Inside Doc's Machine Shop

[Impactfour]

Hey doc, would you ever consider making a pgp quick changer out of brass? If so I'd definitely be first on the list!

[DocsMachine]

The whole thing, or just the collar? I'd considered doing up some collars, which would better match the body, but they're rather thin when they're machined. That's why I went with the high-tensile stuff.

Doc.

[Impactfour]

I'd be in to either/any options, I just like having metals that meet be the same material, and also love all matching markers.

I'm not very informed on machining, but is what your saying brass can't be threaded that fine and retain its form? I could see that being the case from an outsider perspective.

[DocsMachine]

Got quite a bit done today- both in the shop and on the new machine.

Before I started reassembling things to the cabinet, it needed to be properly leveled. This section of the shop used to have a drain, which has long since been filled in, but the floor still 'slopes' towards it. This necessitated a little bit of customizing...

First, though, the lathe has these adjustable screw 'feet'.



Common to many machines, the Springfield has ones much like it. (Eight of them much like it. ) The only problem being they only had about 3/8" of usable adjustment- they're only intended for minor unevenness, and fine-tuning the level of the machine. The floor slopes just a bit more than that...

So, for the first two corners, the ones that need the least "rise", I bandsawed and milled-square two 3" chunks of 1/2" 'luanmum.



These I drilled and bored in the center to 1/2", simply using an endmill.



And, just for a little style, I chamfered the top edges a bit.



I then made some 1/2" long barrel pegs out of 1/2" round stock...



And corked those into the plates with a dab of red LocTite.



The plate spreads the load a little, and the 'peg fits into the bore of the adjuster (hollow because the machine was bolted through them to a shipping pallet when it was first sold) so the machine can't walk off the plate, or the plate slide out from under the foot.



The third corner- rear right- needed a 1" thick plate, and the front-right corner, needed one a full inch and a half tall:



That gets us pretty close to level-and you can see how little adjustment is left on the bolt.



Et Voilá!





Next up, before the chip tray can go on, I needed to clean up the spring-loaded door latch detents.



And get those installed.



Now, when I took this thing apart, there were strips of a cork-gasket type material around the top edge of the cabinet, that the drip pan rested on. It was oil-soaked and disintegrating- this machine is around seventy years old- so I scraped it off and tossed it. For a replacement, I had a near-new roll of Homey-Dee tool-drawer liner, and sliced off a few strips with a razor knife...



Which I then glued to the top rail with a few dabs of black RTV. It's not a "seal", it's really just an anti-vibration cushion.



Then, while I was waiting for help to manhandle the drip tray back into place, I pushed that loose key back in, shifted the pulley over on the shaft a tad to better line it up with the motor pulley, and tightened the setscrew back down.



I'll keep an eye on it and see if it works loose or goes for a walk again.

And, I got out some fresh Scotchbrite and some WD-40, and scrubbed the rust off the bedway as best I could.



It's better than it was, but there's still more faintly-visible staining than when I got it. Kind of mildly annoying- concrete evidence of ones' laziness always is- but of course doesn't affect accuracy or performance.

Finally, help arrived and we got the drip tray worried back into place. (It's tricky to get the sump and it's drain 'rotated' into place when there's only just enough room for it.)



Next up, several days of... more cleaning, sanding and painting! Yaaaay! (And there was much rejoicing.)

Doc.

[DocsMachine]

Gettin' down to the last of the big bits- and good thing, too, as there's supposed to be nasty wind and rain in the next couple of days.

Inside one of the doors is another paper info tag, listing the speed ranges of the belts. It's in better shape than the other- being actually readable- but I still can't remove it. Thinking I was going to hose the outside of the door with the Purple ZEP and pressure-wash it, I taped it over with a plastic grocery sack.



However, on a whim, I tried a simple razor blade scraper- and again, the green practically fell off.



It took about an hour per door, and six or seven blades each, but I was able to get it down to the original grey, the original primer, or even bare metal with little effort.



After that, a few moments with the DA got it buzzed down to baby-butt smooth- if your baby happens to be armor-plated, anyway.



Then just primed...



and painted!



