Thread: Saving a Springfield

The metaphorical fuse has been lit. I ordered the bolts I needed on Monday, and just ordered 500 grams of Moglice Putty Hard. (Calculated need of about 370 grams.)

I have I think a fairly comprehensive "order of battle" to follow, and have been reviewing the handbook PDF the Moglice people have available.

I'm sure not gonna rush anything, but if all goes well, I should be able to cast this weekend.

Doc.

Didn't have much spare time again, today, but I got the brass bolts in, so I first had to make some minor modifications to the adjuster blocks. I decided to go with solid brass screws rather than just brass-tipped, but the one problem with that was the threaded portion was a little shorter.


So I had to mill the blocks down a little to compensate. After that, I reinstalled 'em with the better 10-32 screws that also came in...





Then faced the ends of the bolts so they'd be flat (note how I took the top jaws off so I could clamp the short-ish bolts easily.)




After that, I degreased everything, and installed the bolts with a dab of blue Loctite.



The Loctite is just to keep the bolts from turning too easily- once I adjust it to the right height, we have to move and manhandle the thing a bit, and I don't want an inadvertent elbow to throw anything out of adjustment.

Hoping the Moglice will be in on Friday, I've cleared my weekend schedule for this.

Doc.

Doc,
Have you read the getting ready for moglice thread on the monarch board (sticky). Lots of good info there.

My experience hold me to be liberal with the application of release agent, and also with the putty when you install it. The squeeze out is easier to fix than an air hole or other defect.

Looking fwd to LOTs of pictures;-))

Good luck

Peter

Well, the Moglice didn't come in on Friday, so no-go for the weekend. No big, still have plenty of other things to work on.

Next step in this particular project is to re-level the lathe, after things moved around a bit after we reinstalled the headstock.



Now, I paid a lot closer attention this time, and started seeing wonky readings. After a little investigating, it seems the level itself- which I'd never used in anger 'til just now- was out of whack.

Fortunately, these units are adjustable, albeit with a funky miniature spanner wrench, and of course a level is self-checking. If you can spin it 180 and get the same reading both ways, regardless of how actually level the part is, then the level itself is in good nick.

The bad part of that is this is a half-thou-in-ten-inches level. If you breathe too hard on the spanner, you've zoomed too far past your adjustment. It took me a good forty minutes to get it reading within a quarter-thou when you flip it.

Anyway, once it was there, it only took a few minutes to get both ends of the bed showing spot-on on the level.



Once I was happy with that, I snugged up the locking rings on the adjusters- I was afraid this was going to play hell with the adjustment, but it didn't affect it.



Of course, with just the one rod, I can't get a good hard snug on the collar, but I think they're snug enough the adjusters won't move by accident.

Now, with that done, the next check. And this is the big one- if something is haywire here, there's very little I'd be able to do about it.

I chucked up the overarm support bar from my Nichols mill, into what I was told was a basically-new chuck I bought a few years back, and then took the tailstock base to use as a slide.



I set up a half-thou Brown & Sharpe indicator on a magnetic base on the tailstock base, drizzled a little oil on the ways, and checked the bar. Turns out the bar wobbled eccentrically by 10 thou at the far end- at the moment I have no idea if that's the chuck or the bar. I know the bar slides nicely into the bored hole in the Nichols head, so I'll assume the chuck is a bit out- that's ten thou at the end of some fifteen inches of stickout, so still not bad.

Anyway, I rotated the chuck 'til the bar's eccentricity was vertical- the displacement was up-and-down, not side-to-side. Then I set the indicator up on the side of the bar, and slid it down the length, of course looking to see if the headstock is "crooked" to the ways.

Thankfully, it was damn near perfect.



I got an indicated... somewhere around a third of a thou over some fifteen inches of bar.

Which was a huge relief. I didn't know exactly how it could possibly have been "off", but if the headstock somehow had been crooked to the ways, it would have been immensely difficult to fix. That headstock weighs some 1,500 pounds, and I really don't feel like having to completely disassemble it in order to "scrape it back into true".

