Do I let this Heavy 10 Go...?

All - longtime lurker, first-time poster. Looking forward to your thoughts on the below!

So a couple months back I acquired, for next to nothing, a 10L that was in pretty rough shape.
I had originally planned on tearing it down for parts to feed it's more polished cousin, a fully restored 10L that I have.
Now that I've started down the path, however, I'm having a hard time 'letting go' and I'm tempted to do a full restore.
The one thing that is keeping me from that is the condition of the ways...which have every manner of gouge, ding and dent.
There are scrapings visible...on about 1 sq inch...

If you think that this bed is capable to salvage - such that someone could re-surface it so that it is usable along some of its length (recognizing that the gouges can never be fully repaired), then what would you recommend?


What do you think - is this old boy is too far gone?

If you'd attempt a repair, who would you send it to to re-surface / grind and scrape?

Bonus points awarded if:
(A) you know a place within a few hundred miles of New York City that could do the work and
(B) can provide a rough guess of what it might cost.

Thanks in advance for all your help!
I've attempted to attach pics...not sure if I succeeded.
The whole business is in pretty rough shape but I'm most focused on the ways.

Thanks - Mike B.

82 views and no responses so far...am I asking the wrong questions?
Any thoughts on how you would approach this project would be appreciated.

I don't live anywhere near the east coast, so I don't know how easy it is to get a different bed. That one looks fairly beaten. I can't comment on wear, but it looks beaten. The vast majority of bed ways *can* be repaired, but at what cost. What is your budget? (note that I said *can* get repaired with no mention of cost/value ratio)

Gallery of Machines is up in your neck of the woods and can give a ballpark on how much it costs to grind bed ways and restore machines.

I'm no expert and this is just opinion, given how the values are going up I'd probably keep it whole. Unless I really needed parts or the money.

I'd look at the spindle. If that is in good nick it would sway me heavily towards rebuilding the lathe otherwise I'd call it a bundle of parts.

It may BE a bundle of parts...it's an old horizontal drive which certainly would not have had a lever clutch and large dials...

Doesn't mean it's not worth fixing... One member reported good results at a decent price from here-

American Machine Tool Repair & Rebuilding CO. Inc.

That looks alot like a 50 or 60 year old lathe with wear.

The divots are possibly a concern. Are they so close to the headstock they will not interfere with the carriage when a chuck is on?

If so you might just stone the high spots off the ways and put this back into use.

iwananew10K said:

It may BE a bundle of parts...it's an old horizontal drive which certainly would not have had a lever clutch and large dials...

Doesn't mean it's not worth fixing...

Click to expand...

The lever clutch is in the 5th photo, I believe. I think I spy large dials also.

The real damage is to the part of the bed next to the headstock and where the tailstock sits. The outer ways where the saddle sits doesn't look too bad. You almost never have the tailstock that close to the headstock. I would check it for wear and if it is not too bad, clean it up and use it.

Tom

Gouges in the edges of the inner ways are unimportant. Gouges on the surface of the ways are also probably no big deal after a regrind, you just don’t want them collecting junk that can get under the way wipers.

My 16” (8’ bed) required 0.050” removed to get beyond the wear. The saddle required 0.065” removed before scraping. Total of 0.115” vertical drop, all of which can be absorbed between the banjo gear mesh angle and shims above the gearbox, rack, and leadscrew support bearing. Also requires relocating the mounting holes for the primary cover but that’s really no biggie.

Total cost is likely to be $2K-$5K depending on how many surfaces you grind and/or scrape. Mine was extra bad, yours may be easier to rework. It’s certainly smaller, but the bulk of the cost is in the setup time for the grinding shop on all those way surfaces (front, back, bottom, top...count them, there are eleven grinding setups just for the bed).

If you’re serious about having it done, and done right, call Cash Masters at The Kinetic Company in Greendale, WI. Cash is also a member here on PM.

He gets much better heavy freight shipping rates than you or I, so don’t let the distance from NYC scare you off.

Knifemaker.com - The World's Premiere Knifemaker

As others have said, I wouldn't worry about dings and gouges. IMO, over all wear will be the most trouble with the bed. If it's not bad, stone it and use it.

My Logan 820 looked very similarly beaten, but the ways didn't have enough noticeable wear to put it out of service, so it's still making chips.

If it's deep enough to throw off your work (depends on how long of parts you are doing and to what tolerance), you can have it ground and fill the bigger gouges so chips don't get stuck in them, but will they need to take .001" off or .010" off? Both are doable but the more you take off, the more alignment work you'll have in store.

Its an old, HMD 10L. They take up a lot of space on the bench, and the bed & headstock casting don't interchange with other 10L lathes. I'd put it back together, and sell it down the road to someone who can use it.

allan

Stone off the high spots and re-assemble with appropriate cleaning and new wicks. Sell it to someone who wants a lathe that doesn't need to be supremely accurate and just make sure they understand its an old machine that is not perfect. That one has a little more damage than my 10L, but its probably not more worn than mine is.

Someone sure abused the hell out of the ways- but not through use.
I don't see any wear ridge below the top of the outside v-way where you'd expect.
Scraping gone doesn't indicate significant, only light wear.