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I broke my tailstock locking lever. I am going to cast a new one.

dgfoster

Diamond
Joined
Jun 14, 2008
Location
Bellingham, WA
I have a 1943 EE that I snapped the head of the locking lever off. This occured as the lever will snap back If I fail to fully lock it as I extend the lever. At some parts of the bed I have to be careful it is fully latched before I take my hand off it. I have never fully investigfated (my bad) why this happens. But, it happens occasionally with a rather loud and alarming whack as the lever strikes the barrel of the tailstock. I was aware of the risk of the lever breaking since I figured it had to be grey iron and I know well that grey iron does not do well with repeated sharp impacts. So, today it happened. The head snapped off about an inch from the top of the head.

Pic3.jpg

Pic2.jpg

Pic1.jpg

I think the crack is pretty evident. I unfortunately had crazy glued it back together in preparation for using the lever as a pattern before I got my phone out to take pics.

What I had not previously noted is that the head itself had at some time past been brazed to the lever. So this is evidently the second time the lever hs been injured. Judging by the four or five different colors of paint on the lever arm in the area of the head, I am guessing that repair is vbery old. Ive owned the lathe for more than 12 years and have not added any paint though most of you would not have been impressed with the royal blue most recent coat that had been put it on it some years before I got it.

I have been casting straight edges for 3 years now and have been doing so in my own foundry for 2 years or more. So casting a replacement should be pretty straight forward. I am tempted to cast it in ductile rather than grey though I cast all my straight edges in grey. I believe converting the melted grey to ductile is a matter of simple addition of magnesium as an innoculant shortly before pouring---rather dramatic fireworks occuring for a few moments when the magnesium burns violently. I will be checking with my mentor who owns a commercial foundry and get some innoculant from him. I have a scheme in miond that will allow me to more or less remotely dump the mag into the crucible without being "innoculated" myself.

I suppose I should put a rubber bumper on the side of the tailstock to prevent the harsh impacts in the future.

I have filled in the holes in the lever/pattern with Bondo. And I am making more of a fillet at the junction of the round head and the arm of the lever to make that junction stronger without significantly changing the appearance of the lever.

Thoughts?

Denis
 
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I'm sure you are aware that one of your fellow iron foundrymen already makes this part: Martin Model.

Cow's Horn Handle for Monarch 10-EE Lathe – martinmodel

However, it is a typical casting and the ball is not very spherical and it is not chrome plated like the originals.

I've repaired those handles by silver-soldering a 15/16" or ⅞" ball bearing to the handle. It is a good repair and you would not know it was not original.
 
I'm sure you are aware that one of your fellow iron foundrymen already makes this part: Martin Model.

Cow's Horn Handle for Monarch 10-EE Lathe – martinmodel

However, it is a typical casting and the ball is not very spherical and it is not chrome plated like the originals.

I've repaired those handles by silver-soldering a 15/16" or ⅞" ball bearing to the handle. It is a good repair and you would not know it was not original.

The ball end on my original EE handle is roundish but not as und as a ball bearing.

Making it from ductile iron would solve the problem of breakage. Ductile iron was invented in 1943. How long it took Monarch to start making levers from ductile or whether they ever did I would have no way to know. But, if I am going to cast it, I might as well make it so it will never break in the future.

Given that Monarch is still in business, how it works selling "replica" parts of their lathes is an interesting question. I bought a cast gear change chart chart from them maybe 8 or so years ago.

Denis
 
The ball end on my original EE handle is roundish but not as und as a ball bearing.

Making it from ductile iron would solve the problem of breakage. Ductile iron was invented in 1943. How long it took Monarch to start making levers from ductile or whether they ever did I would have no way to know. But, if I am going to cast it, I might as well make it so it will never break in the future.

Given that Monarch is still in business, how it works selling "replica" parts of their lathes is an interesting question. I bought a cast gear change chart chart from them maybe 8 or so years ago.

Denis

The ball levers used on the apron are all ductile iron and they do bend quite a bit.
 
I have a 1943 EE that I snapped the head of the locking lever off. This occured as the lever will snap back If I fail to fully lock it as I extend the lever. At some parts of the bed I have to be careful it is fully latched before I take my hand off it. I have never fully investigfated (my bad) why this happens. But, it happens occasionally with a rather loud and alarming whack as the lever strikes the barrel of the tailstock. I was aware of the risk of the lever breaking since I figured it had to be grey iron and I know well that grey iron does not do well with repeated sharp impacts. So, today it happened. The head snapped off about an inch from the top of the head.

View attachment 310337

View attachment 310338

View attachment 310339

I think the crack is pretty evident. I unfortunately had crazy glued it back together in preparation for using the lever as a pattern before I got my phone out to take pics.

