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Replacing the Phenolic Wear Strips on Lathe

Richard King

Diamond
Joined
Jul 12, 2005
Location
Cottage Grove, MN 55016
This coming week I'm going to help a company replace the Factory installed Phenolic under the saddle. The original wear strips have worn out plus the epoxy has failed. A member contacted me and asked if I still rebuild machines or do I just teach it. Heck I am a Journeyman Rebuilder and of course I will. I plan on taking pictures during the process and post them here. It's a 40" swing machine. So if you have a machine that needs rebuilding let me know. You take it apart, clean it and help me rebuild it. This will save you a lot of money compared to using a conventional rebuilding company. Rich
 
Rich, I have this K&T 2HL Vertical all apart and cleaned. I keep thinking it would be a shame to put it back together without scraping it.
How much does something like that cost ?
Greg.DSCN0091.jpg
 
I don't have a crystal ball. Hard to guess / estimate with 1 photo. On a machine that vintage I would think you may want to cut and flake it and assemble it. A wild ass guess if it doesn't have scored ways. Your looking at 6 to 8 grand. On projects I charge by the hour.
 
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I Started the repair of the machine today. It was a productive day as we removed, tested bed twist with home made KingWay, removed the old Phenolic, milled new oil grooves in the new material and milled it to the proper thickness. We figured it was 9 mm or .354" ( I think). The lathe was made in China where it's metric. I will add some pictures and write more tomorrow. Check out the unworn area that we miked so we could mill the new material to that thickness plus the epoxy that I figure will be around .005. Tomorrow we will take off the new glued saddle and I will scrape to match fit it to the bed.
 

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More pictures.
 

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More pictures: I will add captions tomorrow.
 

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I'm not familiar with NozzleKleen #2. Were you using it to clean the ways prior to epoxy (degreaser), or to prevent epoxy squeezeout from sticking to the ways (release/no-stick)?
 
I'm not familiar with NozzleKleen #2. Were you using it to clean the ways prior to epoxy (degreaser), or to prevent epoxy squeezeout from sticking to the ways (release/no-stick)?

Used it as a release agent so the squeezed epoxy doesn't stick to the bed. The customer does a lot of welding and had cases of it. It dries as a wax and later we can wipe it off with acedtone.
 
Thanks for the pictures!

We had talked about it in class, but it's interesting to see phenolic in use as wear strips. Is there a deciding factor that the OEM manufacturer would go with phenolic over Rulon/Turcite (I know it's a lot cheaper)? What about for a rebuilder creating a wear strip to build up a worn iron-on-iron way?
 
I've seen a lot of Micarta used in my earlier years of life on machine members. Holds up reasonable good on unhardened ways. Also used Nylatron NSB use later on. It has moly added to give the material a little lubricity where the lack of oiling is an issue. Nice job Richard. Ken
 
50 years ago we only used what we called back then, Industrial Formica, used the same 3M epoxy. My dad had used it during ww2 at Defense Plant called Northern Pump in Minneapolis. We used it on Gibs and wear strips on and Boring Machine like Bullard VTL's, Gidding & Lewis and Bliss Punch Presses, etc. Then in the early 70's we started to use Turcite, Also used Nylatron and Nylon (Hardinge lathes). Then in the middle 80's we started to use Rulon and Moglice. I know Nylatron and Phenolic are the Cheapest. Like I said this lathe is 20 years old and I ran great until the Oilers screwed up an the felt wipers were never replaced. The phenolic should last another 20 years or more as they are installing 2 Bijur hand pumps after I leave.
I match fit the saddle today. Should finish tomorrow. I'll ad more photo's later tonight.

They bought the material from Piedmont Plastics in Birmingham. Here is a copy of the quote.

Ln Quantity Unit Part#/Description Unit Price Unit Amount
1 2 EA LE NAT 0.375 30.000 EA 60.00
(SEQ#: 3064) *.375 GD LE NAT PHENOLIC
*Cut to size: 2.500" x 48.000"
2 1 EA LE NAT 0.312 42.000 EA 42.00
(SEQ#: 3064) *.312 GD LE NAT PHENOLIC
*Cut to size: 4.000" x 48.000"

When I get home I'll check Rulon prices, Im not sure they make it that thick. Cody at Moglice told me once the glue on the old phenolic and the put Moglice on the wear side about ..062" When I used to rebuild full time, I believe I bought it from MSC Direct. If you order it from them or a local Plastics company. Order LINEN Grade it has close threads compared to canvas grade.
 
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Rich, did you do all of that in one day? You are FAST. Cheers, Bruce

I had help, but we had it glued with new ones in a day. They removed the old ones, and did some of the milling before I got there Monday. Today I removed it and cleaned off the squeezed out epoxy, blued and scraped the new Phenolic. I should be done tomorrow.
 
Here are a few more pic's. I'm tired, will add captions later.
 

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It's nice to have a good group people that can get things ready and prepared for you when you arrive. And pretty much do most of the work supervised without blowing a gasket! Looks like they knew what they were doing.
 
My helper is a 30+ year Journeyman machinist who is cleaver as hell. The owner also went through the trades after college so they get it. Off to work, one more day and I should be finished and they will begin assembling it. :-)
 
While your class is a great learning experience, it's a whole different world to see the process in action. Very interesting, thanks for sharing!
 
I got a sheet of Garolite phenolic from McMaster awhile back to play with.
McMaster-Carr
It's graphite impregnated but reinforced with cotton fiber, so it's the Canvas type. They have a variety of other grades and sizes too.

I'd considered using this stuff under the saddle on my Hendey once the bed is plained. Still a ways away from that adventure though.
 
Finished the scraping of new Phenolic today. I used the Chardonel red ink as a highlighter diluted with acetone
I will have many more photo's on my King-Way Scraping forum on Facebook.If any of you need some rebuilding I have come out of semi retirement to do small jobs like this. You do the mechanical clean up and assembly and I do the rebuilding /scraping. I am sure wwith my expertise I saved the customer thousands of dollars compared to sending it out to a rebuilder shop. The hardened bed had some had some wear, but it was less then .002. So we refit the new Phenolic to the older ways. But with the worn and loose old Phenolic the machine was out more then .020 and as it fed down the bed it wobbled. No wobble was seen on the indicator tests now on side and top of bed way as shown in photo. You can see I relieved the center of saddle so the middle was low so it did't rock like Grandma's rocken chair anymore. The shop has several overhead cranes that made it fast to flip the saddle.
 

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