Early 1900's J.B. Spencer lathe project

KennyC

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Hey new guy here. My 2nd post and will no doubt have lots of questions. Hope to learn all I can and do a lot of reading. I had posted some of this regarding this project on my intro post.

I picked up an old barn find wood lathe from out in the woods for about free a month ago. I know about next to nothing about lathes and what I do know is just enough to be dangerous. I really wasn't sure what I wanted to do with it but though it may be fun to restore it and maybe get it up and running again. It's a Spencer lathe that is stamped 1906. Most of the parts are there and in pretty good shape.

So far I have cleaned up the lathe and removed the old paint. I built a stand for it and secured it. Repurposed a treadmill motor for it and wired it up. Last week powered it up for the first time. Surprisingly I got the old girl to spin up. Unfortunately there is about a 32nd inch of wobble at the chuck. This is where I'm at now with the project... Trying to true up the old machine.

Some pics before I stripped the paint.20171107_113433-2432x1824.jpg
20171107_113659-2508x1881.jpg
 
The question is if the runout is in the chuck or in the spindle. Can you take the chuck off and test it again?
 
Interesting machine.

That tool rest is obviously from a wood lathe, but the headstock resembles any metal-cutting lathe of that vintage.

If you mount a 12" bar in the chuck can you see/feel the wobble by push/pulling the end of the bar?

-brino
 
Bob had the chuck off for testing today again. Seems like the wobble is much worse with the bronze adapter and chuck attached. Hardly anything noticable at just the spindle threads.

The bronze nut seems to fit loosely until it's forced up against the spindle bearing. I had it over at a local machine shop and they suggested to check the bronze nut first.

Problem is for me is that the spindle thread is 1 1/8-12 and OD of the bronze adapter is 1 5/8-10. Which is also the threading of the chuck back plate. I can't seem to locate anything to adapt to those thread sizes. The machine shop said he could make a new thread adapter but it would be $200+ and that may not be the problem.

I wish I had a easy way to get around those odd size threads.
 
Nice ,and welcome to the site, seems to have a three jaw chuck on it, how Are you powering it ? .
 
Flat belt or direct drive, that adapter looks problematic.
 
Right now an old serpentine belt from my truck just for testing.
treadmill motor 01.jpg
 
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