Thread: Saving a Springfield

Originally Posted by ClappedOutBport

Operators must have had 4lb sledges in place of their hands back in the day...

12, 16, or 20 lbs, actually. A "company" sledge, right at each lathe appropriately sized to its capacity.

But they were meant to align the work, not batter the lathes.

We had short-handled TWO pounders, classified as "hand drilling hammer" if you go in search of the right sort, and in our OWN toolchest for that.

No joke. Outdoor toilet of an old lathe was wont to jam, Company could not be bothered to address that, just kept-on pushing balls to the walls three shifts a day?

Time came it was either smack the f**ker out of feed ... or ruin the customer's expensive and only <wotever>?

The lathe took another hit.

"Bubba-the-idiot?" No.

We KNEW better.

But we also had to eat.. back when "cheap Chinese labour" was still living in Appalachia.

Was this lathe abused that way?

Was it a "company" lathe?

That's the vulnerability recipe.

Doc has had a lot of neglect to catch-up on. Bed regound in that, too?

Probably given it more care under his hands than the sum TOTAL of its entire existence prior .. since it made its FIRST chip.

Didn't have much time to fiddle around today, but one thing I was able to get done, was a very minor mod to the carriage stop.

Longtime readers may recall I picked this stop up off another PM'er- it might be a Monarch, but I haven't been able to verify that. Either way, it fit.

Or nearly so, it needed a little tweaking to fit right, among which was a very slight rounding at the tip of the vee, as the Springfield ways had a rounded top rather than a flat.

Well, now, after grinding, they're flat again.



It's not a big thing, but the tip of the vee wants to hit the 'corners' of the way- just slightly. That wouldn't do, so of course the fix is easy.

Junk the lot and head for Rio.

Or, alternatively, mill a 3/16" wide clearance notch at the top of the vee.



Didn't take much, but it gave the clearance it needed.



And there she is, back in her adoptive home.



Still thinking of fixing those oddball dial increments, though...

Doc.

[Edit: There's no less than three separate listings of this exact same style stop on eBay right now, that are all listed as fitting Mori Seiki lathes, so I'll presume that's the maker.]

The other piece of the clutch linkage is a bellcrank that goes at the rear of the underside of the bed, and translates the front/back of the clutch rod, to a left/right to actually work the clutch lever.

I have to admit it's not particularly well designed; the linkage that connects the front lever (the one I made the other day) to the bellcrank is basically set up so that it has to have a certain amount of slop in it, else it'll bind. The front lever inscribes a vertical arc, whereas the rear bellcrank rotates horizontally.

If you try to make things too snug, in an effort to remove some of the slop in the system, things break. Ask me how I know.

I may at some point try a full rework- basically making the lever and bellcrank again, but at the moment, I just want this thing up and running. The one part I did want to fix is the actual shaft going from the crank to the clutch actuating lever.

The factory arrangement is just a rod, stepped on the end, bent to about 60-ish degrees, and stuck in the hole in one leg of the crank. There's slop 1n that hole, plus the bend flexes a lot. After some pondering, I figured out a way I can put a solid spherical rod end in there- it has to have some angle compensation, as again the two features swing in different planes.

So I dug through my junkbins, found a couple cutoffs that looked like they wanted to volunteer, and a corner machine-torched out of 3/8" plate.



After some fiddling and a few wild guesses, I set up the rotary table, and milled a notch in the corner, for the pivot boss.



Like so:



Then measured, marked and milled one of the legs for a simple boss for the clevis rod coming in from the front.



The spherical rod end/heim joint needed a way to attach it to the arm, so I turned up a nice heavy boss, threaded 3/4"-16, and with a bit of clearance at one end.



The clearance is to give the rod end room to travel further. This is mostly "just in case", but added a few degrees of safety.



Back on the mill, I clamped down the part, cranked the head over about 20 degrees, and drilled, milled and then 'bored' the final seat.



At an angle, of course, so the rod end will hopefully more or less point straight-ish at the clutch arm. There won't be a large amount of misalignement, the arm will only move 2-3" at the most. But the overall angle I measured with an inclinometer at about 20 degrees, so why not bias the boss over to make the rod point straight-ish?



And TIGged! Currently cooling on the vise, hopefully I can finish this little project up in the morning.



Doc.

Originally Posted by DocsMachine

The other piece of the clutch linkage is a bellcrank that goes at the rear of the underside of the bed, and translates the front/back of the clutch rod, to a left/right to actually work the clutch lever.

