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South Bend 9c 415 : Work in progress

cmdevans

Aluminum
Joined
Jan 5, 2011
Location
south of indy, IN, USA
Picked up a South Bend 9c last month. It seems to need a bit of work, but nothing out of the realm of possibility. Figured I'd start a thread on it since I'll be doing a full restore, and wanted some documentation on it as I start working on it.

The Good:
- Change gears and chucks present and in good condition. Had to buy an 80t idler gear for the gear change set, but aside from that I seem to have the full compliment of standard gears.

- Headstock spindle seems to be tight and within tolerances.

-Ways are slightly worn, but not too badly.

- No rust anywhere that I could find.

- Cheap quick change tool post was included.

The Not So Good:
- Apron, compound and cross feed need some work, likely needing new crossfeed and compound screws and nuts. Backlash is really bad, 3/4 turn of the knob or so. (seriously considering an entire South Bend "B" apron and compound at this point)

- Needs a new rack gear, or I need to repair the teeth on existing.

- Switched out the motor and switch since it had a smaller motor and single direction switch.

-Lead screw is slightly worn, but not overly so. the shoulder on the stop collar seems to be worn more than the threads or the half nuts, so I may be able to take the back lash up with a shim in the right place, or refacing on of the bearing surfaces.

-Tailstock has an issue. A lot of play, and it won't lock down on the quill. May need a new quill, or there may be something else wrong.
 

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Picked up my 9C on 01Jan2015 up in Massachusetts (SN 137224 BJF, Bed length 36"). At least yours was much more complete. In order to get it operational, I ended up spending well over a grand on motor, horizontal drive, pulleys, belts, switch, change gears, tooling, etc. On the plus side, I have been able to make some parts with little indication of excessive wear anywhere. This included some internal and external threading.

I'm curious where your SN is in the range; mine was supposedly built in 1943. And your bed looks to be longer, perhaps 48".
 
I'd be more inclined to think the problem is with the lock rather than the quill. I don't know the 9, but if it shares the lock design with my 10L, the lock is aluminum and the quill itself is steel. Looks like its got a stack of washers to take up for slop. Also, if that is similar to the 10L both the upper part and the lower part should be free to move. If the lower bit is stuck it won't lock effectively. Even if it has wear, unless its horribly bad you could probably fix it by filing it down and stacking some washers in there to make up for it. Its basically two wedges. If its worn across the face where it contacts the quill too badly, it might be meeting the other one and stopping it from closing more. REmoving some material off the end of the wedge where they come together would get you some more squeeze.
 
I put the washers there to see if that took up slack. Slack doesn't seem to be a factor on that part of the clamp mechanism. I'll take it apart today and see what I can figure out.
 
Don't forget you also need a lead screw with long keyway if the "C" does not happen to have one:D

Good point. That had escaped my notice.

I took the tailstock apart yesterday, and found the problem. There was a chip or burr embedded in the slot for the clamp mechanism. Prevented it from closing all the way.

Did a little bit of painting while I had the tailstock and the apron apart. Any input on the colors? I'm not entirely sold on these colors.

I will be doing a complete rebuild next month once all the parts are in. I just have to make sure that I buy everything that I'm actually going to need, so slowly taking it apart, figuring out what's wrong, then ordering parts, putting it back together, and waiting for them to show up.
 

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I did mine in Rustoleum smoke grey and the handwheels are black. I was running short on the grey and I had most of a can of black.
 
I will be doing a complete rebuild next month once all the parts are in. I just have to make sure that I buy everything that I'm actually going to need,...

That sort of makes me chuckle. Maybe your experience will be different than my experiences. I can't even fix a drippy faucet without at least two trips to the hardware store.
 
Picked up my 9C on 01Jan2015 up in Massachusetts (SN 137224 BJF, Bed length 36"). At least yours was much more complete. In order to get it operational, I ended up spending well over a grand on motor, horizontal drive, pulleys, belts, switch, change gears, tooling, etc. On the plus side, I have been able to make some parts with little indication of excessive wear anywhere. This included some internal and external threading.

I'm curious where your SN is in the range; mine was supposedly built in 1943. And your bed looks to be longer, perhaps 48".

South Bend 9c
Serial Number 94169
Catalog Number 415AC
Size 9W x 4'
Shipped 3/26/40
Motor 1/4 hp, 1725 rpm

Hope that helps you out.
 
Courtesy of Brad Jacob, I believe:
View attachment 176065

I did mine in Rustoleum smoke grey and the handwheels are black. I was running short on the grey and I had most of a can of black.

Current Color is Smoke gray, with 100ml of black added to a 1 qt can. I may add another 50ml black.

The red is rustoleum as well, but I may pick up another accent color. I rarely like reds all that much. I was almost thinking of doing a black/dull orange combo, but couldn't quite picture it in my head.

That sort of makes me chuckle. Maybe your experience will be different than my experiences. I can't even fix a drippy faucet without at least two trips to the hardware store.

Thats plumbing for you. Or any other project, but for me, plumbing is the worst offender with multiple trips.

I may be short a part or two, but since I'm taking each portion apart first, I am hoping to minimize the "wrong ordered item/not enough parts/oops I shoulda ordered that too" issues.

You can sort of see how far I took it apart this go round, basically all movable parts except the half nut lever where taken apart.

The quill screw looked good, and the screw and nut for the compound look decent, though it has a lot of backlash (collar wear?)

The half nuts look good, with not a whole lot of wear, and the lead screw is not worn much either. There is some slop in the feed though, so I'm not sure if a shim washer is needed or what needs to happen there.

The crossfeed is the worst, and definitely needs replaced, both nut and screw.

You can see a really cruddy wrench I made for taking the crossfeed screw collars off. just aluminum plate with a 10-24 x 3/4 set screw tapped through it. Works well enough, even if the tapped hole is entirely at the wrong angle.
 

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Issue with threading

Well, I used the Lathe to make a length of threaded stock in 1018 steel, 1.75" dia, 3 tpi.

It took a lot of passes to get the threads turned, which I was fine with. Every pass or two I had to move the tooling back to the center of the thread and tighten it back down.

I found part of the issue (Lead Screw Bracket was a bit loose from the bed), but was wondering if y'all knew what would cause the discrepancy in position. I can't see any movement in the crossfeed/apron/compound/tool holder, so I'm a bit stumped.

First picture is where it starts centered in thread, the second shows where it moves to in a few passes.
 

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Are you infeeding with the compound? What angle is it set to- $1 says you have it set for 30 on the scale, but it should be 60.

allan

Infeed was done with crossfeed, straight in, rather than compound. The compound gibs had to be set too tight to really make much use of the compound atm. Replacing apron next month to take care of that issue.
 
Well, if I had a larger lathe. . .

It did just fine, as far as I am concerned. I knew I was stretching it a bit on this lathe, but it beat having to make up a "Lathe type machine" with lesser functionality that would only get in my way for the foreseeable future to get this done.

I made a tap from the large bolt, then made a router mount for the lathe, and threaded a bunch of wooden blanks for screws.

Still waiting on parts to do the complete rebuild, and still looking for the crossfeed and compound screw and nut.
 

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nice job! I dare say that since you are not afraid to thread and seem have problem solving skills you could just make your own replacement screws.

But, if you didn't know you can buy them on eBay too.
 








 
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