What I had not previously noted is that the head itself had at some time past been brazed to the lever. So this is evidently the second time the lever hs been injured. Judging by the four or five different colors of paint on the lever arm in the area of the head, I am guessing that repair is vbery old. Ive owned the lathe for more than 12 years and have not added any paint though most of you would not have been impressed with the royal blue most recent coat that had been put it on it some years before I got it.

I have been casting straight edges for 3 years now and have been doing so in my own foundry for 2 years or more. So casting a replacement should be pretty straight forward. I am tempted to cast it in ductile rather than grey though I cast all my straight edges in grey. I believe converting the melted grey to ductile is a matter of simple addition of magnesium as an innoculant shortly before pouring---rather dramatic fireworks occuring for a few moments when the magnesium burns violently. I will be checking with my mentor who owns a commercial foundry and get some innoculant from him. I have a scheme in miond that will allow me to more or less remotely dump the mag into the crucible without being "innoculated" myself.

I suppose I should put a rubber bumper on the side of the tailstock to prevent the harsh impacts in the future.

I have filled in the holes in the lever/pattern with Bondo. And I am making more of a fillet at the junction of the round head and the arm of the lever to make that junction stronger without significantly changing the appearance of the lever.

Thoughts?

Denis


Here is a link to the company that makes them and a link showing the product . For 40 bucks it may last another 50 years.. If your equipped to cast then make a few to sell.

Cow's Horn Handle for Monarch 10-EE Lathe – martinmodel



Tailstock clamping handle
 
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How could that be since the EE was introduced in 1939 and ductile was not invented until 1943 with the patent application filed Oct 25 1943? That’s after my lathe was shipped.

Denis

Great question. I have owned round dial lathes which had interacted with a forklift and had bent apron levers. And I have straightened them.
 
Great question. I have owned round dial lathes which had interacted with a forklift and had bent apron levers. And I have straightened them.

I am not trying to make a federal case about this. But, I guess what you mean is that you have seen round dial lathes that seemed to have ductile iron apron levers. I suppose it is plausible that Monarch sometime after ductile iron was invented converted to ductile levers on the apron and maybe even the (probably most vulnerable to breakage) tailstock llocking lever.

For what it is worth I did some more footwork to move ahead with making mine (and perhaps others) from ductile iron which should essentially never break in normal use as opposed to the grey iron ones that are subject to break from simple shock like mine did, twice.

Denis
 
I suppose it is plausible that Monarch sometime after ductile iron was invented converted to ductile levers on the apron and maybe even the (probably most vulnerable to breakage) tailstock llocking lever.

I think it is more plausible that ductile iron was available before 1943. Especially to defense contractors like Monarch. Too bad Peter Haas is not participating in the forum any more, he had an encyclopedic knowledge of war-time manufacturing. Thermite might know...

Regarding the tailstock locking lever, I have never seen one that was bent. But I have seen plenty of broken ones. Since Monarch did not use ductile iron for it, they probably had a reason. That lever takes a lot of force, unlike the apron levers.
 
I think it is more plausible that ductile iron was available before 1943. Especially to defense contractors like Monarch. Too bad Peter Haas is not participating in the forum any more, he had an encyclopedic knowledge of war-time manufacturing. Thermite might know...

Regarding the tailstock locking lever, I have never seen one that was bent. But I have seen plenty of broken ones. Since Monarch did not use ductile iron for it, they probably had a reason. That lever takes a lot of force, unlike the apron levers.

It might be true that it was available to Monarch prior to 1943, but it might not have been available due to rationing and prioritization until after WW2. Monarch may not have adopted it for some time in thier foundry as it is significantly more difficult to maufacture than grey iron. The introuction of magnesium to molten iron and the resulting reaction is violent and can very well be explosive as discussion with a commercial foundry owner I had today revealed. Even today many ferrous founderies decline to make ductile iron fdor safety reasons.

If there was any lever on a Monarch that needed to be ductile iron it was the tailstock lever. It is the one that has the largest length to cross sectional area ratio. It is the one that take s the most force. It is the one subjected to shock from snapping against the tailstock. Shock resistance and resistance to fracture are precisely the reasons it is chosen for applications as diversely as c-clamps to suspension parts on trucks and cars to pipe. There would have been no reason not to use ductile iron other than unavailability either related to it being not yet known prior to publication of the patent or due to war-time resistriction of use of esistriction of usecritical resources such as magnesium mwhich was needed for prduction of aircraft components, flares and incendiary devices.during wartime. Maybe lathe levers did not quirte rise to the top of the list.

