Wadkin RS restoration

[wallace]

Next on the list is a spontaneous purchase I made off facebook. A rough little RS6". It came from a master wheelwright in devon. Its missing its tool banjo which is going to hard to find. I had one in my stash but used it on another lathe a couple of months ago.

It dates from 1948 which I was surprised at, I thought it would be older due to the window in the main casting.

It was extended a bit

For some reason the pins that hold the motor bracket were not in their right place, and had been hammered on.

Its supposed to have a collar on this end.

The pins will need some work

To check the bearings you just grab hold of the spindle and lift it, if theirs any movement it needs bearings. This one does.

A good sign of dodgy bearings is copious amounts of grease as that fixes everything.

This is my home made tool for unscrewing the nut

Then stick a long thing in the hole and hit with a hammer

And voila, the other end cap comes off

The stepped pulleys do not have a grub screw

Then you have to pull the spindle with one hand and catch the stepped pulley with the other.

I don't normally remove all of the existing paint but this is a bit nasty. I had a bad experience with a lathe I did a little while back. I spent along time prepping everything and got a horrible reaction when doing the top coat. This cost about £7O in wasted materials.

To keep dust to a minimum I scraped everything off, it would be nice to have it shot blasted but its not an option. After an hour of scraping my elbows regretted my decision to remove everything. Tennis elbow and repetitive motions don't mix

Then I had a bright idea to use my elcheapo carving machine. Works well but blunts quickly

One of the bargains of the week was these, the company must of listed them incorrectly on ebay, with a 99p starting bid. I paid £1.7O for a box.

Another Aldi special tool.

Time taken 5hrs

 

[Trevanion]

Grease it until it stops making that noise, then grease it some more! :lol: It wasn't until recently I realised how catastrophic over-greasing a bearing can be, I always thought it was fairly harmless and any excess would just spill out or whatever but no, too much grease equals friction and heat and wrecks bearings in fairly short order.

How many RS lathes have you done now Wallace?

 

[Vann]

...Its supposed to have a collar on this end...

What diameter bore? I have a collar in my stash - although international mails are a bit slow at present.

Cheers, Vann.

 

[wallace]

Grease it until it stops making that noise, then grease it some more! :lol: It wasn't until recently I realised how catastrophic over-greasing a bearing can be, I always thought it was fairly harmless and any excess would just spill out or whatever but no, too much grease equals friction and heat and wrecks bearings in fairly short order.

How many RS lathes have you done now Wallace?

If anything too little is better than too much, if you open a sealed for life bearing it has a tiny amount of grease in it.
I think I've done about 1O RS's :shock:

Vann it had the collar stuffed inside the casting, I forgot to message you, that package arrived last week much appreciated.

 

[DBT85]

I think I need to hire you to have a look at this old thing Wallace!

https://r.tapatalk.com/shareLink/topic? ... source=app

 

[Max Power]

I saw that Greg had that up for sale, must have cost a bit to get it delivered from his place

 

[Bm101]

"One of the bargains of the week was these, the company must of listed them incorrectly on ebay, with a 99p starting bid. I paid £1.7O for a box."

Looking forward to another proper restoration Wallace.
Wouldn't fancy Pm'ing me with that link would you if possible? Please? I'm about out.

 

[wallace]

I saw that Greg had that up for sale, must have cost a bit to get it delivered from his place

It was £7O which is a great price

The seller of the flap discs seems to have got his act together.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/3M-FLAP-DISC ... SwEdBeu8YG

 

[wallace]

A bit more done, as you can see the paint is a bit pants.

Some of it was hard going and I had to resort to a hammer and chisel

Then I got a bit carried away with the fettling

The shed was a bit mucky afterwards

Time taken 13hrs

 

[wallace]

A bit more done, There is a broken bolt in the headstock, this attaches the bed. It must of been really tightened to snap the head off a 5(8ths bolt. I tried a stud extractor pretty much knowing it wouldn't work. These things rarely do.

Next I tried welding a nut on, this generally works but not this time. After 7 attempts I gave up

Next a bit filler

The screw for the offset turning was missing

I got Mr Doubleboost off of that youtube to make a new one.

Heres a clip of him doing it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TMH9YveOyM

Time taken 26hrs

 

[Bod]

I see you use filler, would the factory used that, or would they just have painted the casting, relying on the paint to give a smooth finish?

