Vintage 1942 South Bend 13" lathe restoration from beginning to end.

how's it going everybody this video is going to be an overview of the restoration that i did of this 1942 south bend 13 inch metal lathe if you'd like more details and want a better explanation of what went into this restoration i've done a five part series that's already out on my channel what this is is this video is a time lapse video of the whole project all in one video it's shot at 7x speed so i'd say i moved pretty fast but it's just to give you kind of an overview of what went into it uh i didn't keep track of total hours that i put into this but this project took a couple months to do i can't i never counted up how many hours i was in the shop here and there so but i can tell you it's a lot so if you're thinking about taking on all these projects just know that it's a pretty big project if you're going to do a complete tear down and restoration of it as far as the condition of the machine it was operational when i did buy it but it's worn out it's tired it needs cleaned up gone through and you can see right there is a nice little crack in that belt guard um it is a i'm assuming that's the original baby blue paint there uh this was a u.s navy owned machine so this could have been on an aircraft carrier a submarine or a navy base in 1942 we all know that was world war ii was raging so this thing was part of the war effort one thing i did find interesting is this did not have a tag that said war finish on it if you don't know what war finish is essentially it is the manufacturer just making a machine operational so they can get out of the line to produce parts for the war they didn't do any of the fit and finish they didn't put any bondo on any of the little holes that generally come with fresh castings especially the size of that lathe they just want to get it out the door a lot of machinery of this arrow will have a tag that says war finish on it this machine just has a navy yard number tag so it has the serial number that the navy assigned it so they could keep track of it here we are taking off the back gears these are what drive power from the headstock into the lead screw um when you're doing a project of this size where you're going to have a ton of greasy parts and you'd be surprised how many parts that come in a lathe like this i mean it was my whole shop floor was covered with this lathe when it was all in pieces if you want a way to contain those i find that cookie sheets work really well so what i'll do is i'll just go out buy my wife's new cookie sheets i take the old ones bring them in the shop and then i use those to kind of keep the parts in little piles and another plus of those is when you go to clean the parts the cookie sheet does a pretty good job of catching all the solvents and wd-40 and whatever you're using to clean it with so i find that helps me out in these type of projects i'm also a fan of plastic bags for the smaller ones like your nuts and bolts because you can also write on them because let's be honest a project like this is going to take months so you're not going to remember where every little nut and bolt went two months down the road there you can see me separating the apron from the carriage comes off relatively simple i think it was all a total of four screws and four bolts right here i am taking the top cover off of the spindle bearings and the spindles on these are essentially just a hole that has been drilled through the headstock and they have the spindle laying in that hole and there is a oil wick that allows oil to be pulled up from the bottom of that headstock and lubricates that spindle as it's spinning there's no little ball bearings in here so i'm going to tap this part off here this is that top cover and we're going to pull it off and you'll be able to actually see get a better understanding of what i'm talking about so there that top cover comes off and that is the bearing surface right there those little grooves in it that still allow oil to wick up and down the entire bearing surface length so you have good lubrication there's a little bit chattering in there and that chrome looking part right there that is the spindle itself and you can see little grooves in there but that's nothing to really be concerned about especially for a lathe of this age that's normal some of my either got that really hot put too much force in it or they didn't use enough lubrication so those are usually three things that cause that and it's kind of to be expected at the lathe of this age um the more i got into it and saw how much wear there was in the bed and in the gear train this thing has been through it's been through a lot so i'm not surprised that there was that much wear in there that's actually less wear than i was expecting right there just separating the belt that's just a serpentine belt right there so like what you have in your car someone just cut it in half and they glued it together it works pretty well for applications like this right here we're getting ready to separate the bed from the base it's eight bolts total so four on the front four in the back and uh i'm taking a piece of a one-inch tubular webbing right there and that's what i use as a lifting strap anytime you're lifting a piece of equipment you always want to use a strap or you know straps most preferable you know it may be rope but you don't want to use chain or cable and the reason for that is one metal on metal will slip really easily so if that say if i lift that bed up and it is any way one way or the other off center it will just