Lets see those machines!!

[Billygoat]

I have done a few machines and have a few more to do. I haven't taken much photo documentation of the restorations but here is an old Steptoe shaper I have restored. I go through quite a few 3" dia. Scotch Brite pads. They work very well on the bare metal surfaces. I picked up this Steptoe about a year ago and got stalled on the restoration with some other projects but plan to finish installing the drive this spring. I picked up a 5 HP single phase motor for it a few months ago. I still need to restore my Index vertical mill and a camelback drill press. The smaller machines are set up in the basement and the bigger machines are out in the garage. I have more stuff to come as I am going to be bringing my dad's stuff to my place. He has a 20" Flather lathe, 12" Hendey lathe and an old camelback. He is 82 and just can't work in his shop anymore. Below is a list of my old iron.

1924 Boye & Emmes 18” Lathe
1958 South Bend 9” Model A Lathe
1964 Index Model 645 Vertical Milling Machine
1950’s Diamond Tool Co. M-22 Horizontal Milling Machine
Rockford Drilling Machine Co. Camelback Drill Press
Silver Manufacturing Co. Camelback Drill Press
1920’s John Steptoe Co. 16” Shaper
Joba 13” Shaper

 

[traditional-tools]

I've seen a couple Nichols posts in Antique, so maybe it's ok for us 'ol NicholHeads to post here nowadays...

My mill didn't get such a nice treatment like Doc's mill, or even Greg's mill for that matter, but it is cleaned up, functioning properly and making swarf for me.

My mill was damaged in shipping, and required a bit of work to put gumby back together again...the motor was destroyed, the electrical was destroyed (starter was smashed to bits), the y-nut was broken (may have been like that), etc...

The first pic is how it arrived, and the second pic is how it looks just after getting it running. The vertical head is in place but not mounted.

I have about $1k into my mill, including replacement parts, the vertical head, the tooling, along with a Kurt D60 and swivel base I got for it recently.

I just finished up a trade with GaryL and got a second horizontal arbor of the same size so I can have more than one setup to be swapped out easily. While a different sized arbor might make sense, this one is exactly like I had and can hold all the same cutters.

The last picture picture is what I did with it last weekend, slotted some bronze for saw backs for 2 saws I'm making.

Much thanks go to Greg Menke, Mike Schmidt, Gary Lowell, JamesR, Joe Bergamo (Plazza), Scott Seger, and especially RichTess for supplying me with a replacement motor. Greg helped with out with a starter, y-nut, endless advice...Mike helped with a lot of advice, as did Gary with advice and parts...JoeB for a pulley and decent price on the vertical head w/driver adapter, ScottS for a ring adapter for the vertical head (not on yet), and all for your patience with my ignorance to metalworking machines in general...

 

[Billygoat]

This is what I consider as my "small" shop which is located in the basement. (The "big" shop is out in the garage). It has a 9" South Bend lathe, a Joba shaper and a camelback drill press. All the machines were completely disassembled and restored. That was the only way I could get them down the steps.

 

[Mike C.]

I'm not going to try to put thumbnails of all this stuff. Just hit the page and surf around...

http://home.att.net/~micallahan/machineshop.html

Some are now removed from me. My initiation to machine restoration was the behemoth in the first pic there. Last one was the Fosdick radial. Maybe I'll get the itch to pretty one of my thangs up this summer.

 

[traditional-tools]

Mike,

I see that Geoff is doing or has done some stuff with you. He just got a nice Nichols table from me a couple weeks ago to put on his Nichols mill. He must have his Nichols at home, I didn't see it in those pics...

Regards,
Alan

 

[Mike C.]

Yeah! Geoff wants me to come over and help him out with the fitting of that table, when I get some time. He's a real good guy and a good machinist, too. He has been wanting one of those tables for years. Yes, his Nichols is at home, in fact, many of tose machines are no longer at that museum.

We were both very involved with the aviation museum here for many years. He was a City Engineer and I was a City employee at the museum. He was very helpful in getting things done through the back channels in many cases. We both took our toys and went home when a new management made up primarily of greedy, egomaniacal morons took over and basically turned a very responsible museum into an entertainment center.

Geoff's green Grizzly is no longer there (it went home with him), as did the late model Steptoe 12X shaper (coming to my shop), and the company I now work for bought the big Pacemaker, saving it from probable scrap. The rest of the pictured machines, along with a turn of the century Dreses 5ft radial drill, a Crescent 36" bandsaw, a VN22L tooled to the hilt, a 10ft box and pan brake, and some woodworking machinery, are still there. If not deemed useable by the idiot yuppie running the place and his even dumber yes-man assistant, they are undoutedly sitting out in a parking lot, ruining, or already at the scrapyard. Since basically nobody is left there that knows how to run the machines, they are probably going to rust.

The shop is now a vacant unused area. No work is being done, and none will be done, as they ran off all the experienced volunteers. About 14 left before, when, and after I walked. The summer before the new management took over, we had about 2 dozen volunteers and worked Tuesdays from 9:00am to after midnight. They now start about 9:00 and quit before 4:00. They have about 4 now that know nothing, but do exactly what they are told without asking questions... just the kind the new guys like.

 

[traditional-tools]

Yeah! Geoff wants me to come over and help him out with the fitting of that table, when I get some time. He's a real good guy and a good machinist, too. He has been wanting one of those tables for years. Yes, his Nichols is at home, in fact, many of tose machines are no longer at that museum.

