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In hindsight, I probably should have purchased one of those mini lathes from HF or Grizzly or Amazon (same factory for all), but this one came with that sweet workbench. The top is a solid core door. I paid about 350, but another $120 in parts (live center, cutters, chuck, etc). Plus, it's an old model with flat instead of V ways. It is, I think, technically a 6x18, which isn't that big at all. I don't have any big plans for it. No projects waiting in the wings. Just adult playdoh.
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May 22, 2017 19:38
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| # ? May 2, 2024 20:38 |
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Isn't the rule of thumb with lathes / mills that reasonably well maintained old iron is still better than new cheap stuff?
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May 22, 2017 19:46
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Yeah, that's what I hear. This one wasn't that well maintained, though. The ways aren't hardened, so I had to use a stone on them to get rid of some raised burrs from dings while in storage. Everything needed to be taken apart and cleaned and oiled (turns out, 3 in 1 oil is a better cleaning agent than anything water-based for old machinery). As said, it has flat ways, which means you have to be SUPER careful and precise with the gib adjustments, because you also have to adjust up and down clamping (by removing the tail stock and carriage over and over, can't adjust while the lathe is bolted down), not just the front-back with a vee-way lathe. Also, the motor speed is adjusted with a rubber belt and a set of pulleys, like on a drill press, not geared. That limits my max torque, and the belt will need replacement soon. I have power feed, but to get different speeds I would need to go out and buy (for like another $100-200), the different gear sets, and they're a right pain in the dick to change out:  (Not mine, but similar in setup). The plus is that it's a 101 lathe, which was made by Atlas for Sears. The 109 lathes are Sears-made, and I guess are substantially worse. Not that Atlas is a highly-regarded name by itself already, but it means a lot of parts cross-reference. It's long enough to do reasonable wood turning, and I've been able to free up everything and get it moving and dialed pretty close. It's missing a bunch of lock nuts for the gib adjustments, and everything I own is in metric, so this has been fun to work with. It's like crazy alien measurements and threading. Metric has spoiled me and I guess it's time to buck up and learn. And, of course, fix the traverse gear that I broke by fixing the power feed.i The past few days have been really fun cleaning it up and getting it working again. And I think I'm going to have a blast 3D printing tool holders and leveler gauges etc.
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May 22, 2017 20:11
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That's not a bad size of lathe for a hobbyist, though. Everything my dad and late almost-brother-in-law have (had) are too big for my garage. I mean, they'll fit, but nothing else will in that bay afterward. 9" x 4' or better, which makes them like 6-7' long overall, minimum. Not that I wouldn't use one that size, but I'd like to get some other tools in there as well, and my wife would like to park her car in there something before we die (which is why I need land and a shop...) I'll find a little guy eventually, maybe one of the HF/Grizzly/etc. ones, and just use dads 9" Clausing when I need bigger. And his knee mill. I don't think my garage roof is tall enough to get a substantial Bridgeport in. The door definitely isn't. Again: land, shop. $350 sounds pretty reasonable. You always end up buying tooling and fixtures, unless you get very lucky.
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May 22, 2017 21:07
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My Sherline cost quite a bit more than that. If it works it sure seems like a decent deal.
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May 22, 2017 21:35
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Sweet lathe. I'm jelous, wish I had room for one that size. Also, how'd your war against the insect kingdom go?
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May 23, 2017 23:20
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It still continues. Last week a cockroach crawled across me while sleeping, and I found one in the tub. But I haven't seen any before or since. Yesterday a scorpion dropped from the bathroom ceiling vent, so I prime now'd some Demand CS and a sprayer and sprayed EVERYTHING. The entire goddamn house, inside and out. Nightly scorpion hunts with a bigass UV flashlight and googles bags me at least one a night outside. They came out of nowhere.
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May 24, 2017 00:55
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Metal Geir Skogul posted:It still continues. Last week a cockroach crawled across me while sleeping, and I found one in the tub. But I haven't seen any before or since. Yesterday a scorpion dropped from the bathroom ceiling vent, so I prime now'd some Demand CS and a sprayer and sprayed EVERYTHING. The entire goddamn house, inside and out. I'd be moving out of state. gently caress that poo poo.
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May 24, 2017 01:25
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Roaches just got bad on our side of the desert. They are all scurrying to get inside. Not that many scorpions in our complex, though. We just get a ton of black widows.
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May 24, 2017 02:24
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Metal Geir Skogul posted:It still continues. Last week a cockroach crawled across me while sleeping, and I found one in the tub. But I haven't seen any before or since. Yesterday a scorpion dropped from the bathroom ceiling vent, so I prime now'd some Demand CS and a sprayer and sprayed EVERYTHING. The entire goddamn house, inside and out. Whaaaaat?! Which state are you in? Remind me so I can never, ever go there.
