Lathe come home. (No, I don't have a lithp, why?)
 

Long

So, I've been working on candlestick designs and have made a few prototypes as well as making some mandrels and task specific chucks for other quick, salable turning projects.

I've been using a pre-1939 Walker-Turner Driver L-752 that I was given about 20 years ago. It was in pieces and in rough shape, I cleaned it up, painted it, and got it back together as best I could; the spindle was pretty gnarly but it worked.

Over time it's developed a lot of run-out and last week it had gotten to where the centers couldn't line up because the point of the drive center was almost 1/8" off radially from the tail center.

Time to tear it apart. I couldn't remember what it looked like inside and was surprised to see just how fucked up the spindle was. I got it out and removed the bearings, which appeared fine.

I checked the spindle, nominally 1"x12tpi RH thread inboard and 12tpi LH thread outboard w/ #2MT and 9/16" bore. As I measured with my calipers I found that the spindle was .994" where the inboard bearing is seated, and .992" everywhere else. It is all grooved and scarred from set screws that had been loose and the 4 step pulley slipping around the spindle, and other hackery that predated me.

I figured I'd just get a new spindle and call it good. Well, there's not much call for 78 year old spindle replacement parts and it is a unique item, so I figured I'd make do and just throw some new bearings on since one of them was OEM C.1939.

On researching the thing a bit it turns out that W-T made the spindle in an unusual diameter, 25.21mm or .9925" (although I read .994") and fitted it with a custom bearing from SKF, one that doesn't even show up on their website. Apparently W-T wanted you to buy replacement bearings from them rather than SKF. So the front bearing is a weird number (FH I-70372 EC) and the rear bearing is (L-05-Z)

Turns out, that the outboard bearing is a replacement and the wrong size, it's a 6205 which is supposed to be 25x52x14mm which is weird because it easily slides all the way along the spindle which is supposedly 25.21mm. the bearing measures 1.001" and the spindle measures .994" at its widest so it makes sense that the 6205 would slide, but how did the ID get stretched?

OEM bearing, FH I-70372 EC, fits tight but my measurements don't equal 25.21mm, they come in at .995" or 25.27mm. And that explains the tight fit. My caliper is zeroed, but maybe it is just wrong.

So I can the 78 year old bearing back in or try to find another that fits it. I don't think they make them, nor the outside bearing either. One option would be to turn down the spindle to a common bearing size. There are occasionally WT heads for sale on ebay but who knows what conditon the shaft and bearings are in?

I've got to stew on this. I'm not sure how much of this makes any sense. I'm not even sure I understand it.

Either turn it to a smaller diameter or have it spray welded and turned to your bearing.

Thanks. I will do that.

Mr. Clod bought a lathe once, because it was on some incredible clearance sale and it seemed like the kind of thing worth playing with.

It sat in the garage, completely unopened in the box, for like 7 years. Then he sold it. I'm actually glad, because lathes make a lot of damn sawdust.

We can haz pics?

Shavings

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIvROyV2n6w&t=3m3s

Coming

You could be describing my lathe here. It also needs some tuning up. I think that the morse taper hole in the shaft is slightly off center. I had trouble measuring it last time I checked, just putting the tool rest next to the taper and eyballing is as I spun it by hand. Too much hackery to even see where the taper truly begins. I since have gotten a dial indicator, which would help in diagnosing the issue. And I also need a new spur drive, I think. It's all hacked up and grooved from where it spun instead of gripping and there was some grit or something in there. That shouldn't be too hard to find. a MT drive spur. I bet I can get one for $20.

Maybe next year when I am done with the bandsaw, I can turn my attention to getting the lathe to run well. It might be a lost cause though. Not worth the effort for such a low end machine. (Old 40s' home hobbyist Craftsman.)

Is it one of the lathes with a tube as the bed? If so, sell it.

Here's a great website with a ton of info:http://www.woodturningonline.com/

Here's a photo of the spindle for now. The left side is the inboard side.

I got my computer sorted for the time being and was able to reload photo-shop!

Here is the lathe story so far.

My friend's kid just moved back into town after making his fame and fortune in CA in the computer world. He has mad skilz with some CNC software called Solidworks and he wants to start some sort of business here having to do with manufacturing something or other involving CNC machines and machinists and this software.

He said he'd show me how the software works by drawing/creating instructions for a replacement spindle for the lathe, using dimensions for commonly available bearings. While we're at it, I'm having him also draw a new 4 sheaf pulley with indexing because the current pulley is bent.