Mike,

He's got it all cleaned up, he soaked the ends and got the old paint off. I sent him the gib also, so in theory there should be minimal work to get the table setup, but in reality that might not be the case.

I will be very interested to hear how much work it is to get the gib fitted and the table operating. The table was nice enough that I considered keeping it as a spare, but honestly, I wanted someone like Geoff to get it that would appreciate having the longer table. I crated it up good to make sure it arrived in one piece. I'm not sure if you guys will need to scrape the gib or not, I've heard that needs to be done...but the hope was that the old gib would be fitted for the table.

a Crescent 36" bandsaw

That's something I would like, a vintage bandsaw. I was recently talking to a guy that has a Parks 18" metal/wood bandsaw, that would be good for my home shop, and function dual purpose. I have an old Crescent 8" Jointer that I was trying to barter with him, from about 1920, not running at the moment but it has the safety head (opposed to square head).

If you help Geoff put the table on, get a pic of it up in this thread! I like the color on his mill, it's a shade of sea foam green or similar.

 

[macona]

Before:

After:

 

[m.k.millwork]

reply

absolutely gorgeous!!!! keep the pics coming

Mark

 

[Rick Rowlands]

I just can't help myself! Here are some before, during and after shots of my first big restoration project.


Before.

During.


After. Needs a bit of green paint though.

 

[Rick Rowlands]

And last years restoration project:


Before


After

 

[cyberwolph]

I tell you what, if I hadn't seen it on here I don't think I would have ever seen that.

 

[hms50]

Hendey No. 1 General Purpose Lathe

Now that I've learned how to post pics I may be a real problem!!

Here is a lathe that was so filthy that I almost passed it up. This pic. is from about 4 years ago after refurbishing it. Now the taper attachment and wooden collet box is complete and mounted.

 

[tools]

Again, some of these have been on here before.

Fray 10RH:

Nichols (sorry, no before pic, not as bad as the Fray though):

Walker Turner radial drill press:

Hammond carbide grinder (you get the idea):

Atlas 618 lathe (looked a little like the fray):

Rockwell 17" drill press (since then, it has been completed):

That's all I can find right away for metal machines. Have a similar list of woodworking machines. ALL of them come to me as sad bastards, usually totally put out to pasture and on the way to the scrap dealer. It's been on hell of an education, as they all need some sort of repairs, from replacing sheaves on step pulleys, scraping, fabricating parts (the Nichols vert head adaptor being my most noteworthy accomplishment so far), brazing cast iron, I'm going to learn how to rewind motors, a zillion methods of rest removal, a zillion ways to remove broken fasteners, electrical everything (I rebuild starters and switches), and on and on and on.

I do this to everything in my home, I repair all the appliances, luggage, furniture, kitchen toys, cars, boats, toys, you name it. All using stuff I fixed, to fix things and the education I got fixing the tools to fix things.

This would be the core root of my hobby therapy.

Cheers,

Tools

 

[cyberwolph]

Very nice work!

 

[BigBlockMopar]

Here are the before and after-pics of the lathe I recently bought.
This is mostly been a 'paint-restoration'.

 

[cyberwolph]

Sometimes thats all they need to make them feel better.

 

[DocsMachine]

The majority of what I did to my Nichols was little more than paint & bodywork.

A few key parts needed to be fabbed (half nut, motor shaft) and everything needed to be cleaned, but really, most of my "rebuild" was closer to "paint job".

As you say, sometimes that's all they need.

Doc.

 

[Unionwolf]

Why do pics not show ? Says go to photo Bkr and pay 400$

 

[Joe in NH]

What has happened since most of this thread was contributed is that 3rd Party Photo Hosts (Places like Snapfish, PhotoBuddy, and others) are now charging for your use of them as 3rd Party Host.

Among other fee generating schemes.

The fees usually are not excessive - and one has to admit that having someone else "manage & maintain" your pictures is convenient.

And for them particularly.

But Host sites are not forever - and never were intended to be.

Unfortunately due to storage cost overheads a lot of these companies are now "culling" their picture content. My experience with Snapfish a case in point.

I have previously posted pix of a "D. Chamberlain" (we think) planer which was 3rd Party Hosted by Snapfish. In fact, I have lost TWO computers since this picture was uploaded to Snapfish - and was glad the pix was on Snapfish - since it was no where else.

And now not even there. Recently I learned that pix on Snapfish - unless used within the previous 5 years - are "culled" and no longer available. Including the D. Chamberlain planer.

Bummer, but I'm fortunate that I have the original 1978 hardcopy transparency of those pictures. Someday I'll re-make the electronic rendering. And this says something about electronic copies.

But what of the non-hard copy electronic pix you trust a 3rd Party Host to keep for which you have no back-up?

One should carefully read the fine print on any 3rd Party Hosting agreement for money. Or better yet - keep pix copies yourself, either hardcopy (best) or electronic (flash drive best?) And upload these as necessary to PM or elsewhere.

OBTW, industry reports are that flash drives are considered "less than 10K accesses secure." Meaning the flash drive will fail as a memory device in less than 10,000 cycles/uses. This sounds more dire than it is since most flash drive users will probably never approach this level of use (the fail is not in the drive itself but rather in the USB connection mechanics - parts wear.) But worth keeping in mind.

Joe in NH