I have to admit it's not particularly well designed; the linkage that connects the front lever (the one I made the other day) to the bellcrank is basically set up so that it has to have a certain amount of slop in it, else it'll bind. The front lever inscribes a vertical arc, whereas the rear bellcrank rotates horizontally.

If you try to make things too snug, in an effort to remove some of the slop in the system, things break. Ask me how I know.

I may at some point try a full rework- basically making the lever and bellcrank again, but at the moment, I just want this thing up and running. The one part I did want to fix is the actual shaft going from the crank to the clutch actuating lever.

The factory arrangement is just a rod, stepped on the end, bent to about 60-ish degrees, and stuck in the hole in one leg of the crank. There's slop 1n that hole, plus the bend flexes a lot. After some pondering, I figured out a way I can put a solid spherical rod end in there- it has to have some angle compensation, as again the two features swing in different planes.

So I dug through my junkbins, found a couple cutoffs that looked like they wanted to volunteer, and a corner machine-torched out of 3/8" plate.



After some fiddling and a few wild guesses, I set up the rotary table, and milled a notch in the corner, for the pivot boss.



Like so:



Then measured, marked and milled one of the legs for a simple boss for the clevis rod coming in from the front.



The spherical rod end/heim joint needed a way to attach it to the arm, so I turned up a nice heavy boss, threaded 3/4"-16, and with a bit of clearance at one end.



The clearance is to give the rod end room to travel further. This is mostly "just in case", but added a few degrees of safety.



Back on the mill, I clamped down the part, cranked the head over about 20 degrees, and drilled, milled and then 'bored' the final seat.



At an angle, of course, so the rod end will hopefully more or less point straight-ish at the clutch arm. There won't be a large amount of misalignement, the arm will only move 2-3" at the most. But the overall angle I measured with an inclinometer at about 20 degrees, so why not bias the boss over to make the rod point straight-ish?



And TIGged! Currently cooling on the vise, hopefully I can finish this little project up in the morning.



Doc.

Nice real nice!

Y'know, you don't have to quote the entire post including the photos...

Doc.

Originally Posted by DocsMachine

Y'know, you don't have to quote the entire post including the photos...

Doc.

Sorry, no more compliments for you!!!!

Finally had a few more minutes to fiddle this evening.

And after the neighbors complained about my off-key fiddling, I went out to the shop to tinker on the lathe some more.

The bellcrank was cool, of course, so I whipped up a washer of the appropriate thickness, found a good cotter pin, and mounted it, at least temporarily.



That let me get an idea where to cut off the long push rod...



Which turned out to be right about there.



That stub end got faced and threaded to 3/4"-16 to match the heim joint.



I know the "proper" way to do this would be to use a left-hand thread rod end, and a sleeve threaded both LH and RH, but I didn't want to blow forty bucks on a LH tap I'd use exactly once in my lifetime. In any case, this linkage, once it's all done and adjusted, will likely never need to be adjusted again.

Now, I needed to make a collar to join the freshly-truncated rod and the new rod-end, so I sawed off a 3" section of 1" hot-rolled, then faced and center-drilled both ends.



Now, that piece needed to be drilled all the way through, up to 11/16" in order to tap for 3/4" fine. I don't mind drilling shallow holes with a standard tailstock, but it's time consuming. Fortunately, I have something better- a real, live turret lathe!



The first legitimate chips with that freshly-furbished machine, by the way.

I started out with that drill chuck, but it's apparently badly worn and doesn't hold a drill very well. I may at some point try re-grinding the jaws, but that's of course not something I wanted to do this evening.

But, that got it drilled through with an approximately 5/32" drill.

Then I switched over to a 1" shank ER-25 holder to step that up to 1/2", then 5/8" and finally 11/16".



Flood oil and a capstan turret makes for some of the easiest and quickest deep-bore drilling.

I then ran a tap all the way through- that is, not from one end and then the other.



And installed!



It's not properly adjusted yet, and I'm going to need to get in there and relieve the corner of the bed casting slightly with a burr or grinder, as it's restricting the overall travel a bit. I also underestimated how much twist I'd need with the rod end- not sure where I fudged it, but even with the 20-degree list, I'm almost out of travel.

That, too, will get fine tuned when the rest gets fitted.

But, I can't actually operate the clutch yet, as the front rod support is still missing. This one's gonna take some noodle time- do I fix/weld the original, or make a new one? Fixing the old one means re-casting babbit for the bushing, or maybe casting epoxy in there. (I also have several pounds of 158F Woods Metal, which is basically lo-temp babbit.)

Or do I make one that can accept something like a Teflon or Delrin bushing, or even a bronze/oilite.

