Adventures in metalwork and machine restoration!

[TFrench]

Very jealous. I do like my little mini lathe (Chinese special, Sieg SC2 clone) but I'd love a "proper" old one like that. Quite a few come up for sale around where I live, but the unknowns of specs/sizes/weights/transport always makes me chicken out.

It's pretty easy to see if a lathe's been abused - visible damage on the ways, any movement in the apron/carriage/slides. So long as thats all good and the main bearings sound and feel good, everything else can be fixed. Assume its chuffing heavy and if you dont have the kit to move it, pay someone who does and knows what they're doing. Unless you're an idiot like me who does this a lot then its a one time expense.

Got the last dovetail slide on the little deckel grinder moving last night - a few taps with a Thor No2 persuading stick and it gave up resisting. Tonight I pulled the work spindle apart and reassembled. The workholding part is all free and easy now, just need to get the old wheel off, rewire it and it should be good for a test.

 

[TFrench]

Been making steady progress with rewiring the metal spinning lathe. Nothing picture worthy but I've worked out where almost everything goes. Once I get it rigged up I'll take just the motor and switchgear to work so I can test it. Once I know it works I can assemble it all for good. I really don't want to fit it and then find out it doesn't work - it's a real pain to get at in the tailstock leg pillar.

Today I had a bit of time so I started on the bottom blade guide for the bandsaw. One side is long gone, the other was nearly cracked through. I ground it out, preheated, tig brazed it and wrapped it up in insulation for a slow cool. Seems to have worked! Now it's secure I can work on the other side. I was going to machine it back and braze on a new piece of cast, but someone on Instagram suggested just building it up with braze and machining it back. Not sure which way to go yet.

 

[Dutchie74]

Thanks guys. Coley, the paint pen makes it really easy to follow, it almost glows! I do wonder if some of the smoke was from the paint as well though. The peonies are not my department, I just create the canvas for the gardening department to work with :lol: I had to cut the big sections up so they would drop out - with so many small shapes they were hanging up when I tried to leave them big.

Next project was a really cool vice I got on ebay. Its a German Leinen, the rear jaw slides in dovetailed ways and the screw is completely enclosed and protected in a tube. Really neat design. Took it to pieces and found the jaws should have an insert bushing to keep them secure. There was only one left for some reason, so at least I had something to work with. Turned up 3 new bushes from an old bolt and made some new counterbored cap screws to hold them on with (chucked them in a battery drill and ground them down on a bench grinder - works a treat!)
vice jaw inserts
Forgot to get any other pictures, but here is the finished article:
Leinen Vice
Using it is really weird at first - kind of like when you're on a train and the one next to you moves. I've moved it onto my bench at home in favour of my big old record so wel'll see how I get on with it. After this being the only one I've ever seen I picked up another, slightly smaller one off facebook this week.

My vice is the very same as this one but I was unable to figure out the make of it. Now that I've seen yours I'm going to do a bit more checking of my own vice. Using it is a bit weird compared to your typical Record vice but a cracking vice none the less. Nice one!

 

[TFrench]

My vice is the very same as this one but I was unable to figure out the make of it. Now that I've seen yours I'm going to do a bit more checking of my own vice. Using it is a bit weird compared to your typical Record vice but a cracking vice none the less. Nice one!

There are a couple of similar ones - could be a boley?

 

[Dutchie74]

There are a couple of similar ones - could be a boley?

I'll check this evening.
Great thread which I've enjoyed reading from beginning to end. You've a great eye for the old machinery.
I've a recently purchased Meddings MF4 Mk 2 floor standing drill that I'm trying to bring back to life. It's missing the pulley/belt guard which is the the 2 stud fixing type. Any ideas where I might source one; maybe you might have one in your parts stash??
Keep up the great work breathing life back into the old stuff!

 

[TFrench]

I'll check this evening.
Great thread which I've enjoyed reading from beginning to end. You've a great eye for the old machinery.
I've a recently purchased Meddings MF4 Mk 2 floor standing drill that I'm trying to bring back to life. It's missing the pulley/belt guard which is the the 2 stud fixing type. Any ideas where I might source one; maybe you might have one in your parts stash??
Keep up the great work breathing life back into the old stuff!

Is that the boxy looking one? If so I'd see if you can find a friendly fab shop who could fold one up for you. If it's the pressed rounded one then I've no idea, other than keep watching ebay! Sorry. I tend to sell most spare parts I get as 1, it gets them back out there and fixing machines up and 2, I'd run out of room in about 10 minutes flat. It's bad enough already without me hoarding spares

 

[Dutchie74]

No unfortunately it's the pressed rounded one. Yes I'll keep watching eBay. A Meddings pressed rounded cover came up on eBay recently but it was the slightly smaller single stud fixing type. I can certainly understand your problem with room for spares!

