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Headstock alignment after bed grinding

marka12161

Stainless
Joined
Dec 23, 2016
Location
Oswego, NY USA
There's lots of content in the archives on headstock alignment but i could find anything that addresses my specific questions. If there is an existing post, i'll apologize in advance for missing it. And now to my question:

I'm rebuilding a Monarch 16 CY x 54. The headstock on this machine is mounted to and registers to the bed via the rear inverted v way and front flat way that the tailstock rides on. Pretty much every sliding bearing surface on this machine is worn and in retrospect, maybe i should have passed on it but i'm already pretty deep into the rebuild so i've decided to do a complete job and have the bed ground. I currently have the bed off the pedestals and ready for grinding. When i removed the headstock, i found handscrape marks on the flat ways where the headstock mounts to these flats (both front and rear).

1. These lathes have hardened ways. Am i correct in assuming that the section under the headstock are not hardened in order to facilitate headstock alignment via scraping?

2. If i have the tailstock ways (inverted v and flat) ground, can I expect the same flatness under the headstock as the rest of the machine?

3. If i have the tailstock ways (inverted v and flat) ground am i correct in assuming i will need to align the headstock via handscraping these ways as was done during original machine alignment?

A project of this scope, particularly for someone with my experience level, has and will continue to generate lots of questions. More to come.

Thanks
Mark
 
There's lots of content in the archives on headstock alignment but i could find anything that addresses my specific questions. If there is an existing post, i'll apologize in advance for missing it. And now to my question:

I'm rebuilding a Monarch 16 CY x 54. The headstock on this machine is mounted to and registers to the bed via the rear inverted v way and front flat way that the tailstock rides on. Pretty much every sliding bearing surface on this machine is worn and in retrospect, maybe i should have passed on it but i'm already pretty deep into the rebuild so i've decided to do a complete job and have the bed ground. I currently have the bed off the pedestals and ready for grinding. When i removed the headstock, i found handscrape marks on the flat ways where the headstock mounts to these flats (both front and rear).

1. These lathes have hardened ways. Am i correct in assuming that the section under the headstock are not hardened in order to facilitate headstock alignment via scraping?

2. If i have the tailstock ways (inverted v and flat) ground, can I expect the same flatness under the headstock as the rest of the machine?

3. If i have the tailstock ways (inverted v and flat) ground am i correct in assuming i will need to align the headstock via handscraping these ways as was done during original machine alignment?

A project of this scope, particularly for someone with my experience level, has and will continue to generate lots of questions. More to come.

Thanks
Mark

Hardness can be expected to have some variability, but no, not left "soft" under the HS.

It can still be scraped. "Hard" is a relative term, anyway. It is still only Cast Iron, not Osmium nor even "tool steel".

But MOST of your scraping won't be to the bed. Flat OR Vee. It will be to the underside of the HS casting where it mates TO the bed, and more to the FLATS than the Vee.

Grinding will leave that Vee SMALLER.

After which the flats of the HS casting must be relieved to drop it a skosh so there is no gap and the Vee AND flats are brought back into full bearing AND proper alignment again.

That has been covered for at least the 10EE, and is similar, if not identical, in concept and execution, for your lathe.

Search posts by member "RC99", for one well-explained example and follow-along as he trial fits, lather, rinse, repeat until "good enough". TEDIOUS process. Very!

NB: It adds enough work I'm determined to NOT grind that Vee way nor flat for my 10EE's if even they are blessed with a regrind at all. The one that MATTERS more is the "front" (carriage control) Vee and mating "rearmost" flat.

MY goal is 80% of the available gain for but 20% of the possible work & expense.

It doesn't take much to correct but the worst wear and have a fair-decent machine off the rest being imperfect, but not all that badly imperfect.

The TS base and quill wear are usually more in need of cleanup than the Vee and flat it rides on. Short base and soft(er). Longer bed and hard(er), so the TS base takes the hit off the unfavourable ratios, same as the carriage underside takes FAR more wear than the ways.

