In article ,
GTO69RA4 wrote:

[ ... ]

It might help to see a close-up photo of the threading chart
(right-hand upright of the headstock) which might give some clues as to
what is what. It is far from legible in this photo, and would probably
need posting with no quality trade-off and no cropping to remain
legible. Don't bother trying to e-mail the photos to me, they would be
too large, and as such, be rejected by one of my anti-virus features.

I'll get a photo of that, although it's not too interesting. Can't get out to
the garage right now.

O.K. I understand.

snip
parting off. I could be mis-identifying them, however.


I'm not much of a collet guy, so I can't help with that. Not for this lathe,
though--it only has a 1/2" spindle bore. From memory, the ones on the wire are
around 1.25" in diameter.

That shouldn't matter. They (if they are what I think) are used
external to the headstock on a frame standing there. The collet is in a
fitting which rotates, and which will slide backwards on the stock, but
when the lever is pushed forwards, it pushes the workpiece through the
stock. Of course, you need to stick with workpieces which fit through
the spindle bore, and with as small a spindle boar as you have, you
would need to find (or make) a collet chuck which would fit on the
spindle outside of the spindle (sort of like the Bison 5C collet
chucks).

The collets in the board have about 3/4" shanks (or
whatever the collet equivalent is) that are smooth for most of the length with
the rearmost 1/4" or so slightly larger.

O.K. No external threads? Then they are probably tool-holding
collets for a mill, closed by a solid drawbar, not work-holding collets,
which tend to be threaded externally, and accept a drawbar which is also
hollow.

I'll agree that it looks too large for the cross-slide. Can the
tool bits be adjusted to center height with that compound and the large
lantern-style toolpost?

The bits are perfectly centered, just the dovetail isn't right. Looks like it
was used like this for years--no idea what kind of work was turned out.

Ouch. so -- the bottom part of the compound is probably
original, and the top part has been adapted (rather poorly) to it?


I see something else which looks interesting. snip threading stops
which clamp onto the dovetail
behind the cross-slide.


Yes, that's right. I noticed that when I got it--one of those very vintage
features.

Yep -- and a *nice* one.

I see a follower rest (under the green lampshade -- Tools2), but
I don't see a turret (presumably for the tailstock taper) -- unless it
is under the follower rest. Which photo is it in? Tools6 appears to
have a firm-joint caliper under the other tool bits and debris.

The turret's taper-end is visable sticking out above the follower. The body is
a cylinder with a big slot in it. In the slot is the turret disc with 6 or so
different size holes. Disc is slit almost in half so when you clamp it in place
the tools are secured.

Kind of hard to visualize. The usual tailstock turret has a
disc mounted at a 45 degree angle, with a bevel of the same angle on the
edge, which has eight holes for tools. The holes are typically all of
the same size. My Clausing has a bed turret (replaces the tailstock),
and the six holes are 1" diameter. The tailstock turrets that I have
seen have usually had 5/8" holes.

One of the things in the box under the board of collets (Tools4)
looks like a custom gear or pulley puller -- for a single size.

This machine came with several of those. I actually gave away a similar one
last year after no one could find a specific use for it.

O.K. Make sure that it can't be used for some maintenance on
the lathe.

Do you find matching holes on one side of the carriage or the
other to match those in the follower rest?

Yup, they're there.

Good -- then it fits.

Looking at the apron, with the gear sticking up from it, I would
guess that there is a matching gear on the cross-feed leadscrew,
accessed through a hole under the carriage. At a guess, the
double-ended ball handle (with no crank) selects between cross and
longitudinal feeds, and the round disc to the right of it is the clutch
which couples the leadscrew to the feeds. This is supported by a keyway
in the leadscrew. It means that you won't need to use (and shouldn't
use) the (worn) half-nuts except when threading.

The ball knob is the clutch, the round one's the selector. Unscrew, slide up or
down, screw back in. How does one avoid using the half nuts when making cuts?
The nuts are the only thing that couple the carriage to the leadscrew. Cross is
driven by a sleeve with a key.

For cross-feed, that pickup from the key through the sleeve goes
to the gear sticking up from the apron. For longitudinal feed, it
couples to the handcrank to turn it slowly. This saves the half-nuts
and the threads on the leadscrew for their primary purpose -- threading.
Of course, I could be wrong, but if that disk moves up or down to select
one or the other, it should couple through to the handcrank and the gear
which comes out of the back of the apron to engage the rack gear on the
underside of the bed.

Are there two or three inverted V-ways on the bed? In any case,
the steady rest (to the right of the carriage -- "Lathe3") doesn't look
designed for that bed, as it has *two* female Vs -- unless it is
intended to turn it around so you can mount it with the steady fingers
to the left or the right.

