Turning my garage into my little machine shop

[Brento]

So its been a while! Ive been really slacking this past month! Yesterday i picked up my Kennedy roller for the final piece of the puzzle for my shop (for now). I spent prob 4 hours organizing my tools and cutters to get set up. What i may do if anyone is curious is take a youtube vid to show how i am set up at this point drawer wise.

Tonight i started on cleaning the South Bend. I took the tailstock off and apart to clean up and there was quite a bit of chips inside the barrel so i took it completely apart and cleaned it all out lubricated everything and back together. Next was to clean the apron. To do that i decided i wanted to take all of the slides off to wipe it down and start fresh. Not alot of chips but some old grease needs to be cleaned up tmr when i start again. I am however not pleased with how the owner i got it from painted the lathe. He painted over the gib screws and got a little messy and got a little on the ways. I believe this was a rush paint job when he got sick and was getting ready to sell his stuff. Still was a great machinist but some stuff i am a little surprised about. Tmr i will finish cleaning everything up and put the slides back together. Over the winter i may take it all apart and do a good cleaning of the apron. And other parts like replacing felts.

I do want to ask if anyone knows if i could take the saddle off of the lathe without removing the apron? I would like to clean the ways on the saddle but i dont want to take the apron off at this time.



Cost: 890$
Hours of Labor: 62.5

 

[Brento]

No pictures but today was another success. I cleaned up the lathe the most i can and cleaned the whole carriage minus the apron. Tmr i have to go to the store for some setscrews. I want to cover the follow rest holes and the taper attachment holes. Tmr i will also put the carriage together and then i just wait for my rebuild kit for the felts. Time to tackle the mill. That should take a night and a half.

Cost: 1165$
Hours of Labor: 67

 

[DavidR8]

Looking good!

 

[matthewsx]

No pictures but today was another success. I cleaned up the lathe the most i can and cleaned the whole carriage minus the apron. Tmr i have to go to the store for some setscrews. I want to cover the follow rest holes and the taper attachment holes. Tmr i will also put the carriage together and then i just wait for my rebuild kit for the felts. Time to tackle the mill. That should take a night and a half.

Cost: 890$
Hours of Labor: 67

I admire your accounting, I'm afraid if I did the same it wouldn't be so pretty....

John

 

[Brento]

Well actually i should add be adding like 140$ to that since i got the rebuild kit and such. I figure the money i spend up to the shop being done should be added to the list minus tools at this point

 

[Brento]

Well folks i have one machine finished. The carriage has been completely gone over. About 90%. I have about .025 of backlash in the crosslide screw and nut and maybe .005-.01 in the compound. I see that i would like to make a mark on the left side of the crosslide to establish an angle for the compound. Should be easy to do i am sure. I also cleaned the tailstock pretty good as well. I see a project coming in the future to give that some more travel as well. In the winter i am going to take a part off at a time and clean something else but for now i think she is pretty good to go. I have a rebuild kit coming from ebay so i can put wipers on the carriage. But for now on to the next machine.


I started cleaning the mill up so it is clean and not greasy i got to the knees and that is where i stopped tonight. Tmr i will pick back up on taking the z way wipers off to clean them off and start fresh. Not looking forward to the base though. It has some caked grease on that so it should be fun.

Cost:1165$
Hours of Labor:70.5

 

[Brento]

Well gentleman and ladies out there as well i hunkered down again tonight. Today i got my rebuild kit for my lathe 2 days early so i came home and soaked the felts for the wipers and put them on the carriage. Stored the rest of the felts for later as i do my next section.

It was time to finish the mill my night started with grossness of a filthy table and chip tray.

After a little scraping (with no T-slot cleaner) and some brake clean as a grease cutter i cleaned up the table and the chip tray. As well as the cabinet. Stoned off the table and all that is left is some lubrication for everything leveling and then tramming the head in.

For some of you that have a Clausing 8530 mill, can you tram from forward to back at all if you are off. All i can see is tramming in from left to right with the rotation.

i also have to level the Lathe and i am not looking forward to that at all. One step at a time i guess!

Cost:1165$
Hours of Labor:

 

[Aaron_W]

I do want to ask if anyone knows if i could take the saddle off of the lathe without removing the apron? I would like to clean the ways on the saddle but i dont want to take the apron off at this time.

It looks like you have done what you wanted to do, but for future reference it is not hard to remove the entire carriage. Just remove the tailstock, then run the carriage down to the tail stock end. Remove the tail end bearing housing for the lead screw, use some cord to support the lead screw on the inboard side and then you can just run the carriage right off the end of the lathe. On a lathe that size the carriage weighs probably 75-100lbs.

When I moved my Logan into the basement I removed everything but the head stock casting and QCGB, I even took the spindle and gears out of the head (had to do it to separate the motor anyway). This removed a significant amount of weight for the move. I have found it is a lot easier to disassemble (and reassemble) most of these machines than many would suspect.

With the carriage removed you have easy access to the underside of the carriage and backside of the apron for cleaning and replacing bits so well worth the effort vs trying to stand on your head and look at these parts while on the lathe.

 

[Brento]

@Aaron_W during the winter i plan to take the gearbox and the apron off to a clean and rebuild.

 

[Brento]

So tonight i did not get a lot done. Not much left to do. I am waiting on oil for the mill to oil that up. I found in the cabinet of the mill the feet have a hole drilled in it but no threads. I am thinking of drilling them and tapping them. My problem is if i level the mill like that i may screw up my floor. My other option is i bought plastic shims from HD in the beginning of the project for leveling and i may use them instead.

Does a mill need to be level? I know its not like a lathe where there is twisting involved.

Next side of things i checked out my Starrett no.98 and got it calibrated using the mill table as i know it was nice and smooth no bumps and a decent control to flip the level around. I decided to check the lathe and see what i am in for on Sunday and this is what i find.


Now i know that is not level BUT i have no twist in the bed. I know twisting in the bed of the lathe is usually the concern over the lathe being level. I have made an executive decision to leave it how it is and do a few test cuts and see how it reads from there.

Cost:1165$
Hours of Labor:77