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Spitfires Heavy 10 Restoration!

spitfire_er

Aluminum
Joined
Jul 25, 2014
Location
Minnesota
Well, I guess I might as well start a thread being as I talked myself into doing basically a complete restoration.

I've owned lathes for several years including a few Logans, and a handful of South Bends, and once upon a time an old grizzly 12X36. The heavy 10 is my 10th lathe I believe and I have slowly worked up to getting the exact lathe that I wanted. Go back about 2 months ago I had A Logan 922 11x36", and a SB 9A 9X36", and a Delta Metal shaper. The Logan was OK but it left a little to be desired being that it was showing it's age and I was having issues holding tolerances, not to mention those tiny dials!

I decided one day to sell all three machines and head out for a heavy 10 with a 4.5' bed. I found several across the country but WOW, they know what they want for them! Wish list was Cam lock spindle, 4.5' Bed, and dual tumbler gear box! After only about 3 weeks of searching I found an old ad on craigslist which I had looked at before. All the ad said was Heavy 10 with a few misc extras! I did text the guy a few weeks prior to mainly ask about bed length, but no reply. He was asking $1,500. Forgot about it till a couple weeks later. The ad came up again this time $1,000 OBO, well I had to inquire again! I called the guy, got through and he went over it with me. Said it was the 4.5' bed and came from a smith a few years ago. After talking for about 10 minutes I said I'll be there asap. We set up a date and I drove a 600+ mile round trip to pick it up.

Didn't get everything I wanted, but here's what I got for $900!
1951 SB heavy 10 with 4.5'. Had the quick collet attachment with a few collets, but I have a full set and stand of SB collets from another lathe so no big deal. 4 chucks, 3, 4 scroll, 4 independent, and a 3 scroll/independent. Two are Buderus chucks and the other might be a Banini? Had a cheap QCTP piston style. Micrometer tail stock, with wipers on the bottom. Large dials all around! Along with a bunch of misc stuff that came with it!

Only thing I would have liked is the wide range gear box, and a cam lock spindle, but I can always change the spindle out later.

Brings me up to a couple weeks ago. I decided being that I will most likely keep this lathe for myself, might as well get it all back to factory. I asked Richard King for a few references for rebuilders in my area. Thanks again Richard for getting me Rick Arneberg at A & D Machine Tool Rebuilding in Roberts, WI. He did a fantastic job and got it done in about 10 days!

I had him regrind and scrape the bed, fit the saddle with turcite, align my tailstock, and he re-fit that and the headstock. He also did a little scraping on the cross slide which I was not expecting. I'm sure I missed something, but I am very happy with how it turned out! I did have a few nicks in the ways which I knew would not come out, but other than that, "it sure is pretty"! I opted not to have him re-paint it for me, but had a beautiful bridgport in there that they just repainted and it looked amazing!

I just got it back about a week ago and decided I might as well do a complete strip and repaint on the lathe. I have yet to decide on the cabinet yet, but knowing myself, I'll at least do a paint over to make it match. I can always re-do the cabinet later.

Here's a few photos of what it looked like before!2015-06-30 2015-06-30 002 003.jpg2015-06-30 2015-06-30 002 004.jpg2015-06-30 2015-06-30 002 005.jpg2015-06-30 2015-06-30 002 006.jpg2015-06-30 2015-06-30 002 007.jpg
 
Here's a few more! I did forget to mention that the bed was in fairly decent shape. Rick only had to grind down 7 thou to get a nice full grind!
 

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Here's a few photos of the progress in the last couple days.

I started with the gear box because I figured that would be one of the parts that I would least enjoy! I stripped it completely apart and now have that ready to go back together. I just need to buy new felts before it gets put back together.

I also started on the bed last night too and that is turning out to be quite a bit more work than I thought. Stripped it down with citri strip which worked OK and then got it primed last night!IMG_20150724_225919558.jpgIMG_20150725_242350303.jpg

Here's a shot of it before I took it to Rick!

 
Here's a few more! I did forget to mention that the bed was in fairly decent shape. Rick only had to grind down 7 thou to get a nice full grind!

Flatbed truck, old lathe, boat in the background, kids toys in the yard.....
Did you take those pics in my driveway?;)

Enjoy the resto!
:cheers:
 
LOL, yeah thanks, kids toys and dads toys! No flatbed though, would be nice, but that's just my trailer I rebuilt earlier this year! Strange though, I've literally had about 20 random people walk up to me and comment on how nice my trailer was! I just wanted something that wasn't rusty and rotting away. It's 25 years old by the way!
 