 

[TFrench]

Finally had a day to get stuff done in the workshop. My next door neighbour came round and gave me a hand with the spinning lathe control panel. I'd worked out where everything went but the 5 wires to the control panel. He's a genius with industrial electronics and it took him a good while to work it out, so I had no hope! Tested with my inverter and it all seems to be working ok. Not tested the motor as I don't think my inverter will run it, but I think it will be fine. Nice to be moving along with this project again!

 

[TFrench]

So, returning to the bandsaw blade guide. Went with the braze buildup option. Tig brazing went fairly well, wish I'd done it with the oxy acetylene but I didn't have flux. Mainly because it would have been a lot quicker! Today I machined it back into shape. Had to cut a block of aluminium to fit the slot - it was the only flat machined piece on the part that I could use as a reference. Once that was done it was fairly simple, just a little nerve wracking opening up the slots again with a small end mill. Final pic is it all fitted back together on the saw.

 

[TFrench]

Had an epic day yesterday. I bought a couple of machines in an online auction - a sandblasting cabinet and a guillotine, both for work. Turned up to collect it yesterday and ended up buying all the stuff they hadn't put in the auction. Good job we took the big trailer

Two more sandblasting cabinets with extractors (the gloves had perished, so their H&S department condemned them!)
Smart and brown lathe on a really nice bench:

A lapmaster lapping machine (I'll have the flattest plane irons going!)

A Leinen watchmakers lathe that was in the scrap pile

Collection of bench grinders, mini arbor press and a nice 4 jaw chuck

The biggest bench centres I've ever seen

And a couple of crates of tooling - most of which was on shelves that were due to be scrapped!


Take me a little while to work through this lot!
The one thing I really wanted though was the 4ft powered guillotine to replace our treadle one at work. Powered it up today and either the blade is blunt or it needs adjusting because it leaves a horrendous burr on the cut. Good job I checked before I started moving stuff!

 

[sploo]

 

[Dutchie74]

Super res

Had an epic day yesterday. I bought a couple of machines in an online auction - a sandblasting cabinet and a guillotine, both for work. Turned up to collect it yesterday and ended up buying all the stuff they hadn't put in the auction. Good job we took the big trailer

Two more sandblasting cabinets with extractors (the gloves had perished, so their H&S department condemned them!)
Smart and brown lathe on a really nice bench:

A lapmaster lapping machine (I'll have the flattest plane irons going!)

A Leinen watchmakers lathe that was in the scrap pile

Collection of bench grinders, mini arbor press and a nice 4 jaw chuck

The biggest bench centres I've ever seen

And a couple of crates of tooling - most of which was on shelves that were due to be scrapped!


Take me a little while to work through this lot!
The one thing I really wanted though was the 4ft powered guillotine to replace our treadle one at work. Powered it up today and either the blade is blunt or it needs adjusting because it leaves a horrendous burr on the cut. Good job I checked before I started moving stuff!

Super result.
Keep on keeping on!

 

[TFrench]

Latest milling machine project. Hold down clamps for the vice. You can buy them new but I thought it would be a nice little experiment in doing a small production run and keeping everything the same size. Made some brass washers and blued them as well just to make a proper job. Quite pleased with this one!

 

[TFrench]

Today I put my big boy pants on and had a go at the wheels for the Mossner bandsaw. I had a quote for re-tyring the wheels and it certainly wasn't cheap. The bottom wheel had a real groove worn into the tyre and the top one was a bit rough looking with all the embedded metal in it. While I had the gap bed out on my wadkin RS for a big bowl I'm working on, I thought I'd give it a try. Used a metal chuck and held the inside bore of the wheel, then took a 4" grinder and worked away at it until it looked like it had a crown again! It worked fairly well, apart from the mess and stink of burning rubber in my workshop. As you can see, everything near the lathe is coated in black rubber dust, it's taken me a good few hours to clean it up! I won't know how well it's worked until I get it reassembled and working again, but I'm fairly hopeful it will work.

 

[Ttrees]

I'll be interested to see the result in this, as I found I had real trouble with one tire a lot more cambered than the other, and coupled with misaligned wheels was a real disaster.
Things got so bad for me, at one point the blade completely refused to cut, imagine friction cutting
blade dived either way of the line rather than cutting.
Both tires looked very similar to what you have now, my lower wheel was cambered by me to get mostly past the damage, which I shouldn't have done really.
Looking again, I made it much more radical than what you've done.