Further, a TS is not NORMALLY "traversed" under load, nor by power, nor cyclically at all - but is USUALLY clamped in one place for the duration of a part or several identical ones same job, multiple units, not moved again until some OTHER tasking arises.

All the while the carriage IS being constantly traversed, often under power AND repetitively,

2CW
 
On my EE, after attempting to scrape the bottom of the headstock ONCE, I determined there must be a better way. Moglice to the rescue. They make a high quality jigging type epoxy, that is similar to the way compound but without the slippery stuff. Think very good JBWeld. I made a simple fixture to align the headstock to the newly ground ways, applied the putty, set the headstock down, and using a test bar, and a vintage but crazy accurate Federal Electro-Check, I was able to align the headstock to better than factory spec. I have been told that epoxy works quite well in compression, shear not so much. I did this going on 20 yrs ago and I have seen NO movement or change.Headstock pics
 
Scraping the bottom of Monarch Headsock

Take a look at this thread from Bob Goslin (Vette Bob)my friend and student who rebuilt his Monarch EE lathe. As fare as the ways looking like they were scraped. I suspect that is just cosmetic or staining from the bottom of the headstock and it is not soft or scraped. Look at post # 44 where Bod starts to align and scrape the headstock after he had his bed ground. If you need more help or advice I am positive Bob would consult with you on the phone. He is now retired (Airforce) and able to help via phone. He took 1 of my scraping classes and if you can break away I will be teaching a few classes this year. Rich

New to me 10EE

(Bod seldom comes to Practical Machinist anymore as he has issues with someone on here).

Message me or email me ...and I will forward it to him. Bob was my assistant teacher this last week in Fayetteville TN. He now lives in Chattanooga TN.
 
On my EE, after attempting to scrape the bottom of the headstock ONCE, I determined there must be a better way. Moglice to the rescue. They make a high quality jigging type epoxy, that is similar to the way compound but without the slippery stuff. Think very good JBWeld. I made a simple fixture to align the headstock to the newly ground ways, applied the putty, set the headstock down, and using a test bar, and a vintage but crazy accurate Federal Electro-Check, I was able to align the headstock to better than factory spec. I have been told that epoxy works quite well in compression, shear not so much. I did this going on 20 yrs ago and I have seen NO movement or change.Headstock pics

How do you deal with the height of the tailstock. i.e....as tailstock's wear, they are going to be lower than the headstock. So....get the quill in the tailstock properly fit (hone, hard chrome and grind), then scrape the tailstock for alignment. Now the headstock is high. What do you do - mill a bunch of the bottom of the headstock before the moglice? I guess you have to to get enough thickness for the moglice?
 
I know this is against Richard King's methods and rules.....

Back many years ago when I was involved in machine tool rebuilding, primarily lathes. We used to cut undercuts just in front the headstock on the vee and flat before the bed went onto the planer using a die grinder with a 1"-2" dia. rock. This gave a place for the planer cutting tool to drop into and kick up on the return stroke. You still had several surfaces that you used to align up the bed to the planer before planning. We did not rescrape the headstock to the bed since this was supposedly done at the factory. Doing this, you did not disturb the surfaces the headstock sat on. Later when doing alignment checks, you were well within the limits of alignment of the headstock with the "manual" Of course the tailstock, you always had to align it after rebuilding it to specs. Back then, we didn't have Turcite to work with as we do now. It was almost always Micarta we used for shimming up the tailstock and saddle of the lathe. Ken
 
Thanks to everyone who replied. My current thinking is to have the carriage ways ground as there is about 7 or 8 thousandths wear in them. I think i'll leave the tailstock ways as they are since, by my measurements, they are only worn 1 or 2 thousandths. The bottom of the tailstock is quite badly worn (>20 thousandths) so i'll have to correct that with shims. At this point, i don't think it's worth the potential added work associated with grinding the tailstock ways and requiring the headstock to be realigned. Please let me know if there are any flaws in this thinking.
 
