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My 1959 Heavy 10 Toolroom Lathe

Lucaselef

Aluminum
Joined
Mar 19, 2015
Here's some pictures of my 1959 South Bend Heavy 10 Toolroom Lathe. Spent almost 3 months working everyday after work and all day on the weekends to restore it. Completely disassembled, repainted, replaced some bearings and gears, and then reassembled. Wear on bed is only .0015" at it's worst so I didn't bother to scrape it. I'll probably rescrape the cross slide and compound eventually, but wanted to get it together and see how she works first. I still need to install the belt, but I had shoulder surgery last Thursday and I'm going to be in a sling for 2 months so that's going to have to wait.
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Wow. You totally minted that thing out. Superb work.
It would be a shame to dirty it up as now it's like a new car. First one to put a scratch on it must die!
 
Wow. You totally minted that thing out. Superb work.
It would be a shame to dirty it up as now it's like a new car. First one to put a scratch on it must die!
Lol thanks, I assure you there's already scratches and corners I cut when painting it. While I do plan on keeping it clean, using it is the main goal. I'm looking at quick change tool post options right now, and eventually I'm going to defile it and install a DRO.
 
Looks nice... Did you redo the brass plates yourself?
I redid the lubrication chart on the outside of the pulley cover and the bearing adjustment instructions on the inside of the cover. The gearbox plate was in good enough condition I just cleaned and polished it and left it alone. Restoring then was very hard and they didn't come out perfect. My raised portions were very thin and a number a spots that's weren't supposed to got sanded through when I tried sanding using 1000 grit in a granite plate. Ultimately what worked best was using a small rubber sanding block like 1" x 2" sold by 3M for auto body work and 1000 grit paper. I used the very corner of the block and basically sanded each letter individually. It took forever. Then scuffed the painted parts that didn't get hit already and cleared the whole thing with semi-gloss clear from a rattle can.
 
Not really, as I don't want to have to bother resetting them all the time. I'm planning to do a nice clean install while drilling a minimum of holes. Currently still in the planning phases, but I'm leaning towards building a bracket that mounts to the follower rest holes to support one end of the cross slide scale, and smashing another bracket between the cross slide and telescoping gauge mount to mount the read head that way I won't have to drill any holes. I'll have to drill some holes for the Z axis scale, but since that will be on the back side of the bed under the taper attachment it won't really be seen.
 
..."I'm leaning towards building a bracket that mounts to the follower rest holes"...

Man I look at those holes all the time and want to do something with them but then tell myself wait until a day when I have a mill and then with the mill whatever I was going to do with them may not be necessary! So I just look at them! lol
 
Not really, as I don't want to have to bother resetting them all the time. I'm planning to do a nice clean install while drilling a minimum of holes. Currently still in the planning phases, but I'm leaning towards building a bracket that mounts to the follower rest holes to support one end of the cross slide scale, and smashing another bracket between the cross slide and telescoping gauge mount to mount the read head that way I won't have to drill any holes. I'll have to drill some holes for the Z axis scale, but since that will be on the back side of the bed under the taper attachment it won't really be seen.

If you do install a DRO make sure to do a thread here so we see what you come up with. [emoji3] There aren’t many threads showing how South Bend owners installed their DRO. It is always nice to see how others solve problems.

The DRO Pros magnetic scale DROs look pretty good for the investment. Have looked at adding one to my Heavy 10. I modified a 6” Mititoyo Digital caliper and made mounts for it to use on my lathe and it works better than the dial indicator set up I had but is not a great solution. We have a DRO on our South Bend 400 at work and it makes the lathe very useful!!! We used to have a Trav-a-dial on that lathe which worked decent but the DRO is light years ahead.


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Couple of pics of my caliper mount.
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I "defiled" my Heavy 10 with a single Z axis DRO and MachTach spindle tachometer. I used an import glass scale and it fits nicely tucked away behind the bed. Fairly inexpensive and extremely useful so far. I might eventually want an X axis but for now the crossfeed dial is as accurate as I need.

Display.jpg

The MachTach I have found very useful. The surface feet per minute mode allows setting the part diameter and displays the SFPM. I have a VFD and three phase motor setup, so turning the potentiometer allows me to dial in the cutting speed fairly easily. The tachometer input is from a gear tooth sensor reading off the bull gear.

Hope this helps.

Ben
 

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I "defiled" my Heavy 10 with a single Z axis DRO and MachTach spindle tachometer. I used an import glass scale and it fits nicely tucked away behind the bed. Fairly inexpensive and extremely useful so far. I might eventually want an X axis but for now the crossfeed dial is as accurate as I need.

View attachment 336641

The MachTach I have found very useful. The surface feet per minute mode allows setting the part diameter and displays the SFPM. I have a VFD and three phase motor setup, so turning the potentiometer allows me to dial in the cutting speed fairly easily. The tachometer input is from a gear tooth sensor reading off the bull gear.

Hope this helps.

Ben
Thanks for posting. How do you like the chuck mounted through the 5c collet? I assume you're doing this to you can quickly stop the VFD without unscrewing the chuck?
 
I have my VFD set to coast to a stop. I have found the 5C chuck handy to have for random things that come up while using collets. It’s quicker to install rather than breakdown the collet adapter setup and thread on the bigger chucks. I plan to use it for threading away from a shoulder next time to see how that works out. I am not sure I would put it high on the list of needed tooling but it was with another lathe I picked up for cheap. It’s a no name import so expectations were low but it has surprisingly little runout so I kept it.
 
Got a precision Matthews MX-200L (rebranded electronica) DRO mounted on the lathe. It was a ton of work as I was trying to find a way to not limit any travel or modify the lathe too much. Built a total of 6 brackets from scratch and then painted to match. Also built a steel riser stand for the display to mount on. I'm pleased as punch and can't wait to start using it.
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That turned out really nice! Thank you for sharing how you integrated the scales. The South Bends don’t really make it easy![emoji3]


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