In the meantime, I put the headstock back together with the old parts and made some custom shims to help solidify things.

http://i.imgur.com/m7X9SgX.jpg

Without spindle assembly in place. Sort of dungeon-y in the basement. You can see the drawers in mid construction. I built the stand about 20 years ago and I'm getting around to putting in the drawers to keep the various giblets handy and chip free.

http://i.imgur.com/pLIop3o.jpg

Here are all the parts for the headstock/spindle assembly. arranged L to R = outboard to inboard. Stop collar, Bearing flange, spacer/washer, split ring, bearing spacer, [4 sheaf pulley], More spacers (not sure why they are here, I think it has something to do with the other bearing's dimensions, OEM bearing C. 1935, Front bearing spacer and circle clip, Bearing flange.

The spacer/washer, next to the bearing with blue seals is to prevent the stop collar from hitting the seal of the bearing instead of the inner race. It is not original to the design, but is needed because the bearing is not OEM.

http://i.imgur.com/ZG90FLO.jpg

Here is the spindle with two spacers, the double row bearing, the bearing flange, and just visible on the right is the front bearing spacer.

http://i.imgur.com/9MaIV7Q.jpg

Here is a close up of the front bearing spacer. It has a ring clip that rides in a groove in the spindle and locks into a slightly dovetailed recess in the outer face of the spacer, locking it into place on the shaft, preventing it from moving away from the bearing while also pressing against the inner race of the bearing, keeping it from moving.

http://i.imgur.com/eCpR4yA.jpg

The single row bearing is a modern replacement and has an ID that is 25mm, the spindle at the position where the bearing rests is .007" smaller than the bore of the bearing. It just so happens that Labatt's Blue cans are .0035" thick and so make a perfect shim.

http://i.imgur.com/iI8BrRP.jpg

To keep shit in place while I'm pressing the bearing into place on the shaft I figured Red Loctite might be a good choice to glue the shim to the bearing. I wanted to ensure a good bond so I found a 1" sanding drum and used it to expand the shim against the inside of the bearing, then I went to work for the day.

http://i.imgur.com/4wcz6yO.jpg

Seems pretty good. I rolled the edge of the shim so it lay flat against the curve of the face of the inner race. (not shown)

http://i.imgur.com/Z37pQC7.jpg

Here is the front bearing pressed into place with the single shield facing the correct way, unlike the first time I installed it, facing the wrong way.

http://i.imgur.com/AvQihO6.jpg

The head stock from the inboard side showing the old grease fitting and the coolest part of the lathe, IMO, the indexing pin. It is spring loaded so it can be kept out of the way when not used. The pulley has 48 index holes. It looks like at some point someone ran the lathe and let the pin make contact with the pulley because a number of the holes are a bit pooched. I need to clean them out a bit because they are sort of swaged over.

http://i.imgur.com/El7WEWH.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/oRthNJ8.jpg

Cleaned out the bearing rest (wc?) with EasyOff, it was pretty grimy in there, but look how sparkly it is now!

After I installed the whole assembly in the headstock, with the bearings oriented correctly, I noticed that I left out the two bearing shim/spacers making me have to pull both bearings and take the thing apart, yet again. I fucked up the beautiful shim I made, but managed to salvage it and get it to fit again perfectly. Finally, everything was back together. This time I also shimmed the pulley to try and offset some of its out-of-true due to being bent. (Aside: seriously, how the fuck do you bend a 4 sheaf pulley?"

http://i.imgur.com/Z37pQC7.jpg

I also added another spacer, cut from 1" glav. water pipe, that rests against the inner race of the inboard bearing, spacing it from the pulley. This is my addition and is mainly to ensure that the pulley cannot drift towards the indexing pin, which judging by the scars on the pulley index holes, seems to have happened at one time.

http://i.imgur.com/6aOgsiG.jpg

Looking down before the spindle assembly is replaced.

http://i.imgur.com/ftIePkJ.jpg

Everything is back together, except, wait. What's wrong with this picture? I forgot to put the belt on. That would really suck if I had a regular belt; I'd have to take the whole frigging thing apart again and that would be one time too many. Luckily, I switched over to these powertwist belts years ago and I can just unlock it and put it on.

http://i.imgur.com/29yBYDY.jpg

NOW it's done, let's check alignment.

http://i.imgur.com/SdX0jaC.jpg

Looking down, the live center at the tailstock is about 1/8" back, and looking from the front, it is about 1/32" low. The front to back is adjusted with two screws, the up and down, I added shims to the tailstock bed to raise it.

The drive center still has about 1/64" runout so that may account for some of the offset.

I'll see if I can get to turning today.

Very nice! Good looking lathe.

Is the motor tensioned just by its weight, hanging below the table?

Very cool. One thing I've never done with wood is work on a lathe.

I made shavings in high school but little else.