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May 24, 2017 02:28
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Arizona I believe. No one should go there amyways.
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May 24, 2017 02:57
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West Phoenix. And, not bragging, but our house and yard are immaculately clean. This boggles me, and we didn't have any of this until last month. Or the last five years downtown.
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May 24, 2017 02:58
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Metal Geir Skogul posted:West Phoenix. And, not bragging, but our house and yard are immaculately clean. This boggles me, and we didn't have any of this until last month. Or the last five years downtown. Downtown never has them really, they've all been wiped out, but the area you are in still has a fair amount of undeveloped land, and the developed stuff is fairly new, so still plenty of them. I'm amazed I've only ever seen one scorpion here, but the entire area was farm fields for decades prior to being turned into housing, so I guess it's not been great for the scorpions to live in the area for a long time.
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May 24, 2017 05:15
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Metal Geir Skogul posted:It still continues. Last week a cockroach crawled across me while sleeping, and I found one in the tub. But I haven't seen any before or since. Yesterday a scorpion dropped from the bathroom ceiling vent, so I prime now'd some Demand CS and a sprayer and sprayed EVERYTHING. The entire goddamn house, inside and out. I'll take "things I don't miss about living in the desert" for $5000, Alex.
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May 24, 2017 05:24
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About 3-5 scorpions a night outside still. Ugh. Random (non-scorpion) picture dump:           Lathe pics a few days old. More to come next weekend. I have some items for the bus planned  (E: the drill bit in the chuck was just to check if the chuck was true before my other pieces arrived in the mail) Queen_Combat fucked around with this message at 09:17 on May 26, 2017 |
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May 26, 2017 09:11
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gently caress expensive $50 drum switches. I've got a 3 phase cam switch laying around...   (This will be back to Bus stuff soon. All related)
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May 28, 2017 08:56
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Metal Geir Skogul posted:(This will be back to Bus stuff soon. All related) No worries. Lathe stuff is cool, too. It is, after all, your thread.
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May 28, 2017 19:07
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Reversing switch. Left for reverse, right for forward. (Note the square grey cover where there used to be an outlet facing upwards - that's a 3D printed custom switchplate to hold my emergency "OFF" paddle switch. Better than an outlet facing upwards near a metal chip machine)   3D printed case, pretty damned solid inside. 95% infill, 4 solid walls, 5mm wall thickness with a 0.40mm nozzle. Printed slightly higher than normal temperature, to increase layer bonding and strength (at a sacrifice of surface finish). Then, hit with some grey weld-through spray paint (so it's technically grounded). Running the lathe in reverse is tricky, because it's a screw-on chuck (1 inch 10TPI) and if the chuck isn't well on there it can pop off. Probably only good at really slow speeds (I did have the chuck spin off during testing once, but I had it up at near max speed, 1300 RPM or so).   3D Printing, even though it's not appropriate for a lot of things people use it for, is HUGE for project boxes and similar doodads and holders for me. No sawdust, no glue. I even modeled a chuck/tailstock center holder, gonna print that tomorrow. Has room for all the tailstock stuff, my center punch, chuck key, and chuck arms. Queen_Combat fucked around with this message at 07:03 on May 29, 2017 |
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May 29, 2017 06:57
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Got the switch wired up and installed. I tested my wiring by running the shop vac through it for 20-30 minutes and pulling it apart to check wire temperature. Seems pretty good   I turned some aluminum today to practice. On the higher speeds, I can take 30 thou depth of cut at a reasonable pace, using HSS cutters that I ground myself using this tutorial from This Old Tony: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__A2xtLF0AU On lower speeds, 20-30 is fine. I did a 50 thou for shits and giggles, and it did it, but was not happy. I also didn't tighten the 3-jaw (1 inch, 10 TPI, 1-10) jaws down as tightly as I should, and jammed the cutter and bounced the table. Whoops.
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May 30, 2017 02:19
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Lathe update! Still learning! Got myself an OxA (or 0xA) sized quick change tool post. The OxA is exactly 60% the size of a standard AxA.  Finished 3D printing a toolbit leveling tool:  Designed and printed 4 of these bad boys. They hold the spare tool holders.     They are designed so that I can either pop a magnet into the back and stick them on a toolbox or the metal workbench, bolt them into somewhere, or pop a wood screw in the bottom to screw them to the bench. Haven't decided yet. They also hold the tools freestanding, so they're not resting on the dovetail mating surfaces. Might seem dumb, but I promise that, in the end, I do like things organized.
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Jun 19, 2017 08:07
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[Ignore me, just responded to a super old post]
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Jun 19, 2017 19:24
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Tired of trying to read the gear tooth numbers stamped onto the old Zamak, I printed out some labels, and covered them with some clear epoxy.
