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Hardinge Cataract Quick Change cone bearings

Greg Dawson

Plastic
Joined
May 22, 2019
I recently purchased sn 232, looks to be in pretty descent shape, all the features work, but the front head stock bearing is toast, it appears it was run dry at some point in its life, and someone subsequently had the spindle ground to repair, but shimmed and broke the cast iron cone bearing in the process. I saw someone had made a new set of bearings on here somewhere, but for the life of me can not find it again, is any one familiar?

my front journal measures about .013 undersized at ~2.019 and the rear journal appears to be stock at 1.876, the spindle surfaces look good, I just need to make a new front bearing for the head stock..

thank you in advance,
Greg
 
Yup thats it! but the next fly has shown up, it appears the reason the front bearing was trash is someone forced the collet key out of the spindle bore into the bearing, (maybe with a Morse dead center? then they welded it back in and reground the spindle journal.. all fine, but they introduced a kink, I'm getting .005 of radial run out directly towards the key on the spindle nose. (I indicated the spindle nose, threads, face, edge of the large journal and collet bore, all map pretty consistently to indicate a kink right at the key going up from .0015 to .005)

Time to try and straighten it, current ideas involve a carbide end mill cutting the key out and seing if the spindle relaxes back to where it ought to be, and doing a heat and shrink on the opposite side, I figure if I can get the run out down to .0005 or better its a win.. any thoughts?
 
Sending it out will be expensive, but if you can afford it send the housing out and either have it honed on a Sunnen Hone or bored on a Devlieg Jig Mill. Then have the spindle ground to straighten it up and then have it chrome plated and ground down to the over-sized bore. If it is bent, take it to a shop that grinds crank shafts as they have the proper equipment to bend it right.
 
Yup thats it! but the next fly has shown up, it appears the reason the front bearing was trash is someone forced the collet key out of the spindle bore into the bearing, (maybe with a Morse dead center? then they welded it back in and reground the spindle journal.. all fine, but they introduced a kink, I'm getting .005 of radial run out directly towards the key on the spindle nose. (I indicated the spindle nose, threads, face, edge of the large journal and collet bore, all map pretty consistently to indicate a kink right at the key going up from .0015 to .005)

Time to try and straighten it, current ideas involve a carbide end mill cutting the key out and seing if the spindle relaxes back to where it ought to be, and doing a heat and shrink on the opposite side, I figure if I can get the run out down to .0005 or better its a win.. any thoughts?

You'll have "something" less than 100% chance of a satisfactory repair for quite a lot of time invested - all of it wasted if it fails to prove-out.

Would it make more sense to just seek - or even DIY-fab - a new spindle?

Not common as to finding one, surely - but waay less complex to MAKE one than, for example, an ATW Pacemaker spindle, after all.

Or have you no other "working" lathe?
 
To give everyone an idea of what Greg is talking about, here is a cross section of the headstock of the Cataract Quick Change lathe -

69474d1360668763-i-think-i-have-hardinge-cataract-quick-change-lathe-hardinge015-016panorama.jpg


And a picture of the spindle and bearings from Tony's great site ( Hardinge Cataract Screwcutting Toolroom Lathe ) -
img110.jpg


And the front spindle bearing surface - again from Tony's great site -
img112.jpg


And finally, a bearing itself, from Tony's great site -
img119.jpg


Irby
 
Thank you for the illustration Irby, it is my only lathe, but Ive got a machine shop in the family, albeit several states away. Its a hobby, and I have money, so if I can get the ole girl back in descent shape for a few thousand Ill sleep fine. Its too nice to scrap or part out, and I can't in good conscience sell it in this shape, so looks like ill be fixing it. I had considered an engine type machine shop being capable of grinding a crank, but had not considered they may be versed in straightening one.

As for the undersized journal, it is basically concentric, and as new bearings are no longer available and Ill be making my own, I'll just make it to match. As its currently only about .013 under there is even still a smidgen of room for clean up of any straightening attempts we try.

