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Another Graziano SAG 12S is Heard From

Rlschow

Aluminum
Joined
May 22, 2016
Location
San Francisco Bay Area, CA, USA
My name is Roger. This machine is new to me. I bought it a couple months ago from PM member rpsequin. Ralph was a great guy to deal with and he still has other lathes (a Webb Mori-Seiki type and an HLV-H), among a garage full of awesome machines to keep him company.

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Here’s the Graziano in Ralph’s side yard awaiting pickup. I got so absorbed in the logistics that I failed to take any photos of the move, but it involved my son Sam and Ralph to help me get it loaded into a rented lift-bed trailer.

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After an hour’s drive, Sam and I unloaded the machine into the storage shed where I am cleaning, servicing, and repairing it before moving it to my shop.

I am starting this new thread to have an accessible record of the project to restore this machine to service, and hopefully to add to the resources here for other owners of the SAG 12s. I have to say I would not have bought a Graziano without the existence of PM. I owe thanks to members Peter from Holland, Peter S, wesg, noamw, ACHiPo, and others for sharing information about these machines. I read a lot of posts from these guys before diving into this and it has helped greatly with the work I’ve done so far.

This lathe has been out of commission and stored outside for at least a couple years. I saw some photos of what it looked like when Ralph picked it up at Gary Aragon’s (machinery dealer here in the Bay Area) yard, and it was a lot less rusty when he let it go to me, but there were/are still areas needing attention.

First thing I did was disassemble and clean the 3 jaw chuck. It’s an SCA, made in Sweden. Here’s before…
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and after.
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Next I removed and cleaned up the change gears and drive pulleys under the side cover. While the pulleys were off I changed the oil in the headstock, feed box and gear box. I am lucky: this machine does not seem to have a lot of leak problems that others here have.
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pictures!! if you need some pointers on posting, I think there is a sticky in the South Bend forum, welcome to PM, and welcome to the Graziano club!
 
The photos were showing up for me. I uploaded the images to an album here on the forum, then pasted the BBcode inline to my posts. Album was designated "private", I just changed to "public". Did that do it?
 
yes, can see them now, looks like you got really lucky there with the surface rust. came off easily, and wasn't deep. looking good.
 
Congratulations and welcome to the 12S club. It's great to see your lathe clean up so well. From the early pictures I saw of Ralph's lathe it was hard to assess condition, but the 12S is a great machine.

I'll be watching your progress closely.

By the way, I'm in Pleasanton. If you're an hour from Ralph's we must be fairly close?
 
Congratulations and welcome to the 12S club. It's great to see your lathe clean up so well. From the early pictures I saw of Ralph's lathe it was hard to assess condition, but the 12S is a great machine.

I'll be watching your progress closely.

By the way, I'm in Pleasanton. If you're an hour from Ralph's we must be fairly close?

I'm in Mill Valley. Good to know you're nearby; I wouldn't be surprised if there's a reason to meet up at some point soon.
 
It's Running

The machine would not start when when I first connected it to power. After poking around in the electrical cabinet I found that two fuses were open. They are Fu2 and Fu4, directly downstream of the transformer which makes low-voltage for the two control circuits. Good news was the transformer tested fine, the fuses did their job. I did find the 35 year old electrolytic capacitor on the 24 volt circuit board to be leaky and replaced it. Then when I put new fuses in and pushed the button, the main motor fired up!
 
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They certainly appear to be original. They are powdercoated metal, probably aluminum, except for the feed speed selector which is plastic and broken.
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I'm going to make a replacement for it out of aluminum. It doesn't want to come off easily though. I think I'll need to make a puller which clamps to the round hub behind the broken spoke.
 
Looks like a previous owner went to some trouble on the handles. Chances slim to none, the factory would have kept the wheel plastic, and redesigned the handles in metal though.
 
Looks like a previous owner went to some trouble on the handles. Chances slim to none, the factory would have kept the wheel plastic, and redesigned the handles in metal though.
Don’t know, but whoever made ‘em I like ‘em; they’d be hard to break. I’ll make something sturdy to replace the broken handwheel once I get a tool post set up on this machine.
 








 
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