Restoration of big Axelson lathe

[P-Ritch]

Hi All,

I wanted to get input from others more experienced in regards to fixing up and old weathered lathe. I have read and heard nothing but good things about these old Axelson lathes and they look rigid as hell. There is a guy selling an A18 on craigslist that looks pretty much 100% complete and I'm tempted to take it off his hands for close to scrap price.

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I've restored a few old vises, a bench top drill press, and an old Baldor Grinder, but never anything on this scale and complexity. What should be some of the big red flags to make me want to walk away from this project? I understand it will probably take me years and thousands of dollars while taking a whole parking spot in my garage, but I think it would be an awesome labor of love for some old American iron. It looks like it has been outside and unused for a bit and I've reached out to the seller to try to get some basic info like when it was last up and running. It seems to be almost fully tooled and even looks like it has a complete taper attachment.

I've never scraped ways, but would love to learn if necessary. I'm more concerned about if the main spindle bearing is shot or some other aspect that cannot be remedied in a home shop setup.

Love to hear some of your feedback.

Thanks a bunch,

Jon

 

[rabler]

I jumped into restoring big machines myself. It is certainly feasible to tackle on a hobby basis. I’d want to know how closeto running that machine is. For $3k you ought to be to see it under power. You’re probably looking at well over 10,000lbs of machinery. Do you have ideas on how to move that?

I’m not familiar with Axelson’s specifically so I’ll speak to my experience with Monarchs. First, do you have access to any sort of lathe currently? You often need to make replacement bushings, steel or bronze, so useable lathe is helpful. A 7” swing (mini-lathe) will cover most of it. Some milling may also be helpful but not as critical as turning.

I find that fixing them up in small sections to be ideal. If the lathe works, even if badly worn, you can make parts. Seeing incremental progress rather than one huge project is important.

First issue is electrical. A 10HP 3 phase motor is going to need a 20HP RPC or vfd unless you happen to have three phase power. You’ll probably need to replace some wiring, contactors, etc. And make sure it is wired for 220V. You probably need a 100amp 220V circuit for that size VFD or RPC.

You also need a working lube system. Big lathes often have several oil pumps, such as one in the apron that lubricates the ways as well as the apron bearings. These oil systems often are plugged up at one or more places. You’ll need to go through each oil line/location and be sure oil is flowing. This usually means pulling the apron, carriage and cross slide completely apart. A crane of some sort is necessary, these components can easily weigh several hundred pounds each. (My 26x48 lathe has a 675lb tailstock). An engine hoist is going to hard pressed but might work. While going through the oil system you need to identify and replace worn bearing in the apron.

QCGB’s are similar to the apron, oil and bearings being key.

Headstocks tend to be the most challenging in terms of mechanical complexity, and expensive unique parts, gears bearings etc. As you already noted, new spindle bearings are frequently a deal breaker. For some machines those bearings are more than the cost of the lathe.

 

[rabler]

I suggest holding off on scraping ing the carriage, cross slide, etc, until everything else is in reasonable shape. Keep in mind that ways on the lathe bed, if hardened, can’t be scraped and would need to be ground. Getting a 12’ bed ground could easily be a 6 figure bill especially with transportation. But often 80% of the wear is in the bottom of the carriage in that case, as carriages aren’t hardened. So if you’ll settled for 80% improvements then redoing the carriage with turcite, rulon or moglice may be sufficient. Gibs are part of the compound and crossslide ways, so re-scraping all of those will tighten up any play there. Leadscrews, and leadscrew nuts may need work to reduce backlash.

Paint is a personal choice. Other than minor rust protection, paint is really cosmetic. But it can make a machine look great after all the other work.

Hopefully @Richard King 2 will see this and comment. He teaches scraping, and is a professional machine rebuilder.

 

[tq60]

Saw that ON CG yesterday...

That is a beast, some questions...

Can you power it?

Can you work with slower speeds?



Sent from my SM-G781V using Tapatalk

 

[P-Ritch]

I jumped into restoring big machines myself. It is certainly feasible to tackle on a hobby basis. I’d want to know how closeto running that machine is. For $3k you ought to be to see it under power. You’re probably looking at well over 10,000lbs of machinery. Do you have ideas on how to move that?

I’m not familiar with Axelson’s specifically so I’ll speak to my experience with Monarchs. First, do you have access to any sort of lathe currently? You often need to make replacement bushings, steel or bronze, so useable lathe is helpful. A 7” swing (mini-lathe) will cover most of it. Some milling may also be helpful but not as critical as turning.

I find that fixing them up in small sections to be ideal. If the lathe works, even if badly worn, you can make parts. Seeing incremental progress rather than one huge project is important.

First issue is electrical. A 10HP 3 phase motor is going to need a 20HP RPC or vfd unless you happen to have three phase power. You’ll probably need to replace some wiring, contactors, etc. And make sure it is wired for 220V. You probably need a 100amp 220V circuit for that size VFD or RPC.

You also need a working lube system. Big lathes often have several oil pumps, such as one in the apron that lubricates the ways as well as the apron bearings. These oil systems often are plugged up at one or more places. You’ll need to go through each oil line/location and be sure oil is flowing. This usually means pulling the apron, carriage and cross slide completely apart. A crane of some sort is necessary, these components can easily weigh several hundred pounds each. (My 26x48 lathe has a 675lb tailstock). An engine hoist is going to hard pressed but might work. While going through the oil system you need to identify and replace worn bearing in the apron.