It is a relatively simple and small spindle to recreate, heat treat may be a trick, I'm concerned after getting it all to size it will f right off into low earth orbit when it sees the oven leaving me with 5 pounds of crazy straw no amount of grinding will clean up. If anyone has any rules of thumb or tricks for that, ie make it .001 over per inch of diameter for clean up Id love to hear them.

which brings up a replacement, If anyone has one they would part with (in better shape than mine) Id love to hear from you! I'd prefer the threaded spindle just cause that's what I have tooling wise, but would take the Hardinge taper too. If not a quick change Id be ok with a 5c 9" swing head stock too as long as the gear train will match up to the left end of the spindle.

Thank you,
Greg
 
Greg,

Have you been in contact with Harold Mulder on this forum? He keeps tabs of the owners of these lathes and would be a good contact to find if anyone is parting out one of these. I have only seen that happen once, though. These lathes seemed to only come with the threaded spindles. I don't think I've seen one with the tapered nose, although Harold could correct me if he reads this thread. If you haven't, you can find him in post #6 of this thread -
https://www.practicalmachinist.com/...260345/?highlight=quick+change+swing+cataract

I looked at mounting a "regular" Hardinge headstock to this lathe and they are quite a bit shorter, but you could make it work with a bit of ingenuity. It seems you'd have to thin it down some in the front to clear the gearbox.

I have one of these lathes and agree they are way too nice to scrap. I agree with your idea of removing the welded key and seeing what happens to the spindle's out of round. In the meanwhile I'll get a friend in Texas in contact with you about heating things to remove out-of-roundness. He does that routinely on large commercial items and could possibly offer some good advice to you on applying it to your spindle.

Good luck with it.
Irby

P.S. I was wrong about these lathes coming only with the threaded spindle nose. The standard 4 degree Hardinge taper nose was available. I forgot I had one in my possession, holding it for a friend, years ago.
 
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I'd prefer the threaded spindle just cause that's what I have tooling wise, but would take the Hardinge taper too.

Hardinge made an adaptor - taper to threaded. In "native" use it doen't even add a huge amount of hang-out.

My one does do, as it is further adapted to enable use of my collection of used-but-useful Hardinge step and "pot" collets on an unrelated lathe (D1-3 backplate).

I don't know if Hardinge also factory-made a threaded to taper adaptor, but that might actually be the easier direction to go if one were to have to DIY such a creature.
 
Another QC owner had a cracked spindle several years ago. I don't know what he did about it, but, at the time, I suggested he look into modifying the spindle from a Hardinge HC or HCT chucker. A Hardinge TL spindle might work as well. Over the years, I looked at two TL's and refused to buy them because the beds were shot. They could have been suitable to salvage the spindle for a better machine.

Here is a possibility, still in the headstock for only $350.
HARDINGE #HC CHUCKER Headstock | eBay

If the overall length is right, the diameters are likely to be big enough to cut down to QC dimensions. I have a very nice early Cataract 59 head with good bearings that are standard new diameter. It is a beautiful headstock, but it could be sacrificed to save a QC.

I have a NIB SPI brand 5C collet stem with a 2-3/16-10 Hardinge thread that allows using a threaded chuck or faceplate on any 5C spindle. I have never seen a Hardinge-built adapter to change a Hardinge spindle thread to taper or vice versa

Larry
 
I have a NIB SPI brand 5C collet stem with a 2-3/16-10 Hardinge thread that allows using a threaded chuck or faceplate on any 5C spindle. I have never seen a Hardinge-built adapter to change a Hardinge spindle thread to taper or vice versa

Larry

That's probably the accessory item that Finn has for their 5C indexing fixtures: Products

I remember these indexing fixtures and the two threaded 5C shank adapters used to be in the SPI catalogue.
David
 
The spindle to the QC lathe is just about 16" long, so something longer than the DSM-DV59 types would have to be used. I don't know how long a TL, HC or HCT chucker spindle is, but all of those use ball bearings so they probably have enough meat to use with the QC which has a plain bearing, if they are long enough. The diameter of most of my DSM-DV59 spindle just looks larger than I remember the QC diameter was when I had one apart. But obviously you'd really want to have the two spindles you'd want to use in your hands (or have drawings - good luck on that!) to make sure they'd work before you spent the money.