The back panel I wasn't so worried about, but I still needed to tweak it a bit. The corners had been dinged at some point, and needed straightening out.



I also decided to cut a corner or two. Using a handy nickel- both appropriate, and being the lion's share of my remaining funds- I scribed a small radius at each corner of the panel.



A pistol-grip air sander made short work of buzzing those down to shape...



After which it, too, got scuffed (not even sanded) and painted.



While I had the paint out, I also masked off the drip rail and gave it the first coat as well.



I'll probably take the 4th more or less off- if you can call it that- but I'll still try and give each of those their second coat.

Happy 4th Of July!

Doc.

[Cal440]

That is coming along nicely Doc,looking good.

[DocsMachine]

Today's weather was pretty blustery- but thankfully not raining, yet- so most of the cookouts I'd heard of had been postponed 'til the weekend.

So, on this day off from work, what do I do? Yep, go back into the shop and work some more. Jack is indeed a dull boy.

Trying to clean off the benches a little, I finished cleaning the sump screen and dropped that into place.



And by 'finish cleaning', I mean I took a small hunk of wire and rodded out roughly a third of those itty-bitty holes, that were clogged with tiny chips or wads of what was basically mud.

With that arduous task out of the way, it was time to turn my attention to the headstock. I wanted to put a second coat on the doors and whatnot, so I figured I'd prep a few of the other bits and get a first coat on those, too.



Interestingly enough, the front cover- which is just sort of a... guard plate, I guess, was missing half its screws for some reason.



Same game as before- the loose stuff scraped off with a razor blade, the tough stuff ground out with a Scothbrite wheel, and the rest DA sanded.



The headstock had a number of nicks and dings, and I didn't want to grind off ALL the filler, so I touched it up here and there with some spot putty.



That too was sanded smooth, then the whole thing masked...



Primed...



And painted!



While I had the paint out, I prepped and painted the two belt covers...



And gave the chip-tray rails their second coat, after which I peeled off the masking tape.



Before wrapping things up for the afternoon, I cleaned up the 'guard ring' a little, filing off some of the dents and dings, and then since the face was so beat up, I gave it a light skim cut to smooth it up.



Friday's going to be busy for me, but hopefully Saturday I can shanghai some help again, and get the bed remounted to the cabinet. The doors and back panel should be properly dry, then, too- we won't be done this weekend, but it'll be close.

Doc.

[superman]

I am jealous of how productive you have been on that thing. What are your plans for it with so many lathes already kicking around?

[DocsMachine]

I am jealous of how productive you have been on that thing.

-Not to brag, but I try to be more or less 'this productive' on everything I do. It's just that I have so many different things I'm working on- too damn many, really- that often progress on any one of them doesn't always seem all that fast.

And, in this specific case, as I've mentioned, I'm dealing with limited time (personal and weather) the need to get back to other work, and the need to put THIS to work. I don't really have the luxury of being able to dawdle much.

What are your plans for it with so many lathes already kicking around?

-Like almost everything else, short-run production. I can't afford another CNC turning center (I could barely afford this, and I got a pretty good deal on it) and even if I could, most of the stuff I need to make, I need in such small numbers (20-50 at most) that it's kind of a waste to tool up and program the CNC.

I'm an old-school machinist. I grew up with the manual machines, and I'm still far more comfortable running one than I am anything CNC. So for a small run of bits, something like a small turret lathe is a quick fix- especially if I can be running something else in said CNC at the same time.

The big Warner & Swasey turret actually gets quite a bit of use, but it's often too big. It's great for pushing a 1/2" drill through steel, but rather overkill when trying to drill something with a 1/16".

This Rivett has a lighter, more sensitive feed for the turret, and a considerably faster spindle- 4,800 RPM vs. a top speed of just 1,400 on the W&S.

I have four or five small jobs already lined up for this machine- stuff I could do in the OmniTurn, but in such small numbers (20 of this one, 15 of that, etc.) that with a good turret, I could have them run and done in the time it'd take me to tool up the CNC.

Doc.

[DocsMachine]

What are your plans for it with so many lathes already kicking around?

-Kind of an addendum: For the most part, each one of those "so many lathes" serves a different purpose. I don't just have a row of identical lathes...