I need to dig those parts out and do some ponderin'. Stay Tuned.

Doc.

Before I got too carried away, I sat down and did a little adjusting and tweaking to make sure I had free and clear motion of the complete linkage.

Got it pretty close, or so I thought, and dug out the quick-and-dirty clutch rod support I'd made years ago, in order to do one of the only two jobs I've done on this machine so far. I slapped it together out of scrap aluminum- specifically a prototype marker body that wound up slightly out of spec, early in the build.



It worked, but wasn't particularly handsome. But I popped it on as a temporary support, just to see if the clutch linkage actually worked. Which it did. There's still some slop in the system that I doubt I'll be able to fully solve, but it's not bad, and makes a decisive 'thunk' when the clutch engages.

Here's the original cast iron support:



It had been broken and rewelded, probably twice, even long before I got the machine. And worse, both times such welding was attempted not only likely with standard mild steel rod, but also without bothering to remove the babbit metal first.

I'd chiseled the babbit out a while ago, and tried to use some Muggy rod to glue it back together, but the back edge was extremely thin. I worried about any repair just cracking again because it'd be so thin.

Note the three holes at the top and the 'stepping' cast in to the bore. Those are all for the babbit- the holes are for pouring it in, and the steps are to help 'lock' the solidified metal in place. The smaller of the three holes is for a press-in Gits cup, used to lube the inner sleeve that gets cast into place.



(Obviously you can't cast a square rod in and still have it turn. )

Note how thin the back wall is.That was badly cracked, and the old weld was itself cracking out on both sides, so I chopped the whole mess out.



I fitted a thin strip of mild steel in that gap and welded it solid. Then ground the outer welds down, plated over the entire back "wall" with another chunk of about 10 ga, and welded that solid.



Once cooled, and sandblasted, several minutes on the belt grinder got it dressed back down to something closely approaching stock.



I smoothed out the back, and did a little relieving of the bed casting (mainly the sharp lower corner) and got it to fit snugly, even with the thicker rear face.



Just like so.



Now, the question is, how to 'pot' that inner sleeve in place. I was thinking epoxy, like some JB Weld or similar, as that would help "glue" the assembly together, and hopefully reinforce those welds a bit more.(Not sure JB would be 'runny' enough, though I suppose I could heat it a bit.)

The other option that I'm preferring at the moment is the aforementioned Wood's Metal. I have about two pounds of 158F alloy, so I figure I could hit up the local thrift store for something like a big ladle or a tiny saucepan or metal measuring cup or something. I have a hotplate around here somewhere, and just heat it up right there in mybe a pan of water as a sort of double boiler.

While it's melting, use maybe a propane torch and/or a heat gun to warm up the casting, and once it's all ready, just pour.

I'd need some side covers to clamp in place, but with the low temp alloy, those could be made out of almost anything; sheet plastic, cardboard, thin plywood, etc. What's the old trick with lathe spindles, using acetylene soot as a release agent on the center spool? I still have a nearly-full can of the spray release agent for the Moglice, but I think that's a wax. I'd wonder how that would hold up against even just 160F. Maybe a thin wash of never-seize?

Doc.

Yes soot is the old way to do it and it works. Make it a moderate covering.
Orange silastic will stand the temp of whitemetal so i use that on any joins it just rubs off with a wire brush when your done.
Stainless steel is what i use for anything i don't want it to stick to, such as purpose made splits etc in the bearing.
don't heat babbitt too hot the antimony separates out as dross if you do. The colour on the top surface should go just straw, when you get blue your getting too hot.

that is for tin based babbitt.

What I'm thinking about using is Wood's Metal- it's a low-melting-temp Bismuth-based alloy kind of like Cerrobend. It melts at 158 degrees Farenheit, so basically a pan of boiling water can melt it.

Yes, I'd imagine if I overheated it, the different metals in the alloy would start boiling away and change the properties, but I don't think that'd be an issue.

And no, I wouldn't use this stuff in a spindle or jackshaft bearing, as any even momentary loss of the oil film would easily overheat it and lead to a catastrophic crash, but in the case of this clutch rod, it's only moved by hand and barely rotates a sixth of a turn.

Doc.

Doc,
Be aware that Wood's metal expands when solidifying. Great for embedding a odd shape part for machining (with plenty of coolant), not so good for bearings, where you need a clearance.

Paolo

I've been wondering about that. Unless I'm mistaken, Wood's is the same as Cerrosafe, and I know Cerrosafe has a known expansion rate. (Shrinks when cooled, expands back to exact mold size after an hour, then expands a further .002-.003" over the next week or so.)