I put that DV59 or DSM59 spindle against the QC headstock and it was too short.

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Irby
 

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I've been following this thread but have not jumped in because I did not have anything that I could contribute that would help the OP. I will say that I checked my notes on the register that I have of all the lathes we know about and there was only one person recently that was parting his out. My notes mention that he had already parted out all the main items so I doubt he still has the headstock spindle. I see Irby has already sent a note out to the mailing list of owners so if anybody has anything I'm sure they will respond one way or the other. I wish the OP all the best and if I do hear of anything I'll put it out there.

Harold
 
The spindle to the QC lathe is just about 16" long...
Irby

The HLV (5" wide bed, made 1950-1960) spindle, according to an owner, is 18-9/16" long.

My TFB-H, same spindle as the HLV-H (7" wide bed, made 1960 until they quit) spindle is 18-5/8" long.

My TM mill spindle is 14-5/8" long, too short for the QC.

I suspect the HC or HCT spindle will be similar, if not identical to the HLV/TFB and HLV-H/TFB-H. As far as I know, the inside dimensions are essentially the same on all the Hardinge lathe and mill 5C spindles. So I would be going after that HC head.

Larry
 
A bit late to the party but some more photos of this type of spindle (smaller 59 cataract machine)
where I had tried to clean up the spindle and basically failed at it. It will need to eventually
need to be chromed up, and probably new shells manufactured. In my case the lathe
was put back in service with a later era ball bearing headstock as an interim solution.

59_exploded.jpg


59_front_3.jpg


59_shell_3.jpg
 
Thank you for all the replies, I think we are going to start with removing the welded area around the key and see what happens, Hopefully it springs back to the state it spent the first 80 years of its life. If that goes well then we will make a press in key and touch up the journal with a tool post grinder, otherwise might try flame straightening or possibly and engine shop, Ill let you all know how it goes.
Greg
 
If removing the welded area and the flame straightening doesn't get it back all the way, I wouldn't try bending it back into shape. It's probably hardened to the point where rather than yield even a very little it will just break. These spindles are brittle. Tyler had one that had a crack along the nose, and there is a small piece of the flange broken out of mine. I can tell by the way mine is broken it is quite brittle.

Irby
 
Good info there Irby, if this does not work satisfactorily i will probably make a new spindle, considering 8620.. but I hope it comes back to close enough
 
Here is the way Hardinge assembled keys in the Cataract spindles and the notched lever collet adjusters. The key is made of fairly soft steel. Or maybe it was differentially heat treated to make the key head hard and the stem soft. It has a long rectangular head and a cylindrical stem. The tubular part has a straight hole drilled through. They used a square needle file to make four shallow tapered notches in the periphery of the hole. The key is pushed into the hole from the inside and the end of the pin protrudes about .06" past the top of the hole. You take a mating part with a keyway and slide it into the bore so that the key is engaged. For a 5C spindle, I would use a thick bodied 5C plug chuck or Morse taper adapter, because this part will be an anvil. Figure out how much clearance there is between the collet keyway and the inner surface of the key. Make a steel shim to fill the gap, with the end of the shim bent over the end of the collet so it will not slip out of place. Now you put the collet and shim into the spindle and engage the key. There should be no axial play of the key between the collet and the inside of the spindle. Next, you peen the top of the key firmly into the hole, filling the four notches and finish it flush. On a good spindle, the riveted key is completely invisible, perfectly blended and polished to match the surrounding metal. I think the spindle journals were finish ground and lapped after the key was installed.

Certainly, there was no need for welding to replace a damaged key.

Larry
 








 
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