How do you deal with the height of the tailstock. i.e....as tailstock's wear, they are going to be lower than the headstock. So....get the quill in the tailstock properly fit (hone, hard chrome and grind), then scrape the tailstock for alignment. Now the headstock is high. What do you do - mill a bunch of the bottom of the headstock before the moglice? I guess you have to to get enough thickness for the moglice?

I used moglice on the bottom of the tailstock, and built to height of the now aligned headstock. Not an issue. Thats the beauty of this system. If you fixture it correctly, getting all these alignments are not quite so daunting, and accurate work can be accomplished without being a master scraper. The Germans figured this out. I have heard that Turcite will not work in this application being it is a tad squishy, but Moglice does not compress. I did minimal flaking, and the tailstock requires a firm hand, and does not move when locking. In fact if it sits for awhile, it takes quite a bit of force to move it, like the wringing of gage blocks
 
Thanks to everyone who replied. My current thinking is to have the carriage ways ground as there is about 7 or 8 thousandths wear in them. I think i'll leave the tailstock ways as they are since, by my measurements, they are only worn 1 or 2 thousandths. The bottom of the tailstock is quite badly worn (>20 thousandths) so i'll have to correct that with shims. At this point, i don't think it's worth the potential added work associated with grinding the tailstock ways and requiring the headstock to be realigned. Please let me know if there are any flaws in this thinking.

7 or 8 thou wear on a lathe bed isn't the end of the world. I'd reckon more than 50% of the lathes in most business shops will have that degree of wear, if not more. They're still turning out good work, or the operators are anyway. What does the machine turn like ? Does it produce parallel work ? That's what decides if the bed needs a tune up. When you think about it the tool tip dropping 7 or 8 thou over the length of the bed is not going to cause you much of an alignment problem.

Regards Tyrone.
 
I know this is against Richard King's methods and rules.....

Back many years ago when I was involved in machine tool rebuilding, primarily lathes. We used to cut undercuts just in front the headstock on the vee and flat before the bed went onto the planer using a die grinder with a 1"-2" dia. rock. This gave a place for the planer cutting tool to drop into and kick up on the return stroke. You still had several surfaces that you used to align up the bed to the planer before planning. We did not rescrape the headstock to the bed since this was supposedly done at the factory. Doing this, you did not disturb the surfaces the headstock sat on. Later when doing alignment checks, you were well within the limits of alignment of the headstock with the "manual" Of course the tailstock, you always had to align it after rebuilding it to specs. Back then, we didn't have Turcite to work with as we do now. It was almost always Micarta we used for shimming up the tailstock and saddle of the lathe. Ken

^^^ This ^^^

Bronze - reasily available in MANY different thicknesses as sheet shim stock.. is another candidate.

- A(ny) used machine tool will not match modern, new CNC, no matter HOW "good as new" you make it.

Wise to limit what is invested to the "value" or "worth" that can be gotten back out of the correction(s) in the form of time and labour saved off reduced need of compensating, or avoidance of work scrapped.

Otherwise it is just time and money pissed away. A "better" machine, even if not new, would be smarter.

Fix what you must. Just "run" the rest...
 
Thanks to everyone who replied. My current thinking is to have the carriage ways ground as there is about 7 or 8 thousandths wear in them. I think i'll leave the tailstock ways as they are since, by my measurements, they are only worn 1 or 2 thousandths. The bottom of the tailstock is quite badly worn (>20 thousandths) so i'll have to correct that with shims. At this point, i don't think it's worth the potential added work associated with grinding the tailstock ways and requiring the headstock to be realigned. Please let me know if there are any flaws in this thinking.

The only "re-work" I have in mind for the "one-hole, handwheel" tailstock is cleaning up the clamping so it holds well.

- Quill is worn? Yes. Who cares? It holds "wherever" it is when clamped.

- Shoe is worn? Yes. Who cares? It holds "wherever" it is when clamped.

- Surfaces between upper/lower split for offsetting have no significant wear. Not even going to be taken apart, let alone shimmed or scraped.

Whyso?

One can adjust offset for on-axis and/or shallow/long tapers right at the tip.

Good enough. And DONE.