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Jul 17, 2017 03:40
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Time to tear down the old girl. I think it's been a lifetime since the last one. Took the major parts off. The spindle tapped out with a rubber mallet  Spindle bearing and tumbler/change gears. That's black moly grease on there. Impossible to clean off, even with the ultrasonic cleaner:  Bottom of the carriage. I've already replaced that transmission/traverse gear set once. $60 mistake.  Parts out. Ways oiled up  The spindle bearings. Unfortunately, not genuine Timken. But, actual Japanese bearings. Koyo.  Inside of the headstock after spraying it out with some penetrating oil.  The new half nuts, made by a guy on ebay. Lucky set #13.   Compared to the old. The old ones were worn to a point, and skipping along the rod.   And installed. The new brass is much tougher than the stock Zamak (a cast zinc-aluminum-tin alloy that's garbage)  All greased up with wheel bearing grease.  I found a bunch of brass (and later, plastic) tubes while cleaning the lathe. Seems like the PO did a bit of turning themselves. This machine was in a production environment. I know that's weird for a hobbyist-level lathe like this one, but I think it was maybe a one-time purchase or even an "inheritance" of sorts for the shop it was in. The workbench was made specifically for it, but had a bunch of tool holders attached to the top rack, along with stickers like the pictured American flag and safety decals. A strange one.  Semi-unrelated, I snapped up this shelf from sitting next to the dumpster at work. Came from the mechanics. I assembled it, welded the snap-fit rivet joints together with the HF buzzbox, and painted it white. Works well in the bedroom.  From the same dumpster, I grabbed this office chair. Still had the cardboard advertisement/packaging on the bottom, and was probably used as a bedside table for our field supervisor's bedroom at the station. Pressure washed it, and vacuumed out the water with the shop vac. Twice. The water was very black the first time.  Unfortunately, I set the lathe up to do a 16 TPI cut with the change gears, and it promptly broke off a few teeth from the 24T tumbler gear. No power feed. Zamak is a bullshit material, and I know that if I replace them with brass replacements, the new gears will just break the zamak spindle gears. I guess anything over 8 TPI is to be run by hand 
Queen_Combat fucked around with this message at 08:37 on Jul 21, 2017 |
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Jul 21, 2017 08:33
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Metal Geir Skogul posted:
I am stealing this idea! It will keep my tool holders from sliding around in the drawer I have them in. Just have to print them for AXA size holders.
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Jul 22, 2017 00:23
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Worked on the bus today. I was tired of the squeaking. Convinced it was the alternator, I bought a new (refurb) Remy 14062 70 amp alternator from ebay. I had Paypal bucks to spend, so there it went. I also picked up what was allegedly a cooling boot (rubber tube that goes between the fan shroud and the alternator - they are also air cooled by the engine) that fit, versus the current 55 amp one I had. I don't feel like typing too much, so I'm going to make a long story short. I'm also missing pictures for the entire second half, but I'll explain. Starting off, the new alternator installed:  Old and (allegedly) busted:  New hotness:   If I were replacing the 55A one for just another 55A one, this is all I'd normally have to remove:  Here's what I ended up having to actually remove:  The vast majority of it was because I had to replace this cooling boot:  and get this clip on:  The old alternator has an oblong cooling hole (removable back plate on it here):  It turns out the new boot that, on the ebay page proudly boasts "WORKS FOR 70A ALTERNATOR!" is a goddamned lie. I did end up making it work using too much tenacity and time, which is how most of those parts in the second parts photo got removed. They were in the way of the 2 hours of hell that was fitting that goddamned rubber boot in such a way that it doesn't pop off as the alternator is adjusted, and still leaves the jubilee screw accessible. After replacing the alternator, and buttoning everything back up, I discovered I still had the squeak. After an hour of frantic searching a bunch of old google and thesamba results I've already looked over, I did what I should have done in the first place, and used a tube as a stethescope to pinpoint the source of the sound. Survey said: right (passenger) carburetor intake manifold. The design of the manifold was such that it was impossible to tighten up the two middle bolts fully, as the hex of the bolt fouled on the intake piping itself. I had tightened up the outer bolts snug when I did the carb install last November, and gotten the center ones as much as I could. However, back in November, I didn't have a lathe or drill press or grinding wheel. I ended up taking the brass nuts/bolts (some studs came out with the nuts) off, putting them on the lathe real quick, and turning all but the innermost 4mm round. They looked like this before:  I then installed them so the 4mm that still had the hex was inboard, and tightened them up while pulling outwards on the manifold itself, to keep the hexes from fouling. It's still so tight in there that I ended up leaving a 7/16" socket as a sacrifice (couldn't remove after snugging it down), but that's a small price to pay. No more squeaking, and it probably explains why I've been running so hot recently. I also don't have headlights that dim at idle anymore 
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Aug 6, 2017 07:17
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Squeaking again on starts when hot ffffffuuuuuu I think I pulled the head stud.