Even with the wheels aligned correctly, it still is likely will be troublesome,
I have yet to finish off scraping the lower tire on my bandsaw, done by hand on the machine
without gloves, near got infected blister between the fingers, and just about healed now.

I think you have more work to do, definitely worth scraping IMO, as it might be very easy to do,
Hard to know until you try, both my vulcanized tires seem original, but yet the lower one is easier to scrape.
It took me some time to figure that out, and I was blaming my technique.
Can't tell you why, baffling, and I'm definitely sure of this.

The way it looks to me now is a recipe for compressing the set of your blades I reckon.
Well that's the impression you might get from looking at the box of mostly thin gauge blades I have, which seem not terribly blunt, but unusable as is.
Seems thicker gauge are less likely to compress set as much.
Another thing that one might or might not notice, is the thicker gauge blades might track notibly different on the wheels than the thinner ones,
Hard to know if that was my alignment or the different profiles, just saying.

Did you use the grinder to power the wheel?, works well for small things.
Watching with interest
Thanks for posting
Tom

 

[TFrench]

In the side by side pic, the right hand one is the one that was in better shape. I hardly took anything off it so the shape is fairly original. The picture makes the other one look worse than it is. Not so concerned about the set of the blades as metal blades are beefier and have less than a wood blade. If it isn't any good I'll get them done properly - as it stands though I'm close to £400 better off if it works, so it was worth a try. I just ran the lathe at low RPMs in low speed (got a VFD on it) running it faster just made it burnier.

 

[Ttrees]

Four hundred quid!
You have loads of meat there to practice with, just have at it again if it doesn't work.
Curious if you tried a fixed cutting tool on the rubber or not,
and also if you used a pen to see if there was any hollows if you hadn't the grinder fixed?

...and if you could program the VFD to stop at any resistance?
I have a VFD on my machine also, but wouldn't chance a fixed dressing tool
(the side of a plane iron) rigged up on the saw, so I chose blisters rather than amputation.

Even with little set on the blades, I think you'll be back to the lathe.
Good luck
Tom

 

[TFrench]

Honestly, I expect I'll have to send them off to be done properly. It's worth the try though. Been up to lots of things recently, still plugging away at the spinning lathe but nothing picture worthy.
First up was an emergency customer (Dad) squished his finger at work and after a day or two had swollen pretty badly. Wedding ring was titanium so we were going to go to hospital but decided to have a go ourselves.

Managed to work a screwdriver under it on the palm side to give me room to work, had a big pot of water to keep things cool as well.

Very nerve wracking but it went well!


Next was this interesting indexing powered work head from a cutter grinder. I picked it up with loads of other stuff and got it cheap because the motor was cracked.

With a bit of detective work to determine what speed motor it should be I found a replacement locally on ebay for a tenner. It isn't an enclosed one so not ideal for a grinding environment, but should I find myself needing it a lot a decent motor won;t be too expensive. The 3 jaw chuck is on a 4 Morse taper arbor with no way of removing it smoothly and it was stuck pretty hard! I was pretty wary of hitting it hard as I didn't want to damage any bearings in the head. It wouldn't fit in the press either so I ended up knocking a brass wedge in behind the chuck, which popped it loose quite easily.


Quite pleased with how this one turned out. Just need a suitable sized surface grinder for it now!

Last up is a set of clamps for the milling vice on the Deckel. Gerardi vices come with the correct clamps but my second hand ones didn't. To save material and to keep them all identical as far as possible I milled all the profiles with the blocks clamped together, then sawed them in half and faced the tops. Really enjoyable challenge to make them as identical and perfect as my limited experience allows. (you can see the old setup with the toe clamps in the background)

They came out so well I went the whole hog and made some brass washers and cold blued them as well. Quite probably the best looking parts I've made.

And in place

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Round the ends of the ring and wear it. I did this with three gold ones - I lost the rings but kept the finger. Titanium might not bend so easily as gold, but it could be prised off in an emergency.

 

[TFrench]

Just realised I double posted about the vice clamps. Teach me to copy and paste
The metal spinning lathe is very close to completion. Made a new captive T nut and stud for the toolrest:


Pulled the spindles and fitted a rubber multi-vee belt. Possibly won't be wide enough but I'm hopeful it will work.


Wired the motor, fitted all the guards and replaced all the bolts the previous owner had binned. Whitworth stuff has got expensive recently! One of my few remaining jobs is to add some cable tie plinths to neaten the wiring up properly.


Finished article:


Tested with my little static inverter and it all works. Pretty sure it won't have the juice to run it so it'll be moved to work when I get the chance. I'm also going to make a little mobile trolley to hold all the tools and forms I have to keep it all together. I do wish the motor was configured like the wadkin RS and didn't stick so far out behind it.