instantly go with gravity and the heavy ends that drop the ground because that chain or wire would slip on it and two these are made out cast iron cast iron is very strong but also fragile so if you put a chain on there and it starts moving you can potentially break part of that bed so best practice just use a lifting strap we're getting ready to separate the chip pan from the base there and i did some research on these and they actually did offer a two different style chip pan that is a dry one right there that you see and they also offered one that had a drain in it so you could use flood coolant in this lathe and that flood coolant would go down the drain into a catchment system right here we are getting ready to remove this plaque what i'm doing is taking a dremel and grinding little grooves into the rivets that hold it on i'm going to take a screwdriver and i'm going to go counterclockwise and those rivets are actually small little they're like screws with a very aggressive thread on them and so you can back them out and right here this is the cone pulley on the spindle we have to take off this press fit gear there so just get the gear puller a little bit of heat and it comes right off and then right there behind it there we're going to take off the key and we're unscrewing that retaining clip there's your thrust bearing and there is the cone pulley itself this process right here i am removing the base over the under drive and motor assembly uh the reason for this is because one gravity and two that base is actually a lot lighter than that under drive that motor is probably 70 pounds i'm guessing that under dryer is probably another hundred so take the path of least resistance right here we are pulling the oil out of this headstock there and we are pulling out those felts as well and those felts right there you see me popping out that drops down into the oil reservoir and allows oil to wick up the felt and it's constant contact with the spindle so it provides lubrication to the spindle here's the base i have these things sandblasted professionally because there's so much paint on there and being from the 40s it was lead-based paint so i just didn't want to deal with it they have mitigation abilities so i took it to them and it was money well spent so i have some bondo there i was sanding off and it's been primed and now i am rattle candidate and i know that there are different opinions on how to paint these things whether you do powder coating or taking into professional i find rattle canning works just perfectly fine because i have a shop that is a working shop and i will eventually scratch this machine and if it's powder coated i can't fix that scratch if it's rattle canned i can just come back over it hit it with a rattle can again and it'll be as good as new so practicality is the thought process behind why i rattle can all my equipment here we're starting the tear down process of the motor i'm using a puller to remove that pressed on fit pulley there and uh from here we're going to start the cracking the case um i'm gonna preface this by saying i am not much of a electric motor expert i know how to clean them up and repack the bearings and that's about as far as my expertise in these things goes so consult somebody else in your uh wanting information on these i just know how to clean it up so i don't have a bunch of great commentary for you here but i will kind of walk you through what you're seeing so this motor it does sit underneath the lathe in that under drive assembly there and it is constantly getting all the oil and grease and grime and dust and stuff that falls down from the lathe that's at fault down there and that motor has a fan inside it and that fan is constantly pulling all that oil and grime into the motor itself so we have this torn apart here and as you can see there we have had some little friend that has been inside this motor using it as a repository to store their future dinner so that's why it's important to tear these things apart to make sure you don't have any surprises in there that right there the on the end that is the bearing cap and it is just a ball bearing and set in there that is uh covering grease and actually it has a zerk fitting on it so you can grease it yearly as you can see that thing is caked in grease and oil i just took a light coating of wd-40 on a rag and use it to wipe it out as best i could from what i read online is that if you use the wrong type of solvent to try to clean those those pieces of paper that separate the windings in that motor you can use they can actually take that solvent and corrode that paper enough to where you will short out your motor so be very very cautious with what solvent you're using and consult somebody smarter than me for advice on that i don't even know if wwd40 was a proper thing to use there we were putting the uh base back on top of the motor housing and here we are putting the bed onto the base itself and this is honestly my favorite part of the process is the reassembly you just get to see this thing come together and if you take your time doing the finish work when it comes to prepping for paint it's a look probably better than it did when it came out of the factory as far as the choice of paint that i went with on this um i chose a navy blue um it's just a rust-oleum navy blue they find it a home improvement store uh and the reason for that is because it's a naval machine and i want to pay a little bit of homage to its uh history so have it all on its uh standing on its own there and we're just getting the bolts and