After a bit of messing around I managed a nice finish on cast aluminum.
This is to tool bit used. It came with the lathe so was more likely ground by a fellow who passed away over 10 years ago. So no way to know what he used it for.
Last night after completing the back gear I cleaned up and bolted to the table the support for the motor and counter shaft.
Started on the counter shaft. Worked on the large pulley until it could be rotated with some effort. Then I used the hydraulic cylinder on the side of the press brake to push it out.
The bearing were not as gummed up as some I have seen on YouTube. It may have been OK but I feel better knowing it is.
I do not plan to fully dissemble it. Took it down just far enough to get the bearings off. The rest can be cleaned well enough in place. This is not a restoration. These parts are in the hot water parts washer cooking.
Thinking of doing a "Process Peek" video on the cleaning procedure.
So far, knock on wood, the only problems are with the lead screw direction gearbox. They are minor. Missing a fiber washer and the plunger for the detente. I should be able to make both.
This morning I cleaned up the tail stock while waiting on the bearings. There maybe some repairs here too.
Turned out they did need cleaning. The rollers freed up nicely.
Counter shaft ready for reassembly.
I used the side ram on the brake press to remove the large pulley. A toaster over set to 250F was used to heat the pulley for installation after stoning the shaft.
Mounted the counter shaft and motor. Don't have the correct pulley on the motor as its only a single sheeve. Apparently the atlas mills use the same pulley.
"The motor pulley on the MFB and MFC is a 10-428. This has a 5/8" ID hub. The 5/8"X1/2" reducing bushing is a commercial part and has no Atlas number. The same pulley but with 1/2" ID is 9-428. The OD's of the two pulley grooves are 4.390" and 1.930". Center-to-center distance between the two grooves is 0.625"."
Maybe make one. Wonder if I have any already cast blanks on had that are large enough?
Cleaned the chuck and did first chips on a chunk of aluminum. Uploading to YouTube.
Atlas 10 First Chips
Used the first bit out of the box. Was just playing around.
After this I made a plunger pin for the lead screw direction control. It works but is loose on the head stock side and tight on the tail stock side. Looking into this
Was wondering what these were for Look to be cutters/mills with a non cutting guide or point.
Model H54
Bench Ready for Lathe
Started cleanup. Gave the table a coat of oil based poly. Scrubbed the chip tray and hoisted the lathe up to the table. The little crane obtained with this purchase did not work so I had to move the big engine hoist into the garage.
Used Engine Crane to Lift Lathe
Removed Carriage and Cleaned Ways
Finished installing the backgear.
Pulled everything but the headstock and cleaned the ways. The machine looks to habe been repainted. A few bolts don't match but its not a new machine.
Monday, April 20, 2020
Killed the deal on the Cincinnati No 2 milling machine. The straw that busted the deal was being told the tooling for the horizontal mill was in a bucket somewhere in a junkyard and I'd have to go find it. That in addition to the missing counter shaft was just too much.
There were several other problems including driving into a covid infested area.
Given that I still have the deal for the 10" Atlas lathe in the works I was not looking for another machine just now. But a friend on discord mentioned a horizontal milling machine with a vertical head. But is a 10 hour drive away and burred in a garage so I don't know the make or model. It is said to have a 32 inch table. A nice size. Weight is guessed at 2500 lbs.
That's too much for my 1/2 ton pickup. Can not use the car trailer as it is because the tires are 10 years old. Tried borrowing a trailer, toyed with splitting the load between the pickup and and a small trailer again the old tire problem. So after much fussing around I have opted to pull the tires off the parts town car. They are about 5 years old and like the trailer tires very little miles. But they are a little smaller but this should not be a problem. May even make the mill a bit easier to load.
Trailer still had the remains of the greenhouse loaded on it. Meet a neighbor at roll off while unloading it and he loaned my a few 4x4's to support the mill on the trailer. Also 2 straps and has offered some chain binders which he called boomers.
So today I get to swap the 4 tires. I don't see where anything can go wrong but lets cross fingers LOL.
I am thinking if I can get enough straps and chains I would like to transport the mill standing up. Laying anything like this down runs a fair risk of breaking something. My shop crane may lift high enough to load it on the trailer. So build some sort of beefy pellet and chain it down on the trailer. Now the trailer has two strong runners where car tires go. Not sure how strong the center between them is. Need to inspect that today when I do the tires. Also look at the broken leaf in the spring stacks.
Finished cylinder assembly today. Found the missing gland cover cap screw. Purchased a missing nut for the tie rods.
Had a heck of a time getting the dust seal over the shaft. Went on what I thought was the wrong way but not with the lip facing into the cylinder. Should not matter much in that there is no pressure on this seal.
Torqued them to 100 ft/lbs. Was wondering if my old torque wrenches still worked seems they did. It's a lot harder to torque something that is not part of a larger object. C clamped the cylinder cover to the work bench then it was doable.
After they were assembled I ran into trouble mounting them to the press. The rods are not a tight fit in the end caps. After too much messing about with the digital caliper and a rasp I drilled 3 of the 4 holes 1/16th inch larger and they fit. So far have just fitted one cylinder. These cylinders are heavy and my back hurts. :)
Looks like the lathe is an Atlas or Craftsman 10". I have been told its mine but due to the flue pandemic the people involved want to hold off on picking it up till things settle down. A bit disappointing but I am OK with that. Gives me some time to move some other projects ahead and maybe make space for it.
A while back I lost a mill because I futzed around too long. The asking is not out of line by my thinking and worst case I think there are enough tooling with it to soften the blow should it be junk. And I don't think it is. These hobby machines are seldom used hard like a factory or machine shop tool.
After successfully test assembling one cylinder I could not get the piston into the second. Looking at the old rings I found one set to be .087" and the other .110" along the dimension in the plane of the ring. Discovered this by substituting parts between the good and bad.
The good piston and rings went easily into both cylinder.
The bad piston would not go into either cylinder. so not the cylinders.
This forced me to measure the rings and I found the difference. I could have deepened the grooves on the bad piston to accommodate the new rings but I will move ahead and reuse the old rings. At some point in the future I may choose to deepen the grooves, and hone the cylinders, but not till I get the machine working and determine if I want to keep it.
Why might I not want to keep it? The machine is on the crude side. There is no back stop to position the work. There is no way to limit travel on the top die. And it only came with the one die set.
Now if I can figure out how to limit travel I could try 3D printed dies. A backstop should not be all that difficult to add. But its another project or six. Time will tell.