Yeah the motor is on a hinged board and its weight creates the tension. One plus is that it is a lot safer; the belt will slip if anything really grabs hold. Downside is,iIt won't prevent a catch from ruining a piece and it does vibrate a bit.

I'm thinking of tightening it to eliminate the vibration.

Classic, you will get hooked if you try wood turning. My teacher had us spend almost 8 weeks on spindle work before we moved to bowl turning. At that point everyone saw god. The teacher told us if he'd taught us bowl work first we'd never bother to learn spindle turning.

You dumb fuck, dump that turkey and get a CNC machine, that kid will make you a fortune. :lol2:

I've been turning a bunch of small items for a few upcoming crafts fairs. Keeping the price point under $20. and choosing things that can be made quickly and still look nice.

One thing is little lidded boxes, some completely out of wood and others made from heavy cardboard tubes wrapped in decorative bark or paper, with a small disk set into the bottom and a decorative turned wooden lid.

I made a jig for the band saw and I can cut a disk in about 10 seconds, gluing the paper to the tube takes about a minute or two, the turned lids from rough blank to polished finish take about 10 minutes.

Pics to follow.

Anyway, last night I smell smoke and think the boiler has blown back. I check it out and it's not even running. I look out the window to see if a neighbor is getting some late season grilling on, nope. But I do see smoke. I shut off the lathe and the dust collector and see a nice blue plume of smoke coming from my motor.

I attach the dust collector to it and run it for a while to cool it off. This morning I took the motor outside and blasted it with compressed air. The finest sanding wood dust was everywhere in that thing.

It still runs, not sure if it will smoke again, but now I am going to build a cover for it and always use dust collector when sanding.

Here's a coffee scoop. My first attempt, took about 45 minutes to learn, second one was about 30 min. I think I can get it down to 15-20,

Hey, Santa! I want one of those!


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Nice sixed bowl, how did you drill the stem?

Nice scoop.

You using a particle mask as well?

I use a dust mask when I sand, but lately I'm thinking I need to take things more seriously in that regard.

My old face shield got busted beyond repair so I've been using safety glasses when I feel concerned but usually I am wearing my $3.00 cheater reading glasses and ear muffs.

The mask/safety glasses problem is a real PITA with fogging. They make some pretty nice all in one turning helmets, like this one:https://www.woodturnerscatalog.com/i..._air_pro-2.jpg but that is not in the budget.

I have a full face respirator somewhere from my lead abatement adventure, I think I will try that and see if it is comfy for long periods. Failing that I will just get another inexpensive shield since the mask won't fog that.

I am making a lot of inventory for the up coming holiday craft fairs. Here are some examples:

First are little peg dolls, 2" to 5" tall. I plan to make a small village of them, Not sure on pricing at the moment.

2nd are a series of peg tops, unsure of whether to paint, stain, or leave natural or some combination thereof, and a series of small, lidded boxes, the subject of another post in this thread.

3rd we have another view of the lidded boxes in the back ground, egg cups up front along with a bottle stopper and a coupld of tops at the edge of the frame. You can see a wooden shot "glass" behind the egg cups.

4th is a plan view of the same plus a couple of small dishes, one of them square, wooden disks to be discused later, and some map fragments, a garden dibble, albeit a slender one.

Some more stuff, up close and personal:

One of the tops, I am experimenting with color. I have an ass-load of oil paint and am considering using that as a stain or semi transparent color. it is a bit challenging and drying time is slow. I added japan dryer and that sped things up, drying on hours rather than days, but an alcohol based stain would be much faster. However I want to use what I have on hand to keep the cost per unit down. I need to balance that against my time. Since application takes more or less the same amount of time, the drying isn't as much of an issue, I can put them aside.

I think the color, while it obscures the wood, makes the tops more fun. This one is transparent, the opaque top in the previous photo is probably how the other colors will be applied.

Next, we have Tea lights. The branch type will be in sets of three, slightly varying heights with differing species of wood by set. Birch, Apple, Ironwood, Cherry, Locust, Elm, etc.

The other one is turned from Douglas fir. There is a timber framing place nearby that sells 4x4x4 wrapped pallets of off-cuts (mostly pine and doug fir, some oak) for $50. some of the timbers are as large as 12" x 18" x 48". I've got a buddy with a truck who will help me fetch some.


Close up egg cups

Close up shot "glass" I'm debating of whether or not to finish them. Anything that would resist alcohol and washing would be tasting. Beeswax would work, but would add a mild aroma which may or not interfere with your drinking pleasure. Unfinished would work as maple is pretty odorless. It would require careful handling, i.e. rinse and dry right away.

Still thinking about this one.

Those are all looking great!

Not sure why, but those candle votive things speak to me the most.