everything that hold it together back into place something i've learned after doing several of these restorations is anytime you're bonding priming and painting an old machine and getting ready to put it back together it is well worth the extra time to go in there with a tap and chase every thread of the hole that you have the reason i say that is because i have cross threaded numerous bolts into threaded holes that i did not clean out before i just decided to send it so there is an old adage out there that goes a ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure and this is one of those times where that uh holds very true so right here we're just putting the uh last part of the panels on the base and we will take a look at where we're at here so this is where we're at this stage in the uh reassembly process still don't have the handles on this is just all the big pieces that have been bolted together and you can start to get an idea of what the finished product is going to look like that red arm right there that is what holds the control box for running the motor so your forward and reverse and your speed controller will sit in that red box there they did that from the factory and back when this thing was new that was just an on off switch these things did not come with a variable frequency or variable speed drive so that's where we're at with the process and now we are taking off the painters tape and i love this part because you get to start seeing that metal to paint contrast right there those nice clean edges and starting to see these things take shape now i'm getting ready to clean the ways there in preparation to set the headstock on top of the bed and you want to use i'm just using wd-40 and a paper towel and you want to make sure the ways and the mating surface on the headstock are as clean as possible because if you have any foreign object in there it will knock off the accuracy of that machine when you get it operational here is the apron this is what uh drives the power from the lead screw to the carriage and gives your longitudinal feed and what we're doing right now is we're just placing these uh felts in there and these felts allow oil to be wicked up from the oil reservoir in the bottom and provide lubrication to all the gears throughout the apron here and this thing was probably on a little bit more complicated part of uh the whole process when it came to disassembling and reassembling it i did have a rebuild manual that was very helpful but still there's a lot of trial and error in trying to get things apart and put back together so you know it's a lot of these little pieces here that really took up a lot of the time in this whole rebuild process the one thing that made this reassembly process go a lot smoother was when i disassembled this i put everything in little bags and labeled it and when i came to reassemble it i just was able to find the bag and open it up and knew that those are the parts that went to that part of the machine so that worked beforehand really did pay dividends down the road here we are putting the cone pulley back on the spindle and this part here is super super intuitive it's pretty easy we're just lubricating the spindle bearings right there and getting ready to put the spindle in here we are setting the carriage into place and there is the cross feed bolt just getting everything tightened down there prepping the cross slide and there is the tail that goes onto it that keeps the chips from falling onto your ways and here we are finishing the assembly of the apron and everything all the levers tapped into place and here is the apron being put onto the carriage it's just held on there with four flat head screws that uh apron is a little bit heavier than you would think so trying to lift into place and put screws in at the same time was a little challenging and here we are on the back of the headstock here we're putting the forward and reverse tumbler in there and now we're getting ready to assemble the banjo on the back here it's all pretty uh straightforward and we're kind of getting down the home stretch the one thing that i did not show in this rebuild video is the quick change gearbox the reason for that is it is a pretty complicated portion of this machine and it would take up too much time for this video right here we are putting on the back gear guard cover throwing on a couple of flat head screws in there and this is also a good time to point out all the levers and handles on this machine i have painted red and the reason i do that is because your brain is drawn to the different color contrast and it's designed as a safety thought is that my hand is more likely to go to something red than it is any other part of the machine so that keeps my hands from going someplace that they're not supposed to go and uh here you can see we're moving out the old nine inch south bend this is a 1936 and i've had this lathe for a couple years and i love it i have learned so much on this machine but i have outgrown its capabilities and that is why this new one is coming in so this is a probably about 1500 pound machine and that is a one ton engine hoist so i am definitely maxing it out and we're just trying to do the old shuffle to try to get into place as far as the footprint goes of the two machines the 13 inch and the nine inch were relatively the same footprint the nine inch lathe had the motor hanging off the back which pushed it away from the wall and with the 13 inch being an underdriven motor it was able to slide up a little bit close to the wall so i really didn't notice that