Hello, new to the forum and machining in general. Over the summer I did some soul searching and decided I’d stop thinking about the things I want to build and do it. I am a heavy equipment operator some days, manual laborer most, and I do the welding on our machines when they break. Before my current job I was in the army, Infantry then Civil Affairs after that, I’ve been out a few years. Our yard has three phase power and I secured a spot in the shop to put the machine and was able to borrow a truck and trailer to pick up the machine I found on Craigslist. The “working” Hardinge HC lathe with automatic threading attachment installed came along with a Acu-rite DRO, an extra carriage, an extra automatic threading unit, and new 5c imperial sized collets up to one inch.
Having zero experience with any lathe and little experience with electrical I took the guy at his word when I was told The machine wouldn’t change speed until I had it hooked up to three phase, and not the transformer he had set up in the garage. That the reason the scale for the X axis wasn’t reading on the DRO was because it needed to be reset which he wasn’t sure how to do. There was no compressor to run the threading unit but I was assured it was running. I probably paid way to much for the machine ($4500) however it was the only thing I found on Craigslist large enough to do what I wanted to do, and close enough to pick up.
After getting the machine back to the shop and wiring up the three phase, the speed still wouldn’t change, and the chucker wouldn’t chuck. The tool holder could rotate if moved by hand but the chucker lever would jam up before spinning the unit. The extra carriage had the plate covering the chucker mechanism removed so it was starting to make sense as to why the machine came with all the extras. After tearing into the carriage I found that a bolt for the x axis scale was preventing the chucker from chuck’n, a shorter bolt was installed and the first victory with getting this thing going was realized.
All the markings for the speed controls have worn away so when there was no variable speed with the first two gears and simply no third gear I figured I must be turning the wrong dial, upon further inspection the cover plate had been removed exposing the wires to the speed change motor leading me to believe the previous owner had been attempting to remedy this issue. Long story short the speed change drive had been maxed out and tripped the safety which brings me to my first question, the speed change does work however it will regularly bottom out and trip the safety when switching between first, second, and third. It doesn’t happen every time I go to adjust the speed but enough that it’s kind of annoying. Could this be from the spindle being run in the incorrect direction as the operator manual warns? It is running counter clockwise with the lever shifted to the right now, but maybe in the past it was operated incorrectly. Any advice on getting the machine more consistent with speed changing would be greatly appropriated.
Now on the the threading attachment. After following the operator manual’s instructions as best I could (the pictures in the manual I ordered off amazon are different than the installed unit) the unit’s roller stays in the upright position. I can push it down by hand with no air pressure and cannot under pressure. In addition to the roller, the start/stop switch does move a few millimeters but is always on. Has anyone run into this problem with their threading attachment? My attachment also seems to be missing the roller that would fit over the bearing of some one could measure the outside diameter of theirs I will spin one up.
So grateful a resource like this exists, I’m looking forward to any information any of you can provide thanks.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Having zero experience with any lathe and little experience with electrical I took the guy at his word when I was told The machine wouldn’t change speed until I had it hooked up to three phase, and not the transformer he had set up in the garage. That the reason the scale for the X axis wasn’t reading on the DRO was because it needed to be reset which he wasn’t sure how to do. There was no compressor to run the threading unit but I was assured it was running. I probably paid way to much for the machine ($4500) however it was the only thing I found on Craigslist large enough to do what I wanted to do, and close enough to pick up.
After getting the machine back to the shop and wiring up the three phase, the speed still wouldn’t change, and the chucker wouldn’t chuck. The tool holder could rotate if moved by hand but the chucker lever would jam up before spinning the unit. The extra carriage had the plate covering the chucker mechanism removed so it was starting to make sense as to why the machine came with all the extras. After tearing into the carriage I found that a bolt for the x axis scale was preventing the chucker from chuck’n, a shorter bolt was installed and the first victory with getting this thing going was realized.
All the markings for the speed controls have worn away so when there was no variable speed with the first two gears and simply no third gear I figured I must be turning the wrong dial, upon further inspection the cover plate had been removed exposing the wires to the speed change motor leading me to believe the previous owner had been attempting to remedy this issue. Long story short the speed change drive had been maxed out and tripped the safety which brings me to my first question, the speed change does work however it will regularly bottom out and trip the safety when switching between first, second, and third. It doesn’t happen every time I go to adjust the speed but enough that it’s kind of annoying. Could this be from the spindle being run in the incorrect direction as the operator manual warns? It is running counter clockwise with the lever shifted to the right now, but maybe in the past it was operated incorrectly. Any advice on getting the machine more consistent with speed changing would be greatly appropriated.
Now on the the threading attachment. After following the operator manual’s instructions as best I could (the pictures in the manual I ordered off amazon are different than the installed unit) the unit’s roller stays in the upright position. I can push it down by hand with no air pressure and cannot under pressure. In addition to the roller, the start/stop switch does move a few millimeters but is always on. Has anyone run into this problem with their threading attachment? My attachment also seems to be missing the roller that would fit over the bearing of some one could measure the outside diameter of theirs I will spin one up.
So grateful a resource like this exists, I’m looking forward to any information any of you can provide thanks.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