"
Like other critical metals, magnesium was alo rationed, prioritized and allocated for wartime use. Capacity eventually reached 491 miilion pounds per year by January, 1944, while shipments of fabricated shapes reached a peak in April, 1942, of 432 million pounds.


Denis
 
  • I have not posted on this project in a few days. That's not because I've been idle. I think I have a some NiMg3 headed this way that I was able to find. So, I am anxious to try mixing it with some ductile returns that I am pretty sure I can get but have yet to get my hands on.

    I am going to have a commercial foundry cast a few (minimum charge involved so may as well get a few made for the same price) levers.

    Here are picsof the sand + sea coal +sodium silicate + propanyl carbonate molds. The holes in the cope are there because I did not want to wait a few hours for the propanyl carbonate to kick the Na Silicate and so I gassed it.

    Here is the follow board. The follow board is a scrap of masonite with a very rough cutout of the lever profile. Then I used blobs of Bondo on the back of it to raise it tot he parting line of the lever. Once it was firmly at the right height, I again used Bondo smushed into the gaps between the lever and the board to close up those spaces. A couple coats of glossy paint and a generous coat of Johnson's floor wax and it was ready to go.
    Follow board.jpg



    The gassed cope. Ten seconds fairly low flow per hole.
    Cope top.jpg

    I used a 1" spade bit to bore an open riser. The riser may not be truly needed for this part as it is not all that thick. But I will be transporting these molds 60 miles after they are closed. Having the big open riser will allow me to blast compressed air through the closed mold to, just before filling, flush out any bit of sand that could have been jarred loose in closing and transporting the mold. Plus it will make it easy to see the progress of mold filling to avoid over filling. There is also a 1/8" vent in the ball end of the handle.
    Cope bottom.jpg

    The spherical recesses in the cope were made by just rotating a fender washer pressed against the sand. It was suprisingly easy to make nicely-shaped recesses to act as molds for the drag location bosses to ensure that the molds would go back together in good register.
    Drag.jpg

    The splash basin gates and runners scratched into the drag. (I called the splash basin a "pouring basin" in the video.)
    Here is a very rough and ready video I made to show the commercial foundry guy my molds so that he could tell me in advance if he saw any major faults. He says he thnks they should work OK. I will likely not know whether they fill OK until ten days or more from now as I have to take them down when I drop off a few recently poured 26 and 36 inch straight edges next week and will hand him the molds then. Sorry the video is so jumpy at first---I was holding the phone in one hand and the mold in the other. (Walk and chew gum?) ;-)



    Denis






 
Here is a video of my first attempt at casting a ductile EE tailstock lever. I just brushed it off, cut off the gates and riser, and ground the rib off where cope meets drag.

A little adjustment of the riser SHOULD fix the shrink.

Denis
 
Looks like a good first draft. I'm sure others out there are in need of these.

As for my theory on why yours was potentially snapping back, I think it's a simple adjustment issue. After drilling and pinning my lever and adjusting the clamp after re-assembly, it clamps tightly with minimal effort with the lever about half way between the top tailstock body and where it would touch the base. There's enough allowance in the mechanism where I have it adjusted that I can push it all the way to touching the base if I wanted and it doesn't feel difficult or like something is going to break. I noticed that when I had it adjusted too tight, the lever was hard to move and wanted to pop back out and unlock itself. It turns out it takes a lot less adjustment than I originally thought for it to clamp the tailstock tightly. I can actuate the lever with one hand standing at the front of the machine by the apron, both to lock and unlock the tailstock. I will be keeping my hand on the lever to unlock it from now on after seeing this occur to yours.

As for position of the eccentric when I pinned my lever(since you have to drill new holes in your new lever), I chose to orient it such that when the lever was rotated to where it was making contact with the base, the eccentric had just barely swept past its peak (TDC if you will), so it actually reaches it's peak pull point and maximum clamp force potential just before the lever would have to touch the base. This seems to allow it to lock in place reliably even before that orientation though. But for the more worn spots on the bed, I can rotate it further toward the base and still clamp reliably.

Hope this helps.
 
I'm getting tired thinking about all that work Denis. I think I would have milled, welded, forged & filled a replacement (and make it look near identical)....I might have used a chrome moly if strength was a concern....but you're a man on a mission and I look forward to seeing the result
 
Monarch may not have PLANNED it as a design flaw. They got one at no extra charge, anyway. The Universe can be a generous Mother, after all!

:D

That basic. New and better wrongs do not put old wrongs right.

Have you considered the possibility that the design is fine, but the machine maintenance was not up to the standards Monarch expected? If parts are not correctly adjusted, worn parts replaced, then there are consequences. I think that is what you are seeing in your two machines. I for one like the design of the tailstock, including the lever.
 








 
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