Fortunately, that doesn't appear necessary. If I get the chance, I want to throw one of the 4-jaws on, and dial in the same Nichols bar, and see if I can get it to spin without the wobble, and then check it again. But for the time being, I'm confident she's in good nick.

Doc.

.... my mind is boggled at your headstock..... its about the same size as one of the old Eaton 18-wheeler transmissions (!)

I bet you're glad it lines up!

This looks familiar....

Springfield lathe - Miscellaneous Tools - Byron, Michigan | Facebook Marketplace

Literally the second one I've ever seen.

Also you itty-bitty mailbox is full Doc.

Yep. They're just not as common as Monarchs or Lodge & Shipleys, and you don't see too many come up for sale. Wich I could find someone parting one out, but really, I have 99% of what I need for this thing, so if that never happens, no big.

PM box cleaned out. Faster to contact me through my site email, I don't always have time to keep up on PMs from all the boards I'm registered to.

For anyone else wondering about the status of this project, I had to set it aside for a moment when priorities changed- one of the many wonderful aspects of self employment- and figure I'll pick it back up when things slow down a bit after the snow flies. (Which, statistically speaking, will be in about three weeks. )

Doc.

Hi Doc, hope you don't get put off posting on this project like on the turret lathe, I have enjoyed your posts from the beginning due to your expert documentation and light hearted commentary. Thanks,Jim

Originally Posted by jmm03

Hi Doc, hope you don't get put off posting on this project like on the turret lathe[...]

-That will be entirely up to the attention-whore poster who appends himself to every single popular thread he can, because he produces no original content himself.

I have no interest in providing yet another soapbox for him to shout his "hooray for me!" Grandpa Simpson bullshit from.

Doc.

Originally Posted by DocsMachine

-That will be entirely up to the attention-whore poster who appends himself to every single popular thread he can, because he produces no original content himself.

I have no interest in providing yet another soapbox for him to shout his "hooray for me!" Grandpa Simpson bullshit from.

Doc.

What this forum needs is a tool that allows the thread starter to block certain people from posting on the thread, or at least a moderator the tool to do that.

It would be very popular...

PDW

[blows the dust off]

Wow, where'd the last eight bloody months go? (Well, besides other projects... )

In the last episode, our intrepid heroes had gotten to the point of prepping to apply Moglice to the saddle- pretty much the last major bit of work before the rest of the machine can be bolted back together and finally used.

After more than seven years.

The turret lathe project is just about complete, so it's about time to get back to this monster. A few weeks back, when I was thinking about dusting this thing off, I suddenly recalled that someone had mentioned that Moglice has an expiration date. I thought I recalled six months, and since I'd ordered this stuff back in April, six months as up a while ago.

Not that even this kind of epoxy goes bad right at the stroke of midnight on the 31st, but I figured I shouldn't dawdle much longer.

I checked the cans, and they're stamped on the bottom- expiration 1-21. They're 'officially' good for another month and a half. [wipes sweat from brow]

My shop, as I'm sure I've mentioned, is crowded and busy- at least as busy as a one-man shop can be. My organizational skills are somewhat lacking, and my packrattery often gets the best of me.

Here's the poor, neglected monster as of this past Friday evening.



And somewhat neatened up and a touch more accessible, as of Saturday afternoon.



The pallet underneath has most of the remaining hardware to be reinstalled, the cardboard box on the right is my 10HP VFD to power the thing, and the tub and crates to the extreme right have the toolposts, tool blocks, Sjogren chuck and other tooling, waiting patiently to be put to use.

I just need to dig up my notes and that factory PDF on applying the Moglice, re-familiarize myself with what needs to be done, and once all my waterfowl are once again colinear, finally get this little job done.

With a little luck, hopefully I can take the post-Christmas/pre-New-Years week more or less 'off' and get 'er done then.

Stand by.

Doc.

I am sure I'm not the only one looking forward to your progress reports.
Mark

Doc's posts are like Joe Michael's narratives...

