Dissolving crud

Environmentally incorrect as I am, I use paint thinner (Stoddard solvent; mineral spirits). My SB 10L needed the same treatment when I got it 20 years ago. And I had to get the Cosmoline off of maybe 40 lb. of accessories, which were still in their original wrappings since WWII. The paint thinner wasn't quite as fast as gasoline, but it was a lot more tolerable in my basement -- with the windows open.

Ed Huntress

Sure fire way to do this is to pull the apron off, remove the cover plate in back, and scrape the crap out. While you are in there, see about replacing the felt lubrication wicks. Also be absolutely sure that the oilers that should be there are all present, and all of them have the covers in place.

That's the start of the road to the end when the spring loaded covers get busted off, and the oilers get clogged up with swarf. Also the wicks get loaded up with junk and no longer lube the shafts in the apron. Then things start to wear.

Jim

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Try your local paint shop for a solvent with methylene chloride. Or ask at a dry cleaners for a little dry cleaning solvent. Another idea is liquid drain cleaner, warmed up it will work, wear gloves and goggles.

Uh oh.....

The drain cleaners Im familiar with are caustic, likely most of them will mean certain death to a variety of the non ferrous metals, aluminum and babbit metal included.........

On the cheap, diesel will usually go a long ways in dissolving various petroleum deposits--from what I recall, most general purpose greases are simply oil, with a cornstarch thickener.

Ive had good luck with laquer thinner, it seems to usually be a mix of several of the other solvents already mentioned in this thread--avoid prolonged contact with paint and certain rubber-type materials.

BTW : For a ( very ) quick and easy ( however expensive ) method to clean stubborn crud and grease from small parts and the like, nothing beats ethyl ether, commonly sold in a spray can as starter fluid..........

Dont use volatile solvents in areas where might concentrate near a source of ignition by flame or spark--this includes gas pilot lights as well as motor contactors and even light switches.....and dont light up a smoke while engulfed in a vapor of them either.

Consider this:

Not only is it a very good gun cleaner, but works very very well on machine tools

Gunner

"To be civilized is to restrain the ability to commit mayhem. To be incapable of committing mayhem is not the mark of the civilized, merely the domesticated." - Trefor Thomas

Thankfully they're all there- but I don't think the lathe recently got much oil in the works- a couple of the oilers on the gearbox were still sealed by the last oddball paintjob. OTOH, all the oilers are sucking the oil right in- I've not checked to see if any of them are letting it pour straight out either... we'll see.

Gregm

If the oil cups are at all deteriorated you can find replacements, *very* inexpensively, in mcmaster car or MSC. There is no nicer way to dress up a machine than to remove all the paint-encrusted oilers and drive or screw new ones in place.

The gearbox oilers (if this is a two tumber one, there will be two) are really pretty much total loss. In fact, that entire machine is total loss. All the lube you put into it, will eventually either wind up on the floor or in the chip pan. Nature of the beast really.

Yes there will be some oil in the headstock reserviors (the lower plugs allow you to drain out the spooge that settles in there) and in the carriage there is the small pocket of goop above the drain plug - as you have recognized! :^)

If everything is working correctly, oiling carriage at the designated points will cause the exposed shaft ends, and the traverse handwheel shaft, to start to weep oil. That means that the wicks are doing their job at keeping them moist.

Jim

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I pulled the carriage, found and removed the cover plate from the back of the apron. The gunk wasn't too bad really, the oil had solidified into something similar to bearing grease with a liberal dosing of chips, dirt, etc packed into every crevice... Cleared out all the gunk, the wicks seem to be in tolerable condition- consistent shape along the length, not too much fraying, no loose ends flopping around. OTOH, the half nuts look moderately bad. I'll probably go with them until I have a list of stuff that needs replacing.

The gearbox is the older style with the shift lever on top, and a single sliding selector lever along with bottom- making this a "one tumbler" version I imagine. It has an oiler at each end of every shaft, including the input shaft from the geartrain and the leadscrew. All the shaft ends weep only a little bit of oil- and the wick on the input feedscrew looks like its working OK.

I haven't tried the headstock drains- the unit was entirely dry when I got it. Had to put a fair bit of oil in. I'll have a look at that next.

The compound is a bit of a mess though, the front edge is all beat up. Kind of makes me glad I didn't get the chuck that did it.... I discovered 2 setscrews driven in one on top of the other in the cross feed dial. I guess the first one just wasn't good enough...

Gregm

The wear on the half nuts doesn't matter *that* much of course, because they're loaded all in the same direction during the cut. Just keep your eyes/ears peeled for a replacement set.

Ah, so this is the venerable single-tumbler type. The top shift lever should have a tiny hole in it, and that hole should have a tiny brass or bronze plug in it, to keep the chips out. Polish for effect...

Then it also has the 'sliding gear' on the far left side of the headstock to switch ranges.

The first heavy ten I owned was like this. It was a great machine for what I paid for it, even though it was pretty worn. It responded nicely to a bit of TLC. The single biggest improvement I did to it was to install an NOS large-dial crossfeed screw and nut. At the suggestion of a co-worker I also drained and flushed the headstock reservoirs and began running Mobil One synthetic engine oil in them - a practice I continue today with my newer

10L.

If the compound is only in a bit of a mess then the machine is pretty nice. Most of them do get chewed up a bit over the years.

