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1952 Southbend 9A Restoration

evanthayer

Aluminum
Joined
Jun 13, 2018
I picked up a 1952 Southbend 9A off of Craigslist here in the SF Bay Area. Catalog no. is CL644Z and serial is 31054NAR9, sold on 22 Dec 1952. The lathe is in parts, although fairly decent condition. Flaking is still visible on the cross-slide and compound and in places on the v-ways. It hasn't been run for 30+ years but appears to have been taking care of prior to that.

I've done a lot of research and recovered any missing parts / fasteners as I prepare for the rebuild thanks to many on this forum and eBay. I've got the lathe's original info card, the Ilion manual, the felt rebuild kit, and the parts for the common headstock bearing upgrades. I picked up a set of new bearings for the QCGB and new cross slide & compound brass nuts. I think I've got the tools for the job, but we will see!

I'll do my best to document the rebuild as I progress through it. I've attached a shot of the parts I purchased (most of them) and a quick test-fit I did before I starting tearing things down.


parts upon purchase 01.jpg


test fit upon purchase.jpg
 
Welcome evanthayer! I look forward to following your progress. Good luck! I think you have found the world's best resource for information on these lathes.
 
Looks like you cot a collet closer & maybe a milling attachment . Are all the collets there ?. I gotto say having the same lathe , same cat #, about the only thing I don't like about my lathe is the small dials , ok maybe 2 things . I wish I had a collet closer & collets too . I have upgraded the crosslide dial with a large one though . As soon as one for the compound pops up in my budget I hope to upgrade that too .
 
A lot of tooling and accessories came with the lathe: steady rest, follow rest, taper attachment, lever collet closer, milling machine attachment, collet holder, and a bunch of other smaller items.

Looks like you cot a collet closer & maybe a milling attachment . Are all the collets there ?. I gotto say having the same lathe , same cat #, about the only thing I don't like about my lathe is the small dials , ok maybe 2 things . I wish I had a collet closer & collets too . I have upgraded the crosslide dial with a large one though . As soon as one for the compound pops up in my budget I hope to upgrade that too .
 
Looks like some of those collets are R8, possibly a special adapter is used?

Also you got a four way carriage stop, and a production cross slide. Nice stuff.
 
a lot of stuff! i'll get it catalogued and photographed up close as i move through the resto.


Looks like some of those collets are R8, possibly a special adapter is used?

Also you got a four way carriage stop, and a production cross slide. Nice stuff.
 
The first thing I need to do is remove all the grime, grease, paint, and most importantly, rust on all the parts. After some research and testing I think I will be using a combination of electrolysis and evaporust. I put together an electrolysis rig that can handle everything except the bed, rack, and screw. I'll handle those separately I guess.

Now it's time to process every part and piece of hardware down to bare metal. Not my favorite part of the project.


electrolysis 01.jpg


electrolysis 02.jpg


electrolysis 03.jpg
 
I'm just curious, but do you mind if I ask where in the bay area you found it? I'm in east contra costa county and have the same lathe minus taper attachment. Well, I have a taper attachment but not installed yet. Mine is also a 1952 9A that my dad bought new when we lived in Albuquerque.
 
No problem! I purchased most of the main components from a gentleman near Santa Rosa, CA. My lathe card shows it was sold to Packard in Dec of 1952 and delivered in Jan of 1953. I purchased it in 2019 just before the pandemic and then sought out the missing and / or damaged parts over the next year slowly. All of the additional parts came from ebay, craigslist, and people on this forum.

You also might be interested in this ebay listing which coincidentally popped up!!!:


1952 South Bend 9A...9x42 Lathe...Completely Restored | eBay



I'm just curious, but do you mind if I ask where in the bay area you found it? I'm in east contra costa county and have the same lathe minus taper attachment. Well, I have a taper attachment but not installed yet. Mine is also a 1952 9A that my dad bought new when we lived in Albuquerque.
 
I took a look and I think I have the same setup as you: large crossslide dial and small compound dial. which closer are you looking for? the arm mounted one from the 10 or the hand wheel?

dial size.jpg


Looks like you got a collet closer & maybe a milling attachment . Are all the collets there ?. I gotto say having the same lathe , same cat #, about the only thing I don't like about my lathe is the small dials , ok maybe 2 things . I wish I had a collet closer & collets too . I have upgraded the crosslide dial with a large one though . As soon as one for the compound pops up in my budget I hope to upgrade that too .
 
Yeah, if a pic is worth a 1000 words, I've got War and Peace up there. But the more pics I post, the less questions I have to answer, and the higher the $ goes. I don't get a cut, that would be a conflict of interest, but the shop is planning on buying a fancy new mill, so we have to try to max the sale price.
 
Made some progress over the weekend.

The electrolysis is working very well. Drop the dirty, greasy, oily, painted part into the bath, hook it up for a few hours, pull out of bath, and wipe down. It seems like the easiest method for prepping parts, although it does take a lot more setup than dropping something into an Evaporust basket. I attached some before and after photos for the lathe legs to show the typical results.

This week will be a lot of disassembly and processing of parts. Later this week I'll attempt to electrolysis-clean the lathe bed. That should be a trick.

Legs before processing:

legs pre-clean 02.jpg


Legs after processing:

legs post clean 01.jpg


Leadscrew Bracket after processing:

leadscrew bracket.jpg
 
We used rust-olium from Lowes, (read the directions on can, thins with acetone. Home depot not)

Used a harbor freight detail gun and thinned very little so paint goes on thicker and minimal overspray.

Scrub clean with paint thinner then paint.

A few coats of primer then color.

The metal is not real smooth but each coat of paint will flow and fill some of the small imperfections.

No need for filler.

It will look better with every coat, only thin enough for the gun to work and it will do well.

Down side is it takes long time to cure to full hard but it will look great.

Sent from my SM-G781V using Tapatalk
 
I was able to get a container big enough to fit the bed so I cleaned that part last night. It went pretty smoothly but this casting in particular seemed to flash-rust faster than any other part I've cleaned this way. I ended up running it again and then spraying some PixelX20 on it which seemed to work. I'm planning on cleaning everything and then priming everything, but perhaps I should be priming as I go along. I don't know?

Tony - thanks for the paint tips. Unfortunately I am not set up to spray. This one will sadly be a brush-on. Next time I tear this sucker down which is hopefully several years from now I will hope to be able to spray it.

IMAGES:

bed in tank 02.jpg

bed in tank 04.jpg

bed after electrolysis 1.jpg
 
While a collet closer with the arm would be nice & thing the kind with the wheel is closer to my budget .
thanks
animal
 
i've got a couple. when i get through the restoration i'll be selling a bunch of stuff (closers, steady rest, follow rest, etc.) and prices will be very very reasonable.

While a collet closer with the arm would be nice & thing the kind with the wheel is closer to my budget .
thanks
animal
 
Looks like some of those collets are R8, possibly a special adapter is used?

Also you got a four way carriage stop, and a production cross slide. Nice stuff.


maybe im missing something, but i dont see a production cross slide ?

Are you refering to the 4 tool post turret thing ?
 








 
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