Bod

 

[wallace]

I see you use filler, would the factory used that, or would they just have painted the casting, relying on the paint to give a smooth finish?

Bod

Yes they used a lead based filler early on, they didn't use any during the war and painted bare castings. Later they used a white spray type filler.

 

[wallace]

A bit more done, I got he bed filled and prepped

I'm undecided what to do with the window at the top of the head stock. I could put some Perspex in or have the on off buttons mounted on a piece of metal

Been working through a box of parts

I use my little disc sander which has Velcro on to easily change the grits so touch up each flat on the bolts. Then polish

Their was a nice dealers tag on the bed, if you wire wheeled this it would be ruined

It looks similar to the union jubilee tags

This is the outboard bearing cap, I've never come across a ring before

Also I've never come across gaskets on the inboard side.

The casting were a bit rough so I cleaned them up on the lathe

Time taken 4Ohrs

 

[wallace]

Everything got a splash of zinc primer followed by more filler

made a bit shiny

Then to the motor

Once you take the pulley support of the end you must remember to knock the tapered pin out before attempting to take the stepped pulley off. Sometimes the pin is barely visible. I've heard of a few people sticking a puller on and pulling the lip off the pulley.
This is the big end of the tapered pin.

This is small end that you have to hit to get the pin out, you cant see it at all so I had to guess

That's not seen a grease gun in a while

Ready for bodge

Sanded the pulley

This lathe was missing its banjo and came with a fabricated one, so I'm going to use the one off my lathe and hopefully come across one to replace it.

I painted this nearly 9 years ago hence the clown paint, I hope I've improved since then

I've been asking around trying to find a tool carriage to put on this, then I remembered I got given a broken one off a dealer.
This is off a very early RS lathe and is probably 9O years old

Its missing some adjustable gibs so I thought I'd seek the help off Mr Doubleboost once more.

Time taken 56hrs

 

[wallace]

A bit more, the broken part of cross slide is in the capable hands of Mr Boost, the gibbs are going to be done by his friend who can machine grind them to spec.

Scraped and fettled. I only use scotchbrite and brake cleaner on the machined surfaces

One thing I've noticed doing machines is cast iron is more resistant o rust and pitting than steel.

I got offered a pretty cool lathe recently. A super 7 that's been stored for 25 years without been used. Its still got its shipping grease on it.

Time taken 66hrs

 

[sploo]

I got offered a pretty cool lathe recently. A super 7 that's been stored for 25 years without been used. Its still got its shipping grease on it.

Wish someone would offer me one of those :mrgreen:

Wadkin looking great so far BTW.

 

[wallace]

It wasn't free and it was above my pay grade

 

[sploo]

It wasn't free and it was above my pay grade

The Super 7 usually is. Never had the chance to try one so I don't know if the prices are justified. I'll potter along with my little Sieg SC2 clone (but I can dream, yea?)

 

[wallace]

Not much to report, just sanding grunt work. I did try a new product which is great. Polyester spray filler. The only downside is you have about 25 mins to spray it and get the remnants out of the gun before it starts to cure. Its horrible to clean out the gun, no thinners I have would touch it. I believe acetone is supposed to work.

It sands really easily and the finish is nice. I now need to remove all masking tape, sand and reapply
more tape before a final primer coat.

Time taken 8Ohrs

 

[wallace]

Time to throw some paint at it. I use enamel for the black stuff which is very forgiving and easy to spray on.

For the grey parts I use 2 pack which can be a bit arsy for the untrained like me. The main casting and a couple of other parts did not go well at all. They were covered in dry patches and orange peel and generally pants. Not good when this stuff is £5O a ltr
So what does one do when in a situation like this, go on youtube and watch how the big boys do it. After watching a couple of hrs of videos I believe I found out where I was going wrong. Namely pressure and technique.
Since I don't have a spray booth I thought I'd give myself a fighting chance by cleaning the place out a bit. Blew it out for a couple of days and left the doors open all day. I just got a new Dyson for my household duties so brought the old one in and hoovered the workshop out. Then brought the hose pipe in and wet the floor.
I prepped the castings again and the results were much better

Mr Doubleboost started the repair on the cross slide

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydtLPgxWoMM

Time taken 9Ohrs