Jim

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Sometimes one set screw on top of another is used to make sure the first one doesn't back or vibrate out. That wouldn't make much sense if the set screw is used to tighten a resetable dial, though.

A cursory look showed a few nicks in the threads, nothing really bad, they just look a little tired if you will.

The hole's there and now isn't packed solid with crud.

In what way is the synthetic oil better than plain old 10W30 oil? Not that I'm opposed to using it, just curious.

The jury's still out on the ways. Theres some battering of the inner V and flat up near the headstock but the saddle ways are more or less smooth. Under the headstock, the (presumably) hand scraping is quite apparent, but I guess its worn off the ways. The top edges of the V ways look nice and crisp. The saddle is a bit looser up at the headstock than down at the tail- but not too much, but theres still a load of surface crud to deal with. We'll see soon enough...

I'm increasingly thinking I have a frankenlathe 10L. There are 2 different oddball paintjobs; headstock, bed, cabinet is one flaking mess, the gearbox is a different flaking mess, the saddle & tailstock still have the original paint (I think). On the plus side, what I thought was surface rust was only dust (what, were they cutting bricks?)

Gregm

OK there's a considerable lore out there. You will find folks who say *never* use engine oil in plain bearing machines like that, because it is invariably detergent oil. The claim is that detergent oils will either a) pull water out of the air, or b) keep dirt in suspension in the oil and wear the bearings faster.

Why I use it: there is a procedure for adjusting the plain bearings in the headstock. Basically it involves measuring the spindle clearance and then removing shim until the clearance is in some specified range.

On my older 10L (see photo below) I adjusted to spec and the spindle would heat and bind up when it was run at the top speed for any length of time, when using south bend's spindle oil. Right straight from the SB can it was....

My co-worker made the suggestion and I dutifully pulled the drain plugs, filled and drained a few times, and then re-filled with Mobil One 5-30, which is the silver cap. That cured my heating and binding problem.

Since then I've drained and flushed the oil about once per year. Interestingly I had figured that the older machine maybe had poor surface finish on the bearings, so when I got my newer 10L I put more of the SB oil in. Same problems re-occured, so I swiched to Mobil One in that machine too.

I've never seen any wear crop up in the spindle bearings in the years I've had the machine. My guess is that the bearings are effectively total loss, so whatever particulate matter is suspended rapidly gets flushed away. I've never seen any water evidence either.

Probably looks better than my old 10L:

Granted not a good photo, but it was an ugly machine. FWIW you *can* visualize the tiny plug in the upper gearchange lever on top of the gearbox. You should turn up a bit to stuff in there, as that location is prone to fallout....

The newer 10Ls with dual tumblers of course don't have that:

Best of luck on your new prize!

Jim

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I also use double setscrews to keep crud out of the threads on a machine for easier disassembly later. One strange thing, though. On my forklift to hold the mast chain roller shafts, two setscrews were used, but one was a strange affair about 1/8" long with the hex all the way through. I have worked with machinery all my life and never run into this one. Anyone else ever seen this type, and know why that particular type is used? They are a bitch to start back into the hole, because they slip back down the hex key ( Allen wrench).

RJ

I have seen that type of stacked set screw arrangment on farm equipment. The reason behind the hex all the way thru is so you don't need to back the first one all the way out to loosen the inner one. (that presumes you know there is an inner one) Steve

McMaster-Carr sells those "hollow" set screws, I think. They'd be handy if you have to lube whatever the set screw is supposed to hold.

Yeah, that was part of the issue. I was working blind up into a greasy vertical hole, about six inches off the floor, on my knees, uncomfortable as hell, when the short part came out. At first I thought the setscrew had broken off. I thought, "Oh sh*t, this is gonna be fun!". Went back into the hole and found another setscrew. I replaced the hollow ones with standard setscrews that extend to the surface to keep crud out of the threads.

RJ

Sounds fine to me, I'll give it a whirl. I was just fiddling with the headstock and was unable to find anything that looked drainplug-like, is the oil drained by unscrewing the oilers and tipping the headstock?

Yep- yours is indeed uglier. Do you find the location of the motor switch convienent? I have the same style arm, but no room to mount it, so I was thinking of some kind of pushbutton/contactor arrangement with the box someplace easier to locate.

After pulling the saddle and cleaning it, I now get a nice smooth traverse along the bed with no tight spots. Plus I managed to take the whole thing down and reassemble single handed without destroying anything- (first time around I made the skid its sitting on too high). Maybe I should call in sick tomorrow and get the drivetrain rolling. :)

Thanks- this is my upgrade from an Atlas 6". In comparision, the 10L is an awesome piece of work, and its at the upper limit of what I can hump around in the basement. At one point I bid on a 6 foot Clausing

12" and man am I ever glad I didn't win that one!

Gregm

They might be painted over, but there will be two pipe plugs near each oil cup - one above, and one below. In this photo they are visible as black dots, on the right the lower one is apparent, and on the left, the uppermost one.

I made up a screw in fitting with a short section of hose to allow me to drain the oil out without getting it all over everything.

In my newer lathe, the drum switch goes on the gear guard of the headstock as is apparent in the photo above. While the older machine's switch was OK, I do find the one on the headstock more convenient. And, I think it is somewhat safer not having to cross the spinning workpiece to operate it.

Yep, a six inch atlas is basically a bicycle. The 10L is a full size F150 pickup truck.

Jim

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