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Aug 6, 2017 18:04
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Boo that it didn't work but I need photos of the finished product. I've never had my hands on an ACVW engine so I'm having trouble visualizing it. Yay for lathe work, though!
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Aug 6, 2017 21:39
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Metal Geir Skogul posted:Squeaking again on starts when hot ffffffuuuuuu I think I pulled the head stud. Fuuuuck, I hope that's not it.
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Aug 9, 2017 02:21
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I don't think I pulled the stud, after disassembly today. Instead, I think it just wasn't tightening up. It's REALLY tight down there for a wrench. Today, I disassembled the intakes again. Five hours spent here:  This is what the intake manifolds look like. The three holes there are the holes for the various head mountings. Mine uses the two outer holes in the crevice, and the center hole is not used.  Here are the mounting gaskets:  I disassembled the intakes, and attacked them crudely with a file, to give me some clearance for the nuts and studs. Note: there isn't a hole there, I didn't break through. That's just a shadow of a burr.   These are what the original nuts looked like:  And here's after I attacked them with the lathe.  Also, just to be sure, I did something in poor taste. I used some Right Stuff on the gaskets. Pictured BEFORE I smeared it around the surface to thin it out:   This isn't how I left the outer tab nuts mounted, but merely a photo to show how I put them on the inner "crevice" studs, to give you a visual on what I did.  The idea here is that I may gain some looseness/clearance on the deepwell socket with the turned down nuts so I can have the tool at a bit of an angle, exaggerated here:  It's so tight in that triangular crevice on the bottom of the intakes that even the corners of the nut scraped on the intake aluminum itself. Filing it down and making the fasteners smaller gave me JUST enough room to, after thinning the walls of a socket on the bench grinder, tighten it down. I've got it curing right now. Initial startup for a sanity check before I buttoned everything up showed the bus to run without whistling/chirping, though now it does have a little bit of a "harumph" every now and again in the exhaust. You can BARELY hear it, and really probably only notice it if you've heard the engine before the change. I'll see how it is. Maybe some Right Stuff is squished into the intake tract and is causing some gasoline to drip, who knows?
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Aug 12, 2017 05:16
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Bus drives smoothly, though it is a tiny bit down on power, and the carburetors seem less in-sync. Like, touchy idle, whereas before the idle was a lot more stable (and higher). Guess vacuum leaks will do that.
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Aug 13, 2017 04:22
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Stick a borescope in and see if the gasket / Right Stuff crowded the intake?
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Aug 13, 2017 04:37
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I don't have a borescope, but I think a visit by Mr. Scotty Peeler and the shop vac are in order. At least I can remove the actual carburetors themselves really easily (2 easily accessible 13mm bolts).
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Aug 13, 2017 05:33
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Metal Geir Skogul posted:
Why not take the stud out of the head and use allen socket headed cap screws here rather than bolts? then you can tighten them up easily. Metal Geir Skogul posted:I don't have a borescope, but I think a visit by Mr. Scotty Peeler and the shop vac are in order. At least I can remove the actual carburetors themselves really easily (2 easily accessible 13mm bolts). buy yourself one of the cheap Chinese USB borescopes off ebay. They are £5 over here, so probably $5 or less for you.
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Aug 13, 2017 13:21
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That's a good idea and I hadn't thought of it. They are red loctite'd in, though (from the manufacturer). Have they gotten that cheap? Wow.
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Aug 13, 2017 21:25
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Yeah, dirt cheap. Micro USB on some models, so they'll plug right into a phone.
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Aug 14, 2017 04:31
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I have a buyer lined up. Sold the Enfield two weeks ago for textbook money. It had been sitting unused for a few years. The bus was listed for $10k, and a man with his 23-ish year old daughter want it for 8. I have about 7700 in debt, so that covers it. If I can pay down the debt, that'll raise my credit score from 670 to probably well above 700. The main drag RN is "debt load to limit" ratio. I'm at like 97% from poor choices. I don't want to sell it, but the better score combined with these 3 community classes should let me into a nursing program afterwards. I'll update the thread when/if it sells on Wednesday.
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Sep 11, 2017 17:16
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T minus 2 hours.
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Sep 14, 2017 20:22
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GL man. Tough choice, but RN is a respectable path and if this is the way to it, I say why not.
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Sep 14, 2017 20:24
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Metal Geir Skogul posted:I have a buyer lined up.
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Sep 14, 2017 20:26
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| # ? May 2, 2024 20:38 |
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Yea it'll be sad to see it go but it's for good reasons. Godspeed bus
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Sep 14, 2017 20:35
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