Congratulations on your purchase. Three years ago, I bought a shorter heavy 10 with hardened bed and D1-4 cam lock spindle out of Long Island, N Y for $750. I was surprised that there is a machine rebuilder in Roberts, which is basically in my back yard. My lathe bed doesn't need grinding, however. Nothing wrong with cleaning and painting, but why does it need stripping?
 
Stop!
It's not too late to turn back!

Strip what you have painted, and reassemble that thing.
the before look was WAY cool!

:)

Yeah... it's too late now! "I AIN'T GOING BACK!"

Congratulations on your purchase. Three years ago, I bought a shorter heavy 10 with hardened bed and D1-4 cam lock spindle out of Long Island, N Y for $750. I was surprised that there is a machine rebuilder in Roberts, which is basically in my back yard. My lathe bed doesn't need grinding, however. Nothing wrong with cleaning and painting, but why does it need stripping?

Guess I wanted to get down to bare metal so I know what I'm building on and don't have to worry about bonding issues with another paint. I'm sure it would have been fine, but I've seen quite a few lathes with chipping paint from several layers. I also wanted to clean to try and get rid of any oil as much as I could to help with paint bonding.
 
You done it now...

Be beating all the other machines away with a stick defending her honor.

Watch out for those millers,right sneaky they are...one will be moved in before you know it.
:)
 
I used a quart of Valspar implement paint from Tractor Supply Ford Gray mixed with a pint of gloss white paint from Rustoleum. It went on smoothly and dried to a hard finish that has held up for 3 years. It replaced the South Bend original color exactly. I have a quart of the mixture left, and I am guarding it jealously, because Tractor Supply quit handling it and I don't trust what their replacement. I believe Lowes handles Valspar. I have since bought a Atrump cnc mill that is almost new and had a sheet metal table guard made. I used this paint to finish the new sheet metal, and it matched perfectly. Surface preparation consisted of only washing the lathe parts with mineral spirits.
 
We know that you paid $900 for the basic lathe. What did the Roberts machine tool rebuilders cost you?

Well... it was about $1500 but about half of that was the hand scraping which I wanted done. He said just a regrind would have been closer to 700 or so. I would contact him to get a quote on any machine you may want to have done though.

I used a quart of Valspar implement paint from Tractor Supply Ford Gray mixed with a pint of gloss white paint from Rustoleum. It went on smoothly and dried to a hard finish that has held up for 3 years. It replaced the South Bend original color exactly. I have a quart of the mixture left, and I am guarding it jealously, because Tractor Supply quit handling it and I don't trust what their replacement. I believe Lowes handles Valspar. I have since bought a Atrump cnc mill that is almost new and had a sheet metal table guard made. I used this paint to finish the new sheet metal, and it matched perfectly. Surface preparation consisted of only washing the lathe parts with mineral spirits.

That's interesting that you mixed the two together. If you can find the valspar again I'm sure it's the same from valspar. Paint companies rarely change the chemical makeup of established paints. When they do it get branded as a new product! Good info though!
 
Curious to see a pic of the underside of saddle.

was the bed planed or ground? It *looks* planed to me but what do I know.:)

Not that it matters, only the end result does.( and yours looks very nice)
 
Beautiful! Would love to see pics of the underside of the saddle. Fwiw I think your price was fine. I paid $1800 for the bed ground, saddle raised and scraped in, cross slide ground and scraped into the the saddle, and tail stock scraped in to bed
 
Finally, a truly rebuilt lathe, not one "rebuilt" with a coat of porch paint. Nice job. I know you wanted a SB but imagine what you would have if you started with a Monarch.

Thanks for the compliments. I'll get a 10EE someday, but the 10L will fit my needs better for now.

I know there are other guys on here that have done a much better job than I and spent much more time. I would love to take the time to make this thing look like a $50K hotrod masterpiece, but I just wanted a clean accurate nice looking lathe that was easy to keep clean and held tolerances and looked nice. I don't know if I would have the patients to bondo this thing up. Would be nice though! I'm just looking to do an accurate restoration so it was basically as it was when it left the factory.

On a side note, here's the turcite photos for explodee.

I did notice when I pulled the apron that Rick must have did a little scraping on the bottom of the saddle between it and the apron. There was a nice coat of oil between the two when I pulled it. If you look really closely, you can see the scraping on the Turcite, but it's kinda hard to see.
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