much space loss with the bigger lathe right here i'm making leveling feet for the lathe and the reason that this is important is because if you want to get really accurate parts of the lathe it needs to have the twist taken out of the bed and yes that bed is cast iron and it's you're not going to think there's a lot of twist in it but if you're on an unlevel surface and that thing weighs 1500 pounds just gravity is going to tweak that bed a couple thousandths of an inch and you can get a taper here i am putting the leveling feet in the bolt holes there or the holes underneath the lathe and i just want to point out that i am using pliers to guide them up underneath this is being suspended from an engine hoist and it is a horrible idea to put any part of your body underneath anything that is suspended especially when it weighs about 1500 pounds here i am putting the brass name plates back on and i am using pop rivets to hold them into place uh i could not locate any of the original brass screw-in type rivets so this is the next best thing that i had and it worked just fine for this application i did have to drill out some of the holes a little bit bigger to make them work and in this case right there i was able to use the old brass ones and tap them back into place with a screwdriver and a set punch and here is the uh operational project i'm not going to call this thing done because this thing is never going to be done i am always going to be tinkering with it trying to make it better buying new things for it changing little things on it so i can never truly call a project like this done but we're going to call it operational and i'm really happy with how it came out this was a lot of work and uh i think it was worth it if you are wanting to do a project like this just know that it's a it's not going to be a fast project tearing one of these things down waiting for the parts to come in off order it's uh it's very time intensive but it's very rewarding so we'll do a quick walk around i still have a lot of polishing to do as you can see there's still quite a bit of patina right there on the handles i have since gone back over that with a scotch brite pad on a dremel they're these little balls of scotch brite that are designed for a dremel they can get off amazon and they work really good for that stuff right there i mounted the vfd on the wall behind the lathe and it uh it's a good good spot for it so i can see what frequency i'm running at that one thing to note i do still need to police up the wires uh they are not only a shock and electrical hazard but also a fire hazard so the last thing you want to do is get zapped or burn down your shop with your freshly restored tools in it right here we have our potentiometer so you turn that dial to whatever frequency you want and that results in a different speed for the motor to turn uh i did not realize how handy that is um and it is truly one of those little things that spoils you when you're running this type of machinery being able to adjust the speed and dial it in to get that perfect cut because feeds and speeds are everything when running a lathe it is a it's a luxury i'm not gonna lie i wish i had upgraded the other lathe to a three-phase motor and uh done that before and uh here you can see the back end that's tail stock there and one thing to note there i did have to shim that not sure why that is a little bit lower than the headstock but there is a couple pieces of shim paper in there to lift that tail stock up to the proper height of the headstock and as you can see like i mentioned before everything that i'm supposed to touch is painted red obviously cross slide and compound handles haven't been painted yet i'm not quite sure how i'm going to incorporate red into them as of the posting of this video they still have not been painted yet and as you can see off to the right there i do have a four jaw chuck and a face plate that i was able to find off ebay and one thing to note with these 13-inch lathes is the older versions and i can't tell you exactly when the old version ends and the new version begins the older version had a smaller diameter spindle so it was a 1 7 8 by 8 tpi spindle thread and those are actually pretty hard to find parts for i did spend quite a bit of time on ebay trying to hunt that stuff down coming back around to the front here you can see the carriage stop there i was able to 3d print that and then put a cheap dial indicator in there and it works really good for that application here we are going into the motor compartment and you can see that i did not paint the underdrive or motor i chose not to just because the paint was in pretty good condition and i didn't think it was worth it um i do need to get in here with a scotch brite pad as you can see right there on the flat pulley i do have a little bit of rust there um there's just one of these things i haven't had the time to get around to getting there and cleaning it up like i said these projects are never truly done you're always gonna find something more to work on them hopefully you guys enjoyed this video and if you like this type of content make sure to hit the subscribe button i will be putting out more videos here in the future as i have several other machines in the queue that i'm going to be restoring and doing a video on thank you guys very much for watching and have a great day

Channel: Restoration Projects

Views: 39,228

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Id: ZfuIc3HpCUI

Length: 23min 18sec (1398 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 26 2021