help with newly acquired lathe

I didn't think it even got down to 0F, figured 15 or 20 was as low as it got there.

All > Well when its at 0 F thats cold enough to make things stick. I have NO

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Excellent advisory. At Babin Machine Tools we keep the rebuilting faculty at consistantly

68 degree temperature. I learned this during my apprenticeship at Moore in the precision filling and painting department many years ago. SWMBO HILde and I spent our honeysmoon in Seneca Falls and conceived our first child there many only years ago. Your machine is older than that. Not modern to high speed mul;titasker turnings. You have a good lather there and the drive argament looks good. Don't get sidwedged to fix what's too already working. Happy Hollentdays! Al Babin & Sons ISO 9000 comliant job shop, rebuilting and refreshments to machinery tools, k-mART CASGHIER 312 BRISTOL, CUSTOM POOL CUES AND COVERS TO KEEP THE LEAVES OUT

I live here because I have yet to find a better place - particularly to the south

Ed's Red, or even straight ATF would be better

In principal this looks much like the drive on my SB 9 A - it does the job

Flat belts are good even if they don't look modern

Gerry :-)} London, Canada

It was 80F here Friday, and about 75F Saturday, with a little breeze.

The fog was pretty thick though at night coming in from L.A. 1.5 Stripe.

27 miles took me about an hour and a half, give or take.

Gunner

"Pax Americana is a philosophy. Hardly an empire. Making sure other people play nice and dont kill each other (and us) off in job lots is hardly empire building, particularly when you give them self determination under "play nice" rules.

Think of it as having your older brother knock the shit out of you for torturing the cat." Gunner

I feel real bad for you :) I have been in my garage (not my shop) for over a month in the evenings using a unisaw to make cabinets, you just can't get that slab of cast iron to warm up. here is a link to the caninets, Merry Christmas to my wife.

Hi Jim, thanks for your reply.

(my responses below...)

this lathe does have a micrometer dial on the crossfeed whatchamacallit.

you know, i think this has already been to this lathe. the levers and handles on the "saddle"(?) all behave oddly and one of the bolts holding one of the gears (inside) wobbles when the handles are turned back and forth.

thanks very much for hte words of warning.

i was astounded when i saw the pictures (w/ treadles) of it in the link Gary Owens provided earlier in this thread.

thing, after seeing those pictures i started to have a very faint vague recollection i've seen those treadle pedals somewhere before but can't place where. i'm afraid there's a possibility that MAYBE i saw the treadle pedals somewhere in the basement of the house where i got the lathe. got the lathe from the widow of a guy who used to belong to a eaa chapter i belonged to. she donated the lathe. she didn't even go down into teh basement with me when i went to pick it up to show me what's what. i collected up everything i could see that wsa obviously belonging to the lathe in the general area that the lathe occupied (in the crowded and disorganized basement) and may have seen the treadle pedals somewhere down there but, and i'm only guessing that this is what happened, it was a while ago, disregarded them as belonging to the lathe. that would be SAD, because i'm imagining the family of the lady (she died not very long after i picked up the lathe) rented a dumpster and loaded all the "junk" in teh basement into it. sad that the original parts of this lathe got seperated from it!

the headstock bearings in this lathe are bronze. i shined them up with steel wool. look nice. thing is though, between the chuck and headstock someone chopped off the bronze and put in a (ball?) thrust bearing (or what i assume is a thrust bearing).

when i opened up the caps on the bearings there were paper shims in there. i'm thinking i'm going to cut up an aluminum soda can and use it to shim the bearings.

thanks for the heads up.

wow! cool photos! thanks for posting the links! i don't know why it didn't occur to me until long after my original post but i finally went out and did some searches on the web and found some other links. i didn't bookmark them so i have to go back to find them but if you don't already know about them i'll find them and post them here.

after wiping off the crud i finally noticed the serial numbers stamped on the bed, like you said. serial number 4793. cast into the bed are dates

1885, 1889, 1895, 1896, and last Apr. 14, 1896. i would like to know about when this lathe was made.

thanks.

b.w.

-snip-

thanks. my intent is to go to a power transmission shop and get a (contiuous) reinforced rubber flat belt to put on the step pulleys (instead of the laced leather belt) i am assuming the rubber can transmit more power than the leather. (and look cool too)

-snip-

b.w.

-snip-

thanks, this tailstock ram doesn't have one of those slots. (am familiar w/ that, my drill press has one)

huh! it feels like MAYBE the screw is just BARELY touching the back of the taper. i'll have to do some experimenting. thanks for the tip! (pretty sure i read at one of the various websites about Star lathes that they do in fact have "self ejecting whatchamacallits" on their tailstocks)

thanks. picked up some PB Blaster at the hardware store last night. am feeling like i don't want to spend $15 for a can of Kroil. (i was figuring the Kroil/WD-40 thing was just marketing :-) reminds me of a line from "naked lunch" how people think exterminator applied insecticides are more effective if they smell bad, Kroil smells worse than WD-40 hence it works better. :-) was surprised PB Blaster is orange! figured that's just marketing too. i thought they say WD-40 "displaces" moisture.) (i'm teasing.) ( i can't be sure but it does seem as if the PB blaster does work better than WD-40)

thanks for the tip.

thanks. that casting is unnecessarily heavy, would like to use something lighter. some of my other equipment use the same belt-tension arrangement (weight of motor keeps tension on the belt)

did you see the photos in the link posted by Gary Owens? originally this lathe was treadle powered (wow). surprising that the belt actually went down!!

this lathe has the spaces in the legs for the treadle pivot and the holes for the flywheel shaft. guess they had some spry and wiry machinists in the old days huh?

to me it seems as if the casting was made by a different manufacturer at a later date and cobbed on, the diameters of the step pulleys aren't the same as the diameters of the step pulleys on the lathe.

:-) oh. just curious.

-snip-

:-) probably. would like to get a nice (spoked) "v" belt pulley anyhow.

thanks!

b.w.

Probably sometime after mine was made, as the S/N on it is 2537.

One would also suspect yours is younger based on the micrometer dial, and the more modern-looking controls and handles on it.

You probably should replace the paper shims in the headstock with metal ones, if it's like mine they will be quite narrow. I seem to recall the shims were about 1/8 inch wide by an inch or so long, I stuck them on with grease to be sure they would not shift and wind up between the spindle and the bronze bearing when assembling.

Jim

That's it's primary use, but (very unlike WD-40), it does lubricate. Air tools absolutely love it.

Yes, if it's wiped away after use. Otherwise it keeps it right there in the neighborhood. The best use for WD-40 is for juicing crappie lures. I don't know why it works, but it sure does.

Could you elaborate on that? You mean spraying WD40 on, say, a silver spoon lure makes it more attractive to fish?

Yup..particularly those little crappie rigs and rubber worms. Catfish are also attracted to it.

Gunner

"Pax Americana is a philosophy. Hardly an empire. Making sure