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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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)
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.
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.
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?"
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.
Looking down before the spindle assembly is replaced.
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.
NOW it's done, let's check alignment.
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.