So two things concerned me- the clearance to the center spacer, and the potential of the cast slug to expand and maybe re-crack the mount casting. I can't seem to find a value- how much does Wood's expand after cooling?

I'm already kind of concerned with the mount- Muggy rod, as handy as it is, isn't as strong as the original cast, and this particular piece has been cracked and broken multiple times. If it breaks again, I'm going to weld up a new one out of plate steel.

I'm really kind of hoping that the slight expansion isn't going to crack it again, but really, my only other choices would be maybe an epoxy or actual babbit. I've got an old electric lead pot around here somewhere, I could theoretically do the real thing, I was just hoping to use the Woods for the easier, safer handling, and perhaps more importantly, easier re-doing if something goes wrong.

Doc.

whitemetal can be redone again and again but don't get it too hot when melting it out! Over heating is about the only thing that will ruin it that i know of.

Yes if it expands i would pass on it for a bearing situation.

It seems to be the same as Cerrosafe 158.

The 117 is zero to a tad shrinkage.

I doubt if either is good as babbit, way to low a melting point, but for your application likely fine.

Another option might be leaded solder.... cheaper.

I suppose you have already discounted boring it and using a bushing... Jim

Originally Posted by jmm03

I suppose you have already discounted boring it and using a bushing... Jim

-I have not. It's just that, since the square rod is not precisely centered on the bore, setting up to bore it so the bushing isn't forced excessively to one side or the other, will be kind of tricky.

I suspect that's why the original was babbitted- both as a bearing surface, and that it was a self-aligning process.

Another option might be leaded solder.... cheaper.

-I already have a block of Wood's I picked up a while back, for another project that never materialized. I may even have a bar of Cerrosafe around here somewhere, but might be tough to find at this point.

And, I have the original babbit I chipped out of this mount. I figure if I went that route, adding a few grams of solder or even just plain bullet lead (which would have a little antimony in it) would get me plenty to do the job.

It's just that doing it with the Wood's or other low-temp alloy would make this loads easier and a little safer.

The 117 is zero to a tad shrinkage.

-Yep. Found a datasheet for some of the various alloys. Cerrolow 117 and 136 both have an unspecified initial expansion, then shrink back to effectively zero within a few minutes.

Since this is not something I need to get done today, I went ahead and ordered a small quantity of the 117. We'll see how that goes.

Doc.

On further reading, the expansion and contraction rates are per inch of metal. And with the sidewall of the poured bushing at it's thickest less than 1/4", that means the expansion of the Wood's will be less than .001".

So I shouldn't have to worry about cracking the casting (if it cracks with .001" expansion, it needs to be junked anyway. ) which leaves the only thing to worry about being the bore for the bushing.

Presumably I can slip/tap the bushing out just after the stuff cools but before it starts to expand, and maybe hone it lightly with the classic emory paper on a stick trick. (It'll need to be drilled and grooved for the oil passages anyway.)

Always fun working with a new material!

Doc.

No drama, worked like a champ!

Got in a one-pound bar of Cerrolow-117 today:



And since I'd arranged my waterfowl into colinearity earlier this week, it didn't take much to finish the job. I'd cut two discs out of a scrap of thin, painted wood paneling, as side dams.



So with most of it in place, I got out the gas-axe and thoroughly sooted up the center bushing as a "release agent":



And gingerly lined everything up, only lightly marking up the soot in the meantime.



The side collars are original to the machine, but I threw on the clamps to help keep things tight.



I got out the hotplate, an old skillet, and a small stainless... probably measuring cup of some kind, but unmarked, that I got from the local secondhand store. I bandsawed the bar roughly in half, and filling the skillet with a half inch or so of water, kind of made a sort of double-boiler out of it. Probably unnecessary, but it worked.





It melted in short order, and while that was going on, I used a heat gun to lightly pre-warm the mount casting, getting it up to roughly 85F according to the little laser thermometer gun.

Then it was a simple matter of just pouring it into the large hole 'til it topped off.



I waited about five minutes to be sure it'd solidified, and slid the end supports away. The center spool rotated easily without needing to "break loose".



So I just dismounted everything, had to lightly tap the bushing out because it had a tiny burr on one corner I hadn't seen or felt, then cleaned the soot leftovers out with some carburetor cleaner.



Voila`! Fairly smooth and a perfect fit.



I drilled out the hole for the Gits oil cup...



And then used a small burr in a Dremel to cut a couple extra oil channels.



