Everybody who restores an old lathe on a budget feels the transition point where the lathe is capable enough to start making its own parts. It cannot really do that, but if you squint your eyes really hard, and the night is moonless, you can actually see the lathe rebuilding itself. For example, my Sough Bend lathe came without a chuck. There would be almost nothing it could do at this point. It isn't really a lathe. I used a blacksmith technique to make some temporary threads by laying out slanted lines on a plate, then rolling it together to make a ring. I then chased the "thread" on a little Craftsman 109 lathe. Finally, I used a curved thread wire and bluing to find the high spots in the thread and grind them out with a Dremel cutoff wheel. Finally, it threaded on, but it was weak. It was good enough, however to make a couple of tapers to put in the tailstock and mount a drill chuck. Great, the lathe can now drill and turn between centers! The library was kind enough to print me two 32 tooth gears so I could thread 8 tpi. This was used to make a threaded plug. There was nothing to test the plug on, so I measured it with the three wire method. After it was threaded, I removed the temporary chuck back plate and threaded it on the plug with the two hand cut threads. I then heated it with a propane torch and stuffed some cut up pieces of a HDPE milk bottle in to melt. This formed a few plastic threads, and the chuck back plate was now strong. I was able remount (with a 4 jaw chuck). Somewhere in the middle of all this, I felt like the lathe had turned the corner and started making its own parts.
Did it really make its own parts? No. And it has a broken back gear, probably by setting it in gear and attempting to remove the chuck by a previous owner. Can the lathe fix the back gear? No, not really. That really requires a torch or a welder. Maybe a welder. But that's another story. Didn't somebody once say that a mill is required to repair a lathe? But, sort of. Anyway, you kind of get that feeling. You do, huh? No? Well then, maybe you haven't been there. Another plus for old iron: the "interesting" experiences.
