Hendey Lathe Refurbish

I think I would just clean up the cap, and turn the buggered up hole into a slot.

You have done a great job, in a short time. Makes me feel bad that I am still working on my SB16", after several years.

I'm leaning toward working with what I have... a piece of brass that size is around $200 from McMaster... that's not gonna happen...

-Bear
 
Bear has done amazing work on the Hendey, definitely fast tracking it. I know what you mean about having projects sit for several years. I have three out of four lathes that need attention, but I really need to finish the shop, or it will most likely stay in the dreaded "undone state" for ever. Mike
 
I worked on the bearing cap all morning today, trying to make it look better. I cleaned all the paint and dirt out of the damaged spanner holes with a carbide burr, then TIG brazed them up with silicon bronze filler. I chucked a 5" piece of aluminum in the South Bend and turned it to 4.265", then threaded it to 11 ½ tpi... basically made a fixture to hold the bearing cap in the lathe to clean it up.

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It's not perfect, but it's a lot better than it was... I still need to re-establish the spanner holes and it will be finished.

-Bear
 
Progress on the lathe has slowed a bit... I am back on full time at work, after 9 months of working 3 days per week as a result of the pandemic. It feels good to be a 40 hr worker again... and the paycheck is better, also.

This afternoon I re-established the spanner holes in the bearing cover...

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There was originally 2 oilers on the front of the headstock... one was pretty rough...

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...and the other had been replaced with a Gits cup. I decided to machine 2 new ones... it is a 2 piece oiler, the main body and a dust sleeve.

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I got started, but then had to get ready to go to work tonight.

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-Bear
 
That’s a pretty neat oil cup design, I don’t think I’ve ever seen one like that before. Reminds me of the cover sleeve over the vial on a precision level. Going to have to remember that for down the road....

-frank
 
I worked on the oil cups this morning. I finished the bodies on both of them...

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Now I need to machine the dust sleeves... maybe tomorrow...

I had started a thread in the General discussion area looking for advice on bending brass. One of the gearbox handles was badly bent...

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I got some good advise, so this afternoon, I annealed the handle and tried to straighten it... and broke it...

It also cracked below the break, I prepped it and TIG brazed the break, blended it, then ground the crack out with my Dremel and brazed it...

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I managed to get it pretty straight, but the handle is in rough condition, so I'll replace it if I can find another one.

-Bear
 
This morning I machined the dust sleeves for the headstock oilers...

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To cut the grooves in the sleeves I used a hss threading tool clamped sideways in my tool post to sort of broach the grooves.

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The groove depth is .005"... that worked out pretty good. To index the part in the lathe, I drilled a hole in a piece of aluminum, removed the bull gear guard from the South Bend, and mounted the aluminum where the front guard screw goes. This allowed me to use the bull gear as an index reference.

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I would swing the plate out, index the bull gear 2 teeth, swing the plate back into the gear, and broach a groove, swing the plate out, index 2 teeth.... etc... etc... its a 72 tooth gear, so that gave me 36 grooves on the dust sleeve.

That worked very well to keep the grooves consistently spaced.

Finished...

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-Bear
 
Today I've been working on installing the gears...

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I also installed the selector shaft in the gearbox and put the handle on. This is the handle that was bent that I worked on all afternoon the other day. I realized that I still have a problem with that handle. When I engage the gears, the handle is not raising the selector high enough to fully engage the gears. Actually, it was just barely engaging at all. I took the handle assembly back out and realized the end that goes into the selector was bent.

I straightened it by clamping it in a vise and putting a piece of pipe on it and easing it back straight.

This is where it was bent...

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That piece is steel, so it was easy to bend.

That allowed the selector to come up a little more, but was still only engaging about a third of the depth of the teeth.

I took the handle back apart to try to find what else might cause this... and I found it...20210116_160532.jpg

When the brass part of the handle was repaired years ago, whoever did it didn't get the steel pin seated in the hole properly... there is a gap between the pin and the brass body.

Geez... I need a replacement handle...

I ended up cutting the end off the handle, grinding the old brazing off the pin, and refitting the pin into what was left of the hole. I then clamped it in the hole...

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And built the end of the handle back up with silicon bronze.

It is really ugly now...

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But at least I am now getting almost full engagement on the gears. It will work until I can (hopefully) find a decent replacement.

I also painted the small gearbox casting...

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-Bear
 
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