South Bend 9a Restoration (pic Heavy)

Well, you have made a fabulous job of the spindle and the bearing in the headstock, they will not be a problem! Just one thing, and I have to explain here that I have never even seen a South Bend lathe of any type, but is it not usual to lubricate cast iron/steel bearings with oil rather than grease? I fear if you use grease you will be back where you started! South Bend experts please correct me if I am wrong!
Phil
 
Well, you have made a fabulous job of the spindle and the bearing in the headstock, they will not be a problem! Just one thing, and I have to explain here that I have never even seen a South Bend lathe of any type, but is it not usual to lubricate cast iron/steel bearings with oil rather than grease? I fear if you use grease you will be back where you started! South Bend experts please correct me if I am wrong!
Phil

ONLY the cone pulley and back gear shaft get the grease. Everything else is indeed oil. Apparently South Bend changed their tune on this at some point along the line. My cone pulley is stamped "oil" but some more modern (that is- post war, most likely) cone pulleys actually say "grease." The main bearings/spindle bearings absolutely use a very lightweight oil. :)

Thanks for the compliments on the lathe! I'm trying very, very hard to get this one right. So much so that I'm even contemplating having the ways reground. Not sure if I'm willing to fork over the $1K+ for that job though.
 
If you live close to chevydyl, see if he can help you scrape your ways. :)
 
Unfortunately I don't, but I do have a drill press spindle heading his way for him to play with....
 
Well I'm happy to say I was right on the Mothers Polishing Ball!! It was a tight fit in all but the front spindle hole, but it worked ok. The head bearings aren't quite as "mirror" like as I was able to get the spindle, but you can still clearly see reflections. I'm now satisfied that I have corrected the scratching to the absolute best of my ability.

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Toothbrush reflection:
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All four bearing surfaces cleaned up nicely!
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While you are at this point, install the spindle without the cone pulley and bull gear or oilers in place and check the fit in the bearings. Place a dial indicator on the spindle and put some leverage on it and see how much play you get in the spindle. Do this before putting all of the jewelry on the spindle and assemble. If there is problems with accuracy, you can work on adjusting it now rather than tear everything down to fix.
Nice Job so far!
 
Very nice job. Its gonna be a sweet lathe when your finished.
 
While you are at this point, install the spindle without the cone pulley and bull gear or oilers in place and check the fit in the bearings. Place a dial indicator on the spindle and put some leverage on it and see how much play you get in the spindle. Do this before putting all of the jewelry on the spindle and assemble. If there is problems with accuracy, you can work on adjusting it now rather than tear everything down to fix.
Nice Job so far!

That's a really great idea!! I geared up to do that tonight, got the spindle installed, messed with the nightmare of a job getting the shims in place, and then I stopped. I realized that I haven't yet bolted the bed to the bench, and so testing this is going to be super hard... Seems like every task on this project needs five precursor tasks completed first...
 
I know most people think that the 9" SBL needs to be bolted down solid. Wrong answer in my book. Yes, have a solid bench to set your lathe on, ideally would be a piece of 1" thick or thicker steel plate to set the lathe on. Anyways, the headstock end should be bolted down with 3/8" bolts. The tail end of the bed should not be bolted down. Doing so may create a twist in the bed. Shimming helps, but over time things shift around and creates a twist in the bed. Just leave the tail end bolts loose hand tight. Does the bed need to be leveled? No, all you need to do check it for any twist in the bed and adjust it out if possible.
 
I can see that, but my point was that the manual says to put 75 pounds of force on a 2' long bar inserted into the head stock in order to check the bearing clearance. It would be hard to put 75 pounds of force on the bar and not raise the end of the lathe off the bench. Therefore for performing this test, I'd think the lathe would need to be bolted down.
 
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