QCGB’s are similar to the apron, oil and bearings being key.

Headstocks tend to be the most challenging in terms of mechanical complexity, and expensive unique parts, gears bearings etc. As you already noted, new spindle bearings are frequently a deal breaker. For some machines those bearings are more than the cost of the lathe.

Thanks for the insights, Randal.

I estimate it to be around 10-12k lbs as well, so I would have no way to move it outside of hiring some riggers. I know that a project like this will cost much more than the value I could ever get for the lathe. It would be solely for my own education and enjoyment. It will definitely be a very slow process working through things one at a time.

I have access to a smaller lathe and mill for replacement parts. I also have the engine hoist option for heavy lifting if I can get the wheels underneath it, but I may invest in one of those rolling gantry chain hoists to make life a little easier.

Electrical will be the biggest challenge. I'm currently on the hunt for a new house with plenty of shop/garage space and I'll have to get an adequate subpanel setup. I want to the let the listing sit until the new year to see if it is still there and then offer a little over scrap value for the lathe (~$1500). So, I have time to think about it and back out if the stars don't end up aligning.

It's all still in the kicking around in my head phase. No firm commitments yet.

Thanks

 

[P-Ritch]

Saw that ON CG yesterday...

That is a beast, some questions...

Can you power it?

Can you work with slower speeds?



Sent from my SM-G781V using Tapatalk

I'd definitely need some electrical work done to try to power it up.

I honestly don't think I would have too much work that I could justify for such a large lathe. It would be more just for personal growth in my mechanical knowledge and experience. If I did successfully restore it, I would likely just donate it to a local college or hackerspace shop that would want it.

 

[Winegrower]

it is conceivable that these huge machines can be gotten for free, just for removing them. That was the case locally with a 12’ Axelson In pretty good shape. It was either 12’ or a mile, I kind of forget. Seemed huge.

 

[Aaron_W]

I'd definitely need some electrical work done to try to power it up.

I honestly don't think I would have too much work that I could justify for such a large lathe. It would be more just for personal growth in my mechanical knowledge and experience. If I did successfully restore it, I would likely just donate it to a local college or hackerspace shop that would want it.

Keep in mind even if you got it restored to 100% of new condition, you may have a very hard time getting rid of it. Unlikely a college would want something that big or old, and likely the same for a makerspace. Even donated the cost to move it could exceed the cost of just buying a brand new "normal sized" lathe. The high school shop where I was taking welding classes had a perfectly functional 20x84 Monarch lathe and it just sat taking up space. It was way too big for the students to use, they had SB heavy 10 lathes that did all they needed for instruction. They finally sold it to a local guy for $1000 mostly because he had the means to move it and they wanted the (at least) 6x12 foot area it occupied for other things.

There just isn't that much demand for giant manual machines these days.

Sounds like a cool project, but you really have to be committed to take on something like that or perhaps you just should be (padded cell).

 

[Aaron_W]

If you are willing to move a lathe from CA to NE there has been a project South Bend 13x40 on the San Francisco Bay Area CL for about a month asking $500. Just relisted today but it has been up awhile. Also a big Polish 24x120" lathe that Has been up for about a year. Much better condition, but they have been asking $10,000. Either of these might be a more realistic project. I guess looking for bright spots California has been in a drought for years so if the Axelson has been outside for sometime at least it hasn't seen a lot of rain.

 

[rabler]

I have a 10,000lb 1967 Monarch 612-2516. I also have a 10 ton gooseneck flatbed trailer and a diesel duallie pickup. And a 85HP tractor, and a 6 ton excavator. Even with all that equipment, a 5 ton lathe is a challenge to work on. For example, I had to move it around several times to disassemble because I needed 3’ more room on one side to get the leadscrew out. I could have alternately cut a hole in the wall.

If you’re looking for a project more than wanting a large piece of historic cast iron to keep and use, find something in the 3000-4000lb range. Those can be moved by a standard forklift, carried on a trailer behind a pickup, fit more readily into a home garage, are often 3-5HP, fairly easy to power with a vfd, etc. Easier to resell or donate. Very much more realistic to work on. I started my first rebuilding project on a Monarch 14” x 30” model 12CK. About 3500 lbs. Still working on it some but it is now my primary lathe. Paid $2200 for it about 3 years ago. Included a taper attachment, QCTP, 3 and 4 jaw chuck. Was under power, running at purchase. Very rigid and a joy to use. Can be shifted around in a garage by one person using skates and a toe jack.You’ll save that much in rigging fees over something that is 10,000lbs. My 612-2516 needs a hoist just to remove the 140 lb compound. Makes refurb quite a bit slower and more challenging. Putting it on skates on a standard 4” thick concrete floor would worry me about cracked concrete.

Old lathe, pre 1960’s, often have very low top RPM as they predate carbide tooling. My CK had an original top spindle RPM of about 520. I replaced the 6-pole original motor with a new 4-pole motor and vfd. I can spin it up to 1000RPM, certainly not fast by modern tooling standards, but feasible to use carbide if I want.