Southbend metal lathe find

[woodtickgreg]

hell when you are done with it greg I bet it looks better then new. Looking great. Take it easy though.........

Yes sir I will, The doc says it will be good therapy.

 

[LoneStar]

hell when you are done with it greg I bet it looks better then new. Looking great. Take it easy though.........

Yes sir I will, The doc says it will be good therapy.

Its already looking factory fresh ! Great job, that lathe is gonna make a lot of people jealous........ Not me though....... Well maybe just a little bit....
:lolol:

 

[woodtickgreg]

Well I gotta listen to the doc, he said work in the shop a little it'll help with the therapy, so I did. Got the pullys in the pedestal and under drive pullys cleaned and got the new motor to under drive belt installed yesterday. Today I started on the gearbox, I have heard horror stories about taking these apart on machinest forums. I just took my time and lovingly tapped with punches and brass drifts. I even made a couple of punches out of old plastic injection mold pins ( they are really hard and don't bend). I do need to find a chinese 1" wrench that I can grind down to make a thin wrench for reassembly. So here's some pics of what I got accomplished today. Working a little slow yet, kinda like a arm and a half. Next into the parts washer and strip the paint off the housing and repaint.
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At least I remembered to get some before pics!

 

[woodtickgreg]

I have been making some slow progress, but progress none the less. I got all the parts cleaned and inspected, gears look really good and no grooves or wear on the shafts. I got all the cast iron casting stripped of paint and wire wheeled. I also have it all masked off and ready for paint. I am going to brush the paint on the casting as there are a lot of holes and passages that I do not want to get paint in. I cleaned all the oil passages out with pipe cleaners and mineral spirits and sprayed the whole thing down with brake parts cleaner to remove any oil residue. I really wanted to get it painted today but I had some problems with the buffer for the handles, wanted to get them buffed before painting. And I also could not find the exact color paint that I have been spraying in a quart can, so I settled on a slightly darker gray that should still look nice, now it will be a 2 tone paint job. I took a pic of one of the handles after wire wheeling and then after buffing. If I took the time to sand the handles down and then buff they would be like chrome, overkill for my grubby mitts I think, it will still look nice and feel good in your hand.
Wire wheeled to remove rust and paint
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And buffed with an emery buffing compound.
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All parts to be painted masked off.
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In these last 2 pics you can see a wood dowel that I shaved off to plug an oil hole for painting.
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I just need a free day now to paint, all of these parts will be brushed with rust oleum paint.

 

[woodtickgreg]

I have been painting some parts over the last couple of days. Brushing the rust oleum on so as not to get paint in the openings for the shafts in the gear box. Only bad thing about it is it takes forever for the paint to dry. 2 coats on everything, 2 coats inside the gear box then wait for it to dry and then started the outside today, 2nd coat on the outside tomorrow. So while I am waiting for paint to dry I thought I would get the access door on the base and a motor access cover on also. here's a couple of pics.
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Views from underneath the bed.
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The fastners for the drip pan cleaned up pretty good for being 60+ years old.
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Motor installed and a new kevlar belt installed and adjusted. I have not installed the cover for the motor and belt yet as I want to wait till I go back to my part time job and get a couple of mower deck cover knobs so that it will be tool less access to the belts and motor for lube. It's an old 3 phase motor with oil caps and you have to oil it!
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And the cleaned gears and stuff waiting for me to install them as soon as the paint is dry. This is what I really want to do instead of painting.

 

[conchwood]

Congrats on the great find-I knew you were looking. Phase converters don't take up much room and are probably cheaper then motor. 3 ph motors are much better. M

Mike, do you think that a 3/4 hp 3 phase will outperform a 2 hp 220v single phase?

I don't think so even though you're correct about the HP ratings being dropped. It isn't rocket surgery to build a rotary converter though Greg. If you go through the trouble build a rotary not a static - static will deliver ~2/3 the horses the 3Ø motor is designed for. But if you want to replace the 3Ø motor with a 2 HP 1Ø the 2HP 1Ø will deliver more than a 3/4HP 3Ø even through a rotary converter. HP is HP. In the lower HP ranges like that the 3Ø is not a huge benefit unless it's continuous duty application.

JMO

Congrats on the find. Either way you go you'll love it!

Congrats as well, I have a 50's era 9" S/B lathe,passed down and use it often.
I think the only thing you need to worry about is the RPM and pully size as the lathe is set up with gearing and your motor speed will make it run faster or slower. the rest is in the gearing. Yahoo has a group, south bend lathes with a lot of members that probably give you any info you may need.
Doug

 

[woodtickgreg]

Congrats on the great find-I knew you were looking. Phase converters don't take up much room and are probably cheaper then motor. 3 ph motors are much better. M

Mike, do you think that a 3/4 hp 3 phase will outperform a 2 hp 220v single phase?

I don't think so even though you're correct about the HP ratings being dropped. It isn't rocket surgery to build a rotary converter though Greg. If you go through the trouble build a rotary not a static - static will deliver ~2/3 the horses the 3Ø motor is designed for. But if you want to replace the 3Ø motor with a 2 HP 1Ø the 2HP 1Ø will deliver more than a 3/4HP 3Ø even through a rotary converter. HP is HP. In the lower HP ranges like that the 3Ø is not a huge benefit unless it's continuous duty application.

