Reginding Lathe Ways

[derf]

I got a quote from South Bend back in '98 for a basic rebuild of my heavy 10", that was $4K. But, at the same time they were still making the heavy 10 in house and it was $13K , bare.

 

[compsurge]

I priced grinding an scraping ways on my 1950 Utilathe 12x48 lathe (think heavy iron machine) from two shops here in the Pacific North West - the only two who do this nowadays apparently. Work included grinding and scraping the ways, and resetting the headstock and tail stock to factory heights, and flatness. Way way under .oo2 tolerances, more in the range of .ooo2 or less.

Price quotes were: $4000 USD in Washington, $6000 Canadian in B.C. ($5000 USD more or less)

Although this is 2x whatnImpaid for the lathe, Iam considering going ahead with the work as I would end up hopefully, with a new condition lathe, having equal,or better components and construction than a low end COTS import for the size and same price.

On the other hand, 5k is a lot of bucks for an old lathe... I guess it depends oh how well you value the machine you presently own....

$4k at first seems like too much. I'd keep shopping around.

If you don't mid me asking, why are you looking to reset the headstock and tailstock heights? I would think that is unneeded work. You should only need to raise the saddle to stock height to account for the material removed in the grinding process. They can machine the saddle ways and then apply Turcite to raise it to factory height. You likely would need to shim the tailstock to align it with the headstock.

I would expect +/-0.0002-0.0005" tolerance across the travel of the bed from a grinding shop with a good process.

May I hijack the thread?

Is there an individual or a company in the Central Texas area who does this kind of service?

I have heard good things of Commerce Grinding in Fort Worth (I don't know if that's close enough to central Texas). The Practical Machinist forums have some good resources on grinding companies. You can try looking on www.thomasnet.com for "grinding" and "machine rebuilding" services that are closer to you as well.

 

[Glenn Brooks]

Tim,

You may be right about resetting the saddle height instead of the headstock. Maybe I didn't understand what the shop Forman was saying. Although I remember him saying they would grind the entire ways- requiring raising the headstock back to factory settings.

My tailstock is severely worn, around .020, so it needs to be built back up with turcite. The saddle is definitely worn, so that needs attention as well. Sort of like dominos with these old lathes...

 

[compsurge]

Tim,

You may be right about resetting the saddle height instead of the headstock. Maybe I didn't understand what the shop Forman was saying. Although I remember him saying they would grind the entire ways- requiring raising the headstock back to factory settings.

My tailstock is severely worn, around .020, so it needs to be built back up with turcite. The saddle is definitely worn, so that needs attention as well. Sort of like dominos with these old lathes...

That's why I haven't done my lathe yet I need to grind the bed, Turcite the saddle, address some worn leadscrew worm gear bushings, fix the handwheel bushing (contemplating upgrading to a ball bearing, but not sure, and I might as well strip and paint it too.

I see your point for addressing the tailstock. It may also be possible to put a 0.020" shim between the tailstock base and the top part, but that much wear indicates it may not have worn very evenly. The $4k figure is starting to make sense now that you have added all of the other work into the quote. I'd still get some additional quotes from other businesses to be safe.

 

[astjp2]

The main thing you need to worry about is the distance between the lead screw and the carriage, if you grind/scrape enough, you can just remove some material from the top of the carriage where it meets the saddle, but also ensuring that your gear lash stays good in the carriage also....between the feed gear and the crossfeed screw...

 

[Smithdoor]

The last lathe I just scrape the bed way
The test showed lest than 0.001" out
Works great and very low cost

Dave