Project: My "Big Nards" - Nardini Nodus 1760 Lathe

[FOMOGO]

It's a hell of a lot of work rehabing a machine, especially if your going to paint it. I've been going through the same process on my Acra mill, and am almost done with all disassembly and cleaning. Still debating what to do about paint, if anything. Yours is looking good. Mike

 

[pontiac428]

So this catches me up to Thanksgiving weekend. My wife split town to visit her folks, so I took the Wednesday and Friday off, for a long five day weekend of working in my shop.

I cleared out the spot where the lathe will live. It's a 12' bay, and the lathe is 120 inches long... that does not leave much room for sticking things through the spindle, like drawbars- but that's another issue for another time:



So here I am on Sunday night, home alone with nothing but time to work on my lathe. I had reached a point where it made more sense to move the lathe to its spot and get it up on jack screws. I checked my skates around all four corners, grabbed my 5' steel digging bar, and started easily scooting the lathe towards its new home. A few inches at at time, I wasn't even breaking a sweat as I traversed the 4500 lb machine across my chitty fly-by-night subcontractor laid floor. Now I'm at the corner where I need to pivot the lathe, and I use my prybar to rotate the jacks 90 degrees to perform the maneuver. I turned 3 of the four skates. On the left corner of the headstock, I knelt down and turned the skate to my left, and as soon as I did, it squirted out from between the machine and concrete, and the lathe fell on its back, from my very hands.

 

[Firstram]

That SUX!

 

[pontiac428]

"Eff me!" I said, while simultaneously jumping back (too late) and chitting my pants... Not only did it land on things, everything it touched on the way down was destroyed. I think I got lucky with that new $3000 hard top for my samurai- I have to replace the window and frame, and patch some fiberglass, but it'll make it. As soon as I was on my feet, I rushed to grab whatever I had- floor jacks, jack stands, high-lift- to get the lathe supported at least on the beam, so it isn't resting on the cabinetry. No moving parts were compromised, and I didn't get flattened, so I'm still ahead at this point.

Here's more pics as I supported the machine as best I could and removed the clutter it had fallen onto.

 

[mmcmdl]

My Voest ended up on the front side . Couple handles busted but mostly my pride as it was my first lathe .

 

[pontiac428]

It was a good thing that I did get the machine supported, because it would have sat on the electrical controls box with a twist in it for a week while I called in every favor I had to get enough bodies to right the machine. Then there was the question of how... it's about 3500 lbs too heavy for my engine hoist, and I didn't think I can buy a gantry that is rated at enough capacity. There is no room for a forklift, this is purely going to have to be done by hand... unless... That's it- this is the strongest part of my building, where I put 3 extra posts in the design to make my little 12'x15' machine shop partition. Those floor joists run right over the top of the extra posts. I have a little bundle of 12' length 1.5" sch 40 pipe that will span 8 joists! A plan is coming together... But I will need to cut a hole in my building to make it work:

Measure twice on this one! My buddy's thinking he'd just hold his comments this time, but he's shaking his head.


So now I have two loops of a 10K lb endless sling choked around a bollard. I bet I can support some weight with this!
Next stop: Harbor Freight. Their 5-ton Haulmaster Chainfall was not on sale, so I paid the full $170 for it. It was a good tool.

 

[pontiac428]

My Voest ended up on the front side . Couple handles busted but mostly my pride as it was my first lathe .

While I was shopping for lathes, the Voest 15 came up for me twice. Here's the part that's been cracking me up since you mentioned it- one of them had been dropped on its face, breaking the gear change controls and the carriage drive and handwheel. Maybe it was yours?

I definitely landed butter-side-up. In fact, the repairs took less than an hour- just straightening sheet metal from the cabinetry. I straightened it all out with a high-lift, a bottle jack, and a couple of robust Pony Jorgensen clamps I borrowed that could do over 300 lbs of force. I hammered out the wrinkles, but didn't bother to dolly out the dimples, the repair is tough to see anyway. So all in all, it was a real relief to get this guy back on his feet and moved into its final home.

The chainfall ended up being ideal. Each link lifted took a full rotation of the fall chain, so it's like 20 feet of pull to 1 inch of lift. That's a lot of resolution, and a lot of control provided here! It stood up so easily, my helpers just stood back and watched. I was still dying from pain of embarrassment, but as smooth as this went, I felt redeemed. No creaks were heard as the upstairs bore the full weight of the lift.

 

[pontiac428]

One chuck, two chuck, good chuck, bad chuck...

I picked up a NOS Bison 8" scroll chuck with a direct mount body for $789. It came packed in the factory crate, and is beautiful!



Riding high from that good deal, I plunged on another good deal- an 8.5" independent, made by PUMM/PUtt, which is Bison-Bial (name variations are all based on the same words, machine chuck factory in Polish- Przyrządów i Uchwytów). I paid only $237 for this chuck, which is a little bit too good of a deal if you know what I mean. One "feature" of this chuck is evidence that two of the independent jaws were tack welded to the chuck, to fix for some kind of production purpose. The PO ground out the welds and did a decent job of it by the looks, but where the jaw lines up with the weld on the body, I found .035" of play existed. The other jaw is fine, it's just one, and only in a certain position. I haven't even tested it yet to see how well it holds- it might not be a problem at all. Or, it might be something I can fix later. If you squint, you can see the tack weld in the photos.

 

[pontiac428]

Circulating oil reservoir. This is the only picture I took of this guy. I painted the inside with good ol' Rustoleum machine gray enamel after a thorough de-sludging. The pump has a magnesium body, which had stainless steel screws holding the impeller screen on. Stainless likes to seize, and pump sludge counts as a harsh environment, so I drilled the heads out and removed the screws with an extractor. I couldn't recognize much of what was there, but the plastic impeller and stainless shaft remained. The bearings were NSK 6008zz, so I ordered Nachi Japan replacements and Nachi shaft seals for about $50. Everything is clean or new now. You really gotta love rebuildable industrial kit and simple 3-phase motors for the low parts count and simplicity.

 

[mmcmdl]

Mine was fixed and I sold it with a mill to someone on the eastern shore of Md . Maybe 1986 or so .