That's what I was thinking. The lathe just has one V-way for the tailstock. It
fits perfectly, so it looks like I would work. I'm not positive--it's one of a
couple items that seem to have been stored underground.

It looks it in the photos. I would put some fine sandpaper on a
slab of flat stone and clean the bearing surfaces on that steady rest
before they can engrave the bed too deeply. :-) The real trick will be
doing the same for inside the female V in the steady -- unless it was
lubricated well enough to prevent rust.

I presume that the bearing sleeves on the big countershaft
snip
I would like some closer photos of just the bearing
sleeves to verify this.

That's correct. The frame is made out of really rough iron--at first I thought
cutting torch but looks more like cold chisel. How it's mounted is really
ingenius, as far as hack engineering goes. The wider channel section sticking
out was bolted to the underside of the bed. The narrower section was bolted to
the end of the bed, under the gears. Seems to have worked for all these years.

O.K. That is what matters, after all.

I find the smaller pulley to the right (as shown) interesting --
perhaps to drive some accessory power feed. Or perhaps it is a sliding
actuator for a dog clutch to stop and start the lathe while allowing the
motor to continue running. This sort of thing would be needed with the
original line-shaft power, since a single shaft would be powering many
machines in the shop at the same time.

It's just a couple flanges on a sleeve. No idea what it is--it seems fixed to
the shaft.

Perhaps to hold a grindstone? Sprinkle the ways with abrasive
grit as you're sharpening a lathe tool? :-)

It looks as though you have a pretty good 4-jaw chuck for the
lathe, but it is missing the backplate -- unless it is in one of the
boxes -- perhaps under the stack of faceplates in the bucket.

The backplate is actually mounted on the spindle. Looks like they didn't want
to unscrew it even though it's not stuck.

I thought that it was about the right size -- but it looked as
though it had a lathe dog driving slot, so I decided that it was not the
backplate.

Hmm ... the lever (Tools3) to the right of the handle bar on the
left-hand tray) *might* belong to the tailstock -- to clamp or release
the bolt down to a plate below the bed to allow the tailstock to easily
be re-positioned.

That's a pipe wrench, actually. You can see the tailstock's clamp in the lower
left of that same tray.

O.K. As long as it is there. And is the plate which goes under
the bed to perform the clamp also still present?

One object in the tray to the right of it looks like a plain
miling cutter for a specific gear tooth form -- and a certain range of
tooth counts. You would need a mill and an index head to make proper
use of this, of course.

There are several normal milling cutters, including an arbor, in this mess.

O.K.

Oh -- is there a 3-jaw under the faceplates? Perhaps also a
backplate for the 4-jaw?

Yes, a smaller 3-jaw.

Normal practice is for a 3-jaw to be smaller than the 4-jaw on a
lathe. Less chance of running with the jaws too far out and hitting the
carriage or the bed. :-)

See above about the backplate. There's also a very small
4-jaw in another box without jaws.

O.K. If you can find jaws for it, it could be convenient for
some work.

Right now -- I don't see anything in that batch of photos on
which I would be likely to bid -- lacking better identification. I'm
not sure what you are calling "tapping heads". More detailed photos,
excavated from all the other clutter which surrounds them, might allow
better identification.

There are several of them of different sizes. I assume they're tapping heads
for a DP. Big metal cylinder with a taper or shank on one end, a long arm
sticking out to one side, and an old-timy tap chuck on the other. Press in on
the tap chuck and it rotates with the main body, pull out and it reverses.
They're very, very old.

O.K. I just didn't recognize anything which looked like that.
They can be useful -- though the TapMatic and Procunier are nicer. The
smaller TapMatic which I have includes a torque-limiting clutch to keep
the tap from snapping off -- and to give a clue when it is getting too
dull to use safely.


How much modification would be needed? Does it work?

The dovetail is 1/8" wider than that of the compound base, and it's a different
angle. I figure it could be milled to the right angle, and an extra-wide gib
used to take up the width. Not ideal but for something this age it would be
cheaper than a corrent compound.

Hmm -- build up both sides -- one with a permanent addition
which you mill to the right angle, the other with the gib, which could
be tapered. or you could mill that side to the proper angle too.

Or -- you could build a new compound from scratch. I once had
to machine a new compound slide for my 6x16 Atlas/Craftsman after a
parting tool jammed and broke out the T-slot. :-)


Lots of them above -- including guesses -- as best as I can do
based on the photos.

[ ... ]

Thanks for the input. Only thing I can say is that it was free. The previous
owners who actually used it are still in town, so I might see what else I can
dig up.

O.K. I can understand free. :-)

Good luck,
DoN.
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