JMO

Congrats on the find. Either way you go you'll love it!

Congrats as well, I have a 50's era 9" S/B lathe,passed down and use it often.
I think the only thing you need to worry about is the RPM and pully size as the lathe is set up with gearing and your motor speed will make it run faster or slower. the rest is in the gearing. Yahoo has a group, south bend lathes with a lot of members that probably give you any info you may need.
Doug

I am also a member on a couple of machinest forums. What most of the guys are running for 3 Phase in a home shop are vfd's or variable frequency drive's, these are way better than the old static converters and you don't have to run 2 motors like on a rotary converter. They also take up little space, can be mounted anywhere, and give variable speed if needed, soft start too! I can run a 220 single phase line to the converter and get 3 phase out to the lathe and still be able to use the original forward and reverse switch.

 

[woodtickgreg]

I got back to work last week so I picked up a couple of knobs for the belt access cover. I couldn't find any studded ones so I made a couple by using epoxy to glue a long threaded bolt in, when the epoxy set up I just cut the head off with a dremel. Now my access covers are tool less!
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The next thing I did was to install the main belt tension engagement lever.
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Then I installed the lead screw support bearing and temporarily installed the cleaned up lead screw.
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[woodtickgreg]

The next thing I did was to install the gear, shaft, spacer, and needle bearing, into the cleaned up and painted gear speed shift lever in preparation for installing in the gear case. Here's a couple pics.
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[woodtickgreg]

The gear box has been painted and curing in the garage for a week. So now it's time to prep it for assembly, removed the masking tape and installed new oiling felts, cleaned out any paint that may have gotten into the shaft holes. A few pics.
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In this last pic you can see the new felts.
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[Mike1950]

GReg --when you get done the darn thing is going to be too nice to use- Maybe you will have to send it to me for safe keeping!!!!
Kidding aside- it is looking outstanding!!!!!

 

[woodtickgreg]

Here's a few pics of all the gears and shafts installed. I think it has come out really nice, everything is lubed up with the proper oil and works very smoothly by hand. So what do you think? look a little cleaner than when I started?
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I found a guy on ebay that makes and sells very high quality reproduction plates for south bends. This is the final touches that I was talking about in an earlier post. I think these new plates really look nice. The only difference from the originals are that the originals where stamped to raise the numbers and letters and then painted. I will save the originals though.
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[woodtickgreg]

The gear box has been painted and curing in the garage for a week. So now it's time to prep it for assembly, removed the masking tape and installed new oiling felts, cleaned out any paint that may have gotten into the shaft holes. A few pics.




In this last pic you can see the new felts.

:hatsoff: to ya Greg that is sweet. We are going to look at some bank repo machinery tomorrow this gives me inspiration

That's kinda the whole point of showing this restore, to show people what can be done with little money and a lot of elbow grease!

 

[woodtickgreg]

Here's a few pics of the gear box installed on the lathe temporarily, I will have to remove it to install the saddle and apron. At that time I will permanently install the lead screw into the gear box with the jam nuts.
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At this point it's starting to look like a lathe again! I will continue with the black levers and polished handles on the other parts.
Here's the next victom to go on the operating table for a little cosmetic surgery and refurb. The apron.
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[NYWoodturner]

The gear box has been painted and curing in the garage for a week. So now it's time to prep it for assembly, removed the masking tape and installed new oiling felts, cleaned out any paint that may have gotten into the shaft holes. A few pics.




In this last pic you can see the new felts.

:hatsoff: to ya Greg that is sweet. We are going to look at some bank repo machinery tomorrow this gives me inspiration

That's kinda the whole point of showing this restore, to show people what can be done with little money and a lot of elbow grease!

... AND a whole lot of know how ! ... Just amazing Greg - truly amazing. You should post a before and after side by side
Scott

 

[woodtickgreg]

I also forgot to mention that the paint matched pretty good, I really can't see any difference in it. The rattle can paint that I used on the bed was called dark machinery grey, and the brushed on paint was called smoke grey. It matched better than expected!

 

[Kevin]

Wow Greg this has turned out far better than I ever imagined. It looks good as new. I'm impressed. The thread has a rating of 3 stars, because I rated it 5 and someone else rated it 1. I can guarantee you the 1 rating was a slip of the mouse or a lack of understanding how it works. This is 5 starts all the way.

 

[NYWoodturner]

Wow Greg this has turned out far better than I ever imagined. It looks good as new. I'm impressed. The thread has a rating of 3 stars, because I rated it 5 and someone else rated it 1. I can guarantee you the 1 rating was a slip of the mouse or a lack of understanding how it works. This is 5 starts all the way.

Now its a four...

 

[LoneStar]

Greg I'm hypnotized by this restoration. That is one sexy piece of equipment !
I imagine you could make some money if you could find a few more machines at the right price and give them this kind of treatment !
Excellent work Sir !

 

[woodtickgreg]

Greg I'm hypnotized by this restoration. That is one sexy piece of equipment !
I imagine you could make some money if you could find a few more machines at the right price and give them this kind of treatment !
Excellent work Sir !

Thanks! I just want to get it done so I can use it and get it dirty! I am having fun doing this, making a new 1949 lathe, but winter is coming and that means wood working time for me! I got the itch to work wood bad! By the time I get this done I should be further along in my therapy and ready to work wood.