100 year old South Bend 34 Rustoration

Grendel

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I recently purchased a no 34 South bend (13x5') here in the UK for just £250, I could see that there was a lot of rust on some of the accessories, but the main works looked to have been protected by oil.
so far I eventually got the apron and carriage off the lathe, the carriage lock was rusted in place and I had to drill out the screws holding the lead screw as the heads had rusted in place - interestingly the screws unthreaded by hand from the castings, so it was the heads of the cap screws (slotted) that had rusted in place, in the week I have had the lathe I have managed to clean up and unfreeze the tailstock, and have managed to get the rusted screws from the steady rest.
As parts are removed they are getting dropped into a bath of evaporust. so far a spare chuck that arrives as a ball of rust has been in a week, and yesterday I finally got it disassembled, 6 slotted cap screws were sacrificed and drilled out to achieve this, the scroll finally coming out by tapping the centre of the chuck until the scroll had moved enough to remove the jaws, one dropped out, but the others required gentle persuasion with a brass drift, as did the scroll via the slots for the jaws.
the bed has some damage, looks like some parts escaped and the inner rear .way has some big chips out of it, fortunately close to the chuck, and the carriage runs on the outer ways.
I will use this thread to document the continued rustoration and get this poor old girl back up and running.
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Looks like you have quite a project there. Looking forward to pics of your progress
 
so with other tasks scheduled for today, the only work done was more cleaning of the old rust ball chuck, I used a small diamond burr in a dremel to clear the final blockages and rust build ups from all the components, my replacement 1/4 20 unc bolts arrived this morning i had bought 10 each of 1 1/4 and 1 1/2 high tensile bolts, the heads of these were annoyingly slightly bigger than to originals, so the clearance holes were drilled out to 9.5mm, then with a liberal application of bearing grease to lubricate everything the chuck was reassembled, funnily the 1 1/2" bolts which I had thought too long were ideal for the retaining pins for the chuck key gears, the 1 1/4" did the jointing of the two parts, its not pretty, as there is major pitting, but it functions, this is the spare 5" chuck, its a little stiff, but as I dont have a 3/8" key, I am using a spare section of blank tool steel and an adjustable wrench.
During my excavations through the rust i did find a manufacturer for the chuck.IMG_3631.JPG

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You can see how bad the rust was by the pitting on the body.
 
once the lathe is up and running I will mount the chuck and give it a clean with some scotchbright, which might make it a little more presentable
 
I think that one may be a bit past scotch bright rescue. Might want to set it aside for use on a welding positioner. Welcome to the site, will look forward to watching it come together. Cheers, Mike
 
mine looks the same
I have a 1916 South Bend 13” X 5’
I have been trying to find the worm gear, so far no luck
the lathe was used by a electrical shop to rebuild electric motors
it runs great very accurate and very light ware except the worm gear and some hits on the too post.
 
a good days work today, started early and it was just a continual round of cleaning and disassembly, today was the turn of the carriage and cross slide parts, as I disassemble parts, they get put into small ziplock bags and labelled, thedy may come back out for derusting and cleaning, but they will be kept together, so the cross slide screw was disassembled, when i got the nut off the end I could see the key pin (dutchman?) was missing and the handle had turned slightly, the topslide was next and this time heat was necessary to get the handle off, then it was to work, scraping and cleaning and finally a quick touch up with scotchbright on all the sliding parts finally i took the good chuck apart, cleaned and greased it and reassembled it, this came apart as it should have with no issues and is once again working well.IMG_20210307_134150.jpgIMG_20210307_134158.jpg

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well after 24 hours in evaporust the cross slide parts were derusted, a quick wire brushing revealed that there were graduations on one part, I figured I might be able to make them a bit clearer by going over them with a hand graverIMG_3634.JPGIMG_3635.JPG

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