Originally Posted by jmm03

Doc's posts are like Joe Michael's narratives...

I've often thought that Joe just needs to compile his posts in order to publish a book...

Originally Posted by jmm03

Doc's posts are like Joe Michael's narratives...

-Yeah, but mine have pictures.

Doc.

Looks good doc, hoping to see more.
I’ve been thinking about using Moglice too, I was just doing some homework last week actually.

I’ll be following closely!

Also, you don’t need me to tell you but that big boned ebony is looking fine as wine packed away in your shop

Taking the week after Christmas off (well, not entirely, one of the many 'perks' of being self-employed) to hopefully at least complete the Moglice application. Once that's done, most of the rest is just reassembly.

In anticipation, I got the work area a little more cleared out...



And set out to finally start nailing down some measurements. I turned myself an aluminum 'spud' to measure from- unfortunately I only had some 1" and 2" round on hand, and of course needed 1-1/8" and 1-3/8". And for some strange reason, the metal supplier was closed today...



Using that, I was able to measure from the leadscrew centerline on the apron, up to the top face where it mates to the saddle.



And also from the QCGB leadscrew boss up to the underside of the newly-ground ways.



If I did my math right- no sure thing- I came up with 2.850" from the CL of the QCGB to the underside of the way, and 3.713" from the apron boss centerline to the top of the apron mounting face.

Which means I need to adjust the apron mounting face of the saddle to be 0.863" above the bottom of the way.

Except, the bottom of the saddle has a rectangular block on each side, for the lower way bar, which is kind of in the way. So I had to measure that, and subtracting the above figure, arrived at a nice even ten thou.



Which makes me think that the way and the bottom of that rectangular bit were originally level with each other before the grinding- which would make sense, as they're way bar mounts. The grind shop didn't tell me how much they ground off the bottom of the bed way, but they clearly did at least skim it, from the looks of it.

I'm not overly confident in all my stacked measurements, there's way too much room for error. Although admittedly the error will only be a few thou, and originally, the saddle had been sagging some forty thou, so I suppose I shouldn't get too anal-retentive here.

But anyway, using that ten-thou figure, it was easy to adjust the two corners to that spec.



Now here's where I'm less sure of the process. I know I can align the saddle perpendicular to the spindle centerline by indicating between the cross-slide ways and the chuck face. But what about front-to-back "level"?

I'm going to assume, for the moment, that the dovetail way should be level to the bed itself.



And if that's the case, I'm going to have to mill the back way of the saddle, as there's only about 20 thou clearance back there, maybe less. (The Moglice people recommend 50-60 thou or more.)

Presuming I have that right, is there anything I'm missing? I want to run through all the measurements again, just to be sure- as above, not overly confident of some of those stacked numbers- and I haven't yet aligned it to the spindle bore.

Doc.

Merry Christmas Doc!
Before you dive in too deep with the measuring thing, may I suggest that you read some of my thread on rebuilding my Hendey T&G. ( around post 132)
A Hendey 9 T&G "wreck"

I went through the exercise of measuring, and in the end I found (what I thought was) an easier way.
I made a set of jack pads to sit the carriage on, complete with the apron, and used some close tolerance short shafts and bushing to align the assembly in 3 dimensions. I slid the carriage up to the gearbox. and adjusted until the slip bushing would easily slide on the lead screw end, then slide to the tailstock end and do the same.
Then level the carriage front to back and longitudinally, and try the bushings again.
It took a bunch of tries, but in the end it worked very well.

Also, 1 caution, when lay out the striping tape for oil relief, be sure that you don't go beyond the depth where the carriage sits on the way. I didn't pay attention and the old drips off the way under the carriage on the front.

Keep up the good work!!

Peter

I made a set of jack pads to sit the carriage on, complete with the apron, and used some close tolerance short shafts and bushing to align the assembly in 3 dimensions. I slid the carriage up to the gearbox. and adjusted until the slip bushing would easily slide on the lead screw end, then slide to the tailstock end and do the same.

-Yeah, I saw that, but I can't use the same technique- at least not easily.