(This low-temp metal has a significant lead component, so of course you'll want to wear a respirator when machining it, and try to keep the chips contained.)

With that done, I degreased the whole mess and gave it a first coat of fresh paint.



It'll get a second coat tomorrow, and should be ready to final-assemble on Sunday.

Again, I wouldn't use this stuff for an actual spindle, but for a low-speed application like this, it's ideal, and easier and safer than 600-700F lead-babbit alloy.

Doc.

Doc, you would have probably made a great shop teacher... speaking for myself I always seem to learn something new or useful from your machine journals. Thanks, Jim

Thanks Jim. I was actually on the short list to take over the machine shop course at the local community college, after the previous teacher finally retired, but before anyone could get past the "what do you think of this guy?" stage, the statewide university administration decided instead to can the entire program.

There was a woman killed at Yale's machine shop the year before, and that put the fear o' god into the university system at large. (Yale, having extremely deep pockets, is a ripe target for lawsuits.)

So rather than risk it, they closed the program down, auctioned off all the equipment, and turned the space into an art studio.

... Stupid bean counters.

Anyway, while I was waiting for the paint to dry, at least enough to handle, I'd gotten in the thicker rubber, so I finished up the way wipers.

The previously-fitted felts, soaked in oil and tapped into place...



Then I made and fitted a new set of rubber blades- 3/16" was just perfect to fill the gap.



Those, too, were made slightly oversize and had to be tapped into place with a small punch.

Finish it off with the original cast-iron covers and screws, and I think it'll work just fine.



Do that three more times and the carriage is done.



By late evening, the paint was dry enough on the parts to be able to handle them with some care, so I went ahead and installed the shiny new clutch rod support, along with an equally shiny new Gits cup.



Then the fixed-end clutch lever...



Followed by the recently-fabricated actuating lever, the S-link, and the even more recently fabricated bellcrank.



Along with, of course, the long pushrod, all of which gets at least a preliminary adjustment. There's a spring-loaded detent on the handle on the carriage, so I need to adjust things to that detent is engaged when the clutch is. I'll play with that when the paint's a little more dry.

Finally, for what I hope is the last time in quite a while, the right-hand rod support block gets installed.



And, for the first time since 2013, that funky fast-helix cam gets properly pinned back in place on the end of the lead-screw-reverse rod.



Also for the first time since I've owned this machine, the felts in said support block get doused in oil.



And that, ladies and gentlemen, gets us tantalizingly close to actual running condition.



One of the last major entries on the dwindling to-do list is of course power. I'd originally started and tested this monster with a cheap eBay static converter, but I wasn't keen on the idea of regularly using such a thing.

A rotary would have been a bit costly, but would have worked just fine- and, as it turned out, a couple years later I needed a larger one for the turret lathe anyway, but hey, if I could predict the future, you think I'd be rebuilding antique off-brand machine tools?

Anyway, a couple years ago, I splurged on a real, live Polyspede 10HP VFD, pretty much the only non-cheap-Chinese 10HP, single-phase-in, three-phase-out VFD on the market. It wasn't cheap, but after all this work, there was no way I was going to trust a $200 Huanyang made out of back-alley parts that were probably substandard for a 3HP.



This puppy, in case it's not obvious, is huge. It's a foot wide and nearly two tall.



The screws in that terminal block are M6, or roughly 1/4"-28. That manual, instead of badly-translated Chinglish, was clearly written by a native English speaker, and while full of technical details, is more easily read and understood than the ones that came with my WEG's.

For the sake of electrical simplicity, I decided to hang it over by the rotary and the welder outlets. I'll be tapping off the 50A welder circuit to power the system- and may, at least for the time being, simply wire in a short cable and welder plug, so I can simply unplug it when I'm not using it.



I have no idea how much power this baby will pull on standby, but I'd bet it's more than a clock radio. No reason to keep it powered up 24-7.

The last thing I had the gumption to do this evening was dig out the old "test board" I threw together back in mid-late 2013, when I first drug this monster home.



I wanted to at least hear the motor and headstock before investing too much time and effort into the whole mess- if some of those giant Timkens on the spindle were bad, that would have pushed what was already a pretty iffy purchase over into the 'scrap' category.

Fortunately, apart from the usual straight-cut gear whine it sounded pretty good. I had no idea back then that it was going to be nearly eight years before I'd hear it run again, but hey.

The only thing I need off this mess is the buttons- those are the nonoriginal controls that came with it, and I figure I'll try and use them as the low-voltage controls for the VFD. Might have to find a different box, though.

Doc.