South Bend Heavy 10 UK restoration

Peter. · Nov 4, 2018

Back in May this year I saw this advertised locally so I went along and had a look. The seller Clive and his brother was clearing out their father's workshop after he had passed away. I got talking to him and told him I was looking for a lathe to restore, not to break up for parts like so many have done to them. I assured him that despite the dilapidated look of the machine it seemed to be fundamentally sound and perfect for a restoration.

It;s a few months down the line now and I had meant to start a proper thread on it. I have a couple of hours spare so I'll record what I've done to date.

Here's the machine as I found it. Pretty sorry-looking but 99% complete. The serial number dates it to 1943 and the flaming bomb motif is the mark of the US army ordnance corps (thanks to S Wells for the info)

Peter. · Nov 4, 2018

First job is to check the mechanicals. Off with the headstock and gearbox. All looks perfectly fine in the gearbox but the spindle was a real surprise. It's in fantastic condition.

Peter. · Nov 4, 2018

So buoyed up by the good news on the internals I set to stripping off that horrible paint. First to get the treatment is the gearbox. Stripped down to the last nut and all the paint (and rust) removed. The gears look to be in cracking condition. Hardly any evidence of use let alone wear. Then the main bedway and the stands get stripped. THis was all a whole weekend's work.

Peter. · Nov 4, 2018

Finally the headstock gets stripped, serviced and re-assembled. It'll get torn down again for painting.

Peter. · Nov 4, 2018

Now for a bit of re-painting. I painted the legs and cabinet first. I did all the covers except one which has a busted lug. That's got to be repaired before the paint goes on.
All my painting is roller and brush. I know it doesn't yield such a good finish as spray painting but I don't have the room (or in truth, the knack) for spray-painting. I can only stand in awe of the guys who get car-showroom finishes on their paint jobs.

Peter. · Nov 4, 2018

So, into September and the machine looks like this. The headstock and tailstock have now been repainted, along with the bed. I've re-assembled it all which just leaves the motor & drive components to do, and the biggest chunk of work, the apron and saddle. Everything so far has been strip, service, clean and paint. Now there's scraping work to get on with.

Peter. · Nov 4, 2018

A weekend spent on the apron got it a long way down the road. The slide ways and underside vees look in fairly nice condition but everything's getting scraped anyway. I got to stripping all the paint off and cleaning it down ready for scraping.

Apron gears etc all look in fine condition. All the wicks are intact.

Peter. · Nov 4, 2018

Doing a quick appraisal of the ways show them to be only very slightly worn. Easy enough scraping job. I took a very small skim off the top flat of the cross slide to clean it up and leave the compound swivel a couple of thou raised to make it easy to get a print for scraping.

Peter. · Nov 4, 2018

Scraping work done on the ways and the compound swivel.

Peter. · Nov 4, 2018

The cross slide screw was pretty worn in the middle so I decided to make a new one. First I drilled the worn out nut out and re-tapped it to 1/2" 10TPI LH ACME. The original is 7/16" but 1/2" fits just fine and has much greater surface area on the threads.

Peter. · Nov 4, 2018

Then I made a whole new screw. Turned a blank, cut the left Hand 10TPI ACME thread, finished the thread with a new die.

I left the boss for the gear to be cut deliberately over-length so I could turn a taper in it and fit the screw into the spindle taper on my gear hobber. I also made the handle end over-length to allow for a big dial conversion.

Peter. · Nov 4, 2018

Old screw and new screw. Better, longer, fatter....

Peter. · Nov 4, 2018

Turning a large dial and extended mount. I put a temporary register in the dial to index it for cutting the graduations. Taped up my division plate to use 5 holes of 20 which would allow for 200 divisions. The red mark is for the 5's and 10's, green are for the four marks in between each.

Peter. · Nov 4, 2018

Here's the dial nearing completion. I have stamped the digits on it but they didn't come out too great, so I got some better stamps and have to do the whole job over, cutting the marks and stamping the numbers. If I can't get it right I'll enrol the assistance of someone with a 4-axis engraver.

Peter. · Nov 4, 2018

And that's it, about up to date. The only other two things to note are that 1. I have decided to send the bed for grinding. There wasn't any serious wear but plenty of marks up by the headstock from clumsy use. Given the amount of work put in and the scraping it seemed a shame to have a scruffy bed. Now when I get the bed back it'll be guaranteed with no wear and that should do the rest of the work justice.
The other thing I have done is ordered a whole set of new plates and tags from Jim Kull. I had thought to refurbish the old ones but they were worn too thin in places to recover even with very careful work.

Peter. · Nov 8, 2018

Got my tags from in the post today. Big thanks to J Kull for producing them. Very nice.

Old tags and new tags, what a difference!

Also got word that the grinding on the bed and saddle is done. Total of 24 thou removed, most of it from the underside of the saddle.

M.B. Naegle · Nov 8, 2018

Very nice work! :cheers:

Good inspiration for our WW2 Heavy 10. I hadn't considered getting the tags remade. :scratchchin:

ripperj · Nov 9, 2018

Very nice work
I can’t make out what type of cutter you used for engraving the dial lines?

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

Peter. · Nov 9, 2018

It's just a carbide end mill which I ground a very fine cutter onto. It was ground like a very tiny parting tool only a few thou in height, but it still snapped half way round the job, I had a little bit of eccentricity in he dial.

I've since made a vee-pointed HSS tool which cuts just as well and leaves a deeper mark to allow for a de-burring skim on the OD.

rotarySMP · Nov 9, 2018

Excellent work Peter. This will be better than new.
Mark

South Bend Heavy 10 UK restoration

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