I like the translucent green color on the top. With the little people, if you're going to be selling these at some kind of craft fair, you could turn it into an activity where kids get to paint their own on site. But maybe that's too involved for the kind of places you want to be.

This is so cool. The turned tops are particularly cool and leave a lot of painted/unpainted pattern options. I'm glad you're creating again.

That is a great idea for a workshop for kids and family, $20 something bucks includes a few peeps and access to paints, with the option of buying more peeps a la carte. Guaranteed sales! I can set something up like that with our local arts center. It would be too attention demanding for a general craft fair. That's a great idea, CF.

Agreed, Hobson's choice really only works if you are the only one offering horses to travelers. We know better!

One lone wretched unneeded complaint, they are beautiful but I don't know anybody ever who has used an egg cup. This appears to be a thing from before we were born.

Or when you're making a breakfast to convince her she made the right choice in spending the night. ;)

They are also great for displaying special rocks and glass eggs/orbs.

Or mini chalices!

They don't use them because they don't have them. I bet if you had an egg cup as nice as these you'd eat more boiled eggs.

;)

Peeling half an egg is insane. Taking your fully-peeled egg and putting it anywhere but your mouth is insane.

But again, parents pay stupid amounts of money for stupid stuff if it keeps their kids entertained for even a few seconds. Make it a set of cups for dolls and let the kids paint those too. Make some long ones that are magic wands. Ooh, could you be precise enough to make two halves that fit together as a yo-yo? Paint your own yo-yo, fuckers! Anything to shut their faces and make the parents feel good about not having screen time for an afternoon.

Egg cups are for soft boiled eggs. The top half of the shell is opened and the egg eaten with a spoon.

Finding out that you don't know how to use an egg cup just made you die a little to me. She falls from the plinth...

Seriously. I will have to boil an egg and make a video of how to use an egg cup.

You could make these...

Psh... I've fallen from that plinth like 600 times, you just keep forgetting. I've sort of picked up on how to use one from old British TV--you boil the egg for not enough time, put it upright in the egg cup, tap the top with the back of your spoon, peel it carefully back a tiny bit and hope there's a big enough air bubble inside, and also hope that you didn't boil it too much, and also hope that you don't crack it too wide at first, and also hope that you've got this much freaking time and energy for breakfast... all so you can eat just one damn egg slowly and carefully with a spoon. Ain't nobody got time for that! I eat things that I can walk around with, and if I'm going to cook eggs I'm going to fry them four at a time and then still walk around with the plate in my hands. Or I'll stack the fried eggs in a bowl if I'm super busy and I'm moving back and forth too much for a plate.

You go, girl!

If I had an egg cup I would use it as a toothpick holder

...you got any toothpick holders?

No, that's not how you do it. I will make a video tutorial. Your hanging on to the notion of peeling like a terrier with a rat. There's no peeling.

Indeed, I have one in the pipeline, looks something like this, but nicer. I don't like the top-heaviness of this design. It looks like it is just begging to be toppled like clodfobble.

OK I will be wantin' one o' those.

One o' those too. There's yer bi'ness model

Your mom's hanging on to the notion of peeling...

You bitch. My mom died peeling an egg on 9/11

I'm not sorry about ur albumen.

Not a yoking matter

Might appeal to some 5th Element fans...

And this tragedy marked the end of competitive egg-peeling in the United States.

Why would anyone eat half cooked embryo? Might as well crack a hole in one end of shell and suck the unborn chicken out. Q

tarheel

Gee, that one went without me. A seed popped in the pipe and while beating out the fire the post posted.
How much are the toothpick holders? I could use about 30 before Xmas.

tarheel

I went to youtube and looked at a couple videos of people eating soft boiled eggs. It looks like efficiency isn't the point, because it's very slow. These guys are dipping toast spears, or taking tiny spoonfuls. And they always cut the video away when they get close to the bottom. Like you never get all the egg out.

The rich and idle had nothing better to do, so they wanted to stretch meals as long as possible.

We eat soft boiled eggs by cracking them into a bowl and dipping toast into them. Yum!

When I was a kid I only ate hardboiled eggs and I was quick and thorough.

I'll see about making a video at breakfast tomorrow, after that it's off to the post office with some coffee scoops.


Tarheel if you are serious about needing toothpick holders I will make one to see what it will cost.

i see how it is. no that's fine i'm good i'll just keep holding my toothpicks in my re-purposed blood test strip bottle, double-back foam taped to my monitor stand.

http://cellar.org/2016/toothpix.jpg

That's not how it is at all. I'm always just a PM away for the toadman. The toadster. The toadinator. His toadliness. The toadily awesome one.

:D

Egg cup tutorial
 

This is how to eat a hardboiled egg in an egg cup.