One's the CNC turning center, another is my homebrew conversion CNC that I made to learn on, one's a big 10HP monster I rarely use, one's a converted wood lathe just used for things like spin-polishing, another is a heavy turret lathe meant for production runs, and so on.

Trust me, if I could afford more CNCs, I'd sweep most of this manual stuff out in a heartbeat. But funding and availability (remember, I'm in Alaska) are pretty firm limitations to that sort of thing. Gotta do the best I can with what I have.

Doc.

[superman]

I was just curious. I figured you had multiple projects and one was machine was better than another. I also was wondering since getting the cnc if you were planning to do more production type work instead of smaller runs.

[DocsMachine]

Different capabilities, and having multiple machines so I can keep a larger/longer job set up and still do other work. And yeah, I'm leaning more towards production- I have been, one way or another, since the beginning- but not every job justifies time and material on the CNC.

Doc.

[DocsMachine]

Finally, the paint is dry on enough of these bits, we can start throwing this off-brand Erector set back together!

Easy stuff first- the back cover:



(Besides, it'd been sitting on my trash can, and I've been needing that. )

The end vent cover over the motor-generator...



And the little ID tag on the electrical box.



I hired some help to get the bed casting back in place- it sits on three of these jacking points, each with this little semi-hemispherical washer, which fits into matching recess on the bottom of the casting. That allows for a small bit of misalignment, so the adjusters can be used to level the bed.



After more fiddling than I care to relate, we got it socked down and the bolts placed.



Note how high the right-hand end is, by the gap under the "foot". I wanted to lower that down a little, to reduce that gap, so that chips and gunk wouldn't keep collecting under there. But, that meant there was now a distinct downhill slope to it. And to fix that, I had to raise the low end another half an inch.



I may revisit those feet eventually, but that should work for now.

I'd have thought that would throw off the level as measured at the chip tray, which was nominally level yesterday, but oddly enough, it was spot on, too. There were only a few places where this steel ball rolled in pretty much any direction.



Next up, I decided to attend this nasty dent in the right-hand door nameplate.



Some non-marring pliers and a small rawhide mallet, and I was able to gently massage it back to approaching straight-ish.



It attaches to the door with four shiny new stainless buttonhead 4-40 screws, and it damn near looks new again.



I then reinstalled the drawer slides and collet rack slide, before bolting the door back in place.



'Couple interesting bits: Those aren't actually drawers. They're old heavy steel... I guess small crates, made by a still-extant company called Pollard Bros. They make heavy-gauge industrial stuff like benches, stools and worktables. Somebody mounted some angle-iron 'rails' inside the cabinet so that the boxes can slide in on them, like drawers.

I also don't know if this thing ever had a collet rack like that from the factory- the wood, at least, on this one is shopmade, and a bit wonky. Some of the holes are pretty tight on the collets. I may have to make a new one at some point.

Anyway, I had to tweak the adjustment on that latch/detent thing a little, but now the door closes firmly and snugly.



The paint wasn't quite 100% dry on the headstock, but it was dry enough so that I could clean off the mating surfaces, spray a little LPS-3 in there and slide 'em together.



I chased out the bolt holes- remember, some of them had been empty and open for a time- cleaned up the screws (and found some extras) and bolted the shiny clean guard ring back in place.



I had earlier done a little bodywork to the sheetmetal protector cap, and primed and painted it, so that was easy to snap into place.



And, out of curiosity, I pulled the X/Y slides off the little Hardinge, and tried it on for size.



It doesn't "fit", at least not yet. The Hardinge uses a dovetail bed, while this Rivett has a more prismatic bed- more like a Weaver rail. I can mod the slides to fit, although that's one reason, as I said earlier, I kind of wish this had been a Hardinge- so I could more easily share tooling between them.

But, I'll have to make do. Once she's up and running, I'll start looking more closely into the tooling, and see what I have and can do there.

Anyway, that pretty much did it for the day:



Over the weekend, I hope to get the "rheostat" switch cleaned and painted, and the rest of the electricals hooked up. Then we can actually try this thing!

Doc.