I had to heat up the ferrules and gently separate from the old tubing for re-use.

I used permatex "right stuff" to glue in the new tubing and replace the original sulfur/plaster? mastic

The metering valves cleaned and unstuck in the ultrasonic cleaner/cleaning with brake clean and compressed air. I didn't have any issues with the headstock ones either - I've read that other's replace them on principal, but at least from my experience wasn't necessary

 

[wildo]

There was another new addition to my shop last week. Finally; a drill press. Almost have a half assed machine shop now! First job, drill & tap the apron oil fill to a more humane 1/4" npt.



The offending tailstock way wiper. I ordered a few different styles of rubber way wipers to try out. I would like to have all of them with rubber wipers prior to the felt. But for now the felts will be ok.



I made up a quick chip guard and proceeded to hog down the 2" thick ductile to 1.5" thick. Seems to face pretty flat, no chatter. Very happy. Though there isn't much swing over the carraige. I see now why they've crashed it so many times. For a big lathe it's not very big.

I think I asked too much of the repaired compound as it has cracked again and no longer is flat. Some depth of cut adjustments were required to limp through the rest of the job.




I have not cut dovetails before and it's been 5+ years since I've worked in a machine shop so this is bringing back a lot of memories of trade school. I am going to make the base .5" thicker at the clamping holes. I drilled the holes prior to the shaper to make fixturing it easier...

 

[wildo]

Roughing out on the shaper. Had a bit of a brain fart not having the clapper angle set correctly.. dug in pretty nice in the corner of one dovetail. Thankfully there was enough material to clean up.






I will have to make a beveled straight edge to finish the dovetails. That's the next job. New busch bench plate arrived yesterday. Got a stand knocked up out of scrap.



A delicate handover

 

[wildo]

Well I got started on scraping this week. I never did it when I was at trade school. Pretty steep learning curve!
Few things that made the first couple days wasted;

*Not having a good bluing compound to start with. This made it impossible. Since I got the dykem it made it a lot less frustrating.
*I thought I could get by without a diamond lap. Not the case.
*Trying to rush!





I started getting the hang of it on the straight edge, till my girlfriend knocked it off the bench and put a bit of a hump in it. The second version I was a lot happier with. I also put a handle on it before getting it straight again. and I stopped leaving it hanging off the bench!









I've since polished the lap and that has helped get my blade keener. The blade sharpening has had the most impact I think. I was struggling because of getting a slight rounded cutting edge. After figuring that out it's been a lot better

 

[wildo]

Upper compound is done. I may or may not improve on this. I sort of just needed to get going on it as I felt like I was going a bit crazy..





I scraped one side of a box parallel this morning and got started on the lower compound. It's a lot nicer using scraped surface for spotting. The ground surface plate is a pain in the ass. Very easy to scratch.

I mounted the lower compound in the logan and topped the dovetails and finished the OD. I then roughed flat ways parallel to mounting surface. Just started fitting the upper to lower. Hopefully be getting somewhere with all this in the next few days.

 

[wildo]

lower roughed and finished





Started on the gib. Looking at the gib would put a bow in it, even after numerous peening sessions... after getting the gib halfway cleaned up test fitting showed would be needing minimum .030 behind it. Coming in this morning after a half assed attempt at gluing a shim behind it last night my eyes scoured the shop/all local shops for a piece of cast for a new gib.

Unluckily for the straight edge it fits the bill quite nicely and has fulfilled its created purpose. I will make a more sturdier replacement in the future.
Parting off the 12" section in the shaper was about as fun as you can imagine. Only slightly better than cutting it with a hacksaw.
I got it setup on angle plate ready for machine tomorrow if no service calls. The scraped edge is outside as its quite smooth and didn't foresee it sticking well to the angle plate. The dowel is ref to the bottom for aprox .0205"/in taper just shy of 1:48 mainly to give a quicker re-install/adjustment after test fit.

 

[wildo]

the tapered gib was mostly uneventful aside from being .015" out on the taper on first test fit. I dialed the shaper table (points down) onto the top face of the angle plate. Which happens to be 0.015" out to the base (nice).
Got it fitted and scraped in mostly. The spotting is high on the moving side of the gib and when I try and get it moved down it just moves down on the fixed side. I think because my dovetail angles don't match 100%. It's certainly good enough, miles better than any other lathes I've ran. I will leave the gib long and re-fit in the future when I have a bit more mental capacity.

The most satisfying part so far has been cutting the nut from the old compound, which is all its good for!

 

[wildo]

The cross slide compound mounting surface was pretty messed up. 2 points long ways 0.010" higher than the rest. I am surprised the cross slide didn't get broken.. I guess this bowed the cast iron but I'm not sure. The rest of the cross sldie seemed ok (not bowed).

I ended up having to scrape the flat ways of the compound because there wasn't a good reference or indication what the plane should be. I removed around 0.008" from the least worn section of the tailstock side. After getting the flat ways parallel to the dovetail clearance the compound outer ring which I hadn't scraped yet was in .001 parallel so I guess it was a pretty good guestimate.

I put masking tape to cover the holes to cut down on time cleaning chips out of the holes before each spotting.
I'm not too concerned about getting the flat ways perfect as the rest of the carraige is as rough as you'd expect.










It took a while to map out what exactly was going on, but it was worth while, as it enabled me to rough out the majority of the flat ways using a depth mic

 

[RC Mech]

Fantastic thread! Your photos are excellent too, well-framed and lit. Good work.

 

[wildo]

Fantastic thread! Your photos are excellent too, well-framed and lit. Good work.

Thank-you.

finishing of compound surface

 

[wildo]

I engraved the numbers, as didn't feel like playing stamp roulette







I had a truck breakdown I had to work on out of town so that cut into my plans for work to get done. I quickly spotted and roughed down the cross slide. Nothing particularly accurate, just to get better contact. Surprisingly little wear. I don't think the lathe got hardly any use, just mostly abuse. 0 is most wore, positive is unwore. Appears to be .002" wore measuring from top of dovetails. There was practically no wear under the dovetails so all of this wear is from people not wiping the ways which is frustrating.




I threw the last of a can of paint on the compound as it felt like the right thing to do. Nothing fancy. It will get a better job some time in the future. I just need to get wrapped up on this and stop coming home at 11pm every night






still a few more things to finish. Have to mount rear wiper and way cover. Front wiper sitting proud on the gib which will be corrected.

The compound was certainly a lot more time consuming than I initially thought. Not looking forward to the tailstock!

 

[wildo]

rear wiper on.




I blued up the spindle and had no contact on the taper. I ended up having to remove quite a lot from the spindle face to get the taper to seat (confirmed with multiple chucks). Maybe around 0.015-0.020 I wasn't counting, just taking .001 cuts at a time. A light skim was taken from the taper to remove the majority of the damage.







The next step was doing a basic accuracy test on the tailstock quill blank. After remounting the new (previous owner) no name brand 4 jaw chuck on its backing plate I had around 015 run out on the tailstock end. I took the chuck off, remounted it, bored out the center hole to make sure not binding and cleaned all the burrs out of the jaw slides. One or 2 of the jaws are out of square.

I have no care or desire to fix the undersized, under quality chuck, and have ordered a used 12" bison 4 jaw which should be here in a week or so. It won't be all that easy though as its currently an L0 mount, so I also got a used d1-6 3 jaw to cannibalize to make the back plate