One, I can't hang the apron on my own, and over this holiday weekend, help is hard to come by.

Two, I don't have a similar boss for the lead screw. In this photo:



You can see the aluminum part is slipped into a cast boss on the back of the apron. That's the only such guide I have. It's not a slip-fit to the leadscrew- it's almost 1-3/8" ID, and the leadscrew is only 1-1/8". I can't even be sure the boss was exactly concentric with with the leadscrew.

And three, even if I could fit a rod in there, and with the short bearing on a known not-quite-perfectly-round bore, the rod would need to be 8" to 10" long to mate up to the gearbox. I'd have no way to know the rod would still be parallel.

However, all that said, I may still have to try. I took a whole new set of measurements, and I'm still not confident in them. That's because I can't really measure anything directly, from or to. I have to measure other things and calculate offsets or standoffs.

And apart from the inherent inaccuracy of doing so, I remain afraid I've overlooked something, or measured something the wrong way, or whatever.

Also, 1 caution, when lay out the striping tape for oil relief, be sure that you don't go beyond the depth where the carriage sits on the way. I didn't pay attention and the old drips off the way under the carriage on the front.

-Yep, I recall reading your post about that, and made of a note of it. Thank you for the reminder!

Doc.

Not having a great deal of confidence in my original measurements, I spent the day doing it all over again.

And I'm still not confident in them.

First, I re-checked the level of the bed itself:



Still spot-on, end-to-end.

Then, realizing I could eliminate another potential error, I measured directly to the leadscrew collar, and in three different places, just to be sure.



Running through the rest of the convolutions (any pictures would have just looked like the previous ones) came up with an all-new number: The bottom of that way-bar boss on the saddle apparently now needs to be 0.017" higher than the bottom of the bedway.

And I'm not at all sure that makes sense. Both add-on bars are flat- the face that sits on the saddle boss and the face that rides on the bottom of the bedway are coplanar. I could believe the original 10-thou high for the bedway, as it'd been ground. I'm not at all sure I believe 17 thou high for the saddle bosses.

In either case, that's a 27 thou difference from yesterday. Clearly I'm not doing, thinking or calculating something right.

Anyway, attempting to dial the whole mess in a little better, I then leveled it front-to-rear, to a value exactly matching the bed itself.



I also tried to do an ad-hoc survey of the cross-slide dovetail. Using a couple of precision-ground rods like so:



I came up with a not-unexpected 'waist' in the center, but only of about 0.003". I don't know if that's due to the dovetail wear or the bottom flats being worn. The length of the rods probably smooths over some of that.

Measuring the height from the dovetail to the bottom flat shows spots of less than .005", also in the center. At some point all that will have to be addressed- I hoped it could be scraped in later, but really, I should have sent it along for grinding, too.

Anyway, after what I thought was a reasonable alignment, I dusted off the cross-slide, got out one of my better indicators, and aligned the cross slide as close to perpendicular to the spindle axis as I could, using the face of the very-low-miles Cushman chuck.



I rotated the chuck and re-swept several times, to be sure it wasn't crooked- the measurements repeated perfectly. The face is very close to perfectly true.

Now, I did a final check. I got out some old plasticine clay, and kneading up a couple of blobs, put one each out towards the 'wings' and set the saddle down on them. On removing the saddle, I had an accurate gage of the clearances, and I'm not sure I believe these either. Front right corner, about an eighth of an inch?!?



Backside of the same lump, 3/32"?



Both rear, 1/16"?



I'm not at all sure I can believe 125 thou. Schaffer only ground about 6-8 thou off the ways, and the wear grooving on the underside of the saddle is roughly only 40 thou of apparent wear.

That makes me think I'm off somewhere by 50-75 thou, somehow.

Even the 60-ish thou at the rear isn't necessarily believable. The wear grooving in the saddle isn't anywhere near that deep, and they only ground about 6 thou off that way.

I definitely need to sleep on this one. I'm doing something wrong and I don't yet know where or how.

Doc.