Of COURSE one drills from the carriage! Same as boring is done.

A(ny) large hole for clearing a bar is best done on the drillpress NOT the lathe. It's what drillpresses DO.

TS TURRET or bed turret is a different situation. Handle that in a different way.
 
I used to rep moglice and worked alongside Aucum Schultz the Deceased president of Diamant Products the Corp name of Moglice and we never recommended using Moglice on tailstock bottom ways as they became very slippery, even when they were locked down.
 
They (Devitt?) told me over the phone, at least when I did mine , said exactly the opposite. Turcite, yes, I would never put that on the bottom of a tailstock. In use, I have found in almost 20yrs!, that my tailstock stays rock solid and un -yielding when clamped. As I said in the earlier post, it wrings to the ways like a gage block. I have drilled holes in alum without clamping, just to see it it could be done. Maybe I got a "magical formulation" but that is my story and I am sticking to it. What people have done at least on the EE, is to Moglice between the top of the bottom half of the tailstock, thus still allowing a good range of adjustability, with original cast iron riding on the ways.
 
Who wants a gage block stick slip fit on a Tail-Stock bottom? You want it to be lubricated. That's why Devitt power 1/2 moon fakes Moglice after it is applied. I sold Moglice DWH filler for static fits where lubrication is not needed. I knew Joe Devitt who has passed, Drew Devitts, Dad. I taught Drew to power scrape at a SME trade show we shared in Minneapolis. I will call and write Cody the new applications engineer and see why he would tell you that. I'll cut and paste what he says when I hear back. For member info: In Germany they pronounce it Moge-Lice. But Joe changed the English translation to Mog - lease, so you didn't think of the insect "lice" when you said it..lol
 
I heard back from Cody of Moglice. I wrote him and asked about putting Moglice under the tailstock and ways. Here is what he said.

We NEVER use Moglice on a tailstock for conventional lathes. The Moglice is to slick where the tailstock will always move. Instead we use DWH which we use to build up the tailstock. DWH has a higher friction rating.

I was going to ask if you were still teaching. That is good that you passed the torch to some other guys to help you with the overseas work. It is hard to be everywhere. You still keeping busying teaching your class in the states?

I will tell Drew you said hello!

Kind Regards,
Cody Reeves
Mechanical/Sales Engineer
Devitt Machinery Co.
3345 Market Street
Aston, PA 19014
Ph: 610-494-2900
Cell: 484-336-3109
Fx: 610-494-7541
For Moglice
Devitt Machinery Company | Devitt Machinery Company
 
If I hadn't gotten the green light from Devitt (Joe or Drew, can't remember,Joe I think) for this application, I wouldn't have done it. I am not that cavalier on a job I have slaved years over. Now we are talking about the semi-hard NON-teflon putty, Moglice 500 not Moglice 1000. Do they even sell the Moglice 500 anymore? I used the semi hard Moglice 500. "Is it clamp-able? Yes, I am going to put it on the bottom of my tailstock. Absolutely, we do it all the time... Maybe Joe was being overly optimistic at the time and was going on the up-sell, but it worked for me and still works perfectly.
 
I'm always open to reports of actual experience, regardless of what hypothesis suggests. I understand the idea that you don't want to the tailstock to slide and therefore should not put Product X on the bottom. Nevertheless, there's the report of a conversation with a supplier, anecdotal though it may be, and the actual experience of a user. How is that different than hanging up a straightedge and ringing it because one has seen it work?

On the other hand, it's also to the point to consider whether you're assigning a cause and effect to things that don't actually have a connection. Snapping fingers to keep elephants away? It sure seems to work for me because I haven't had a problem with elephants in more than 70 years.
 
I will strike a middle ground, that as my experience is going on almost 20 yrs. ago, is that formulations change. What I used may not be what it is now, and is totally unsuitable for this purpose. And if Devitt currently says don't use it for this, don't use it for that.
 
Daryl, from the pics and descriptions you put on PM, I think you did a phenomenal job with your 10EE. If it works well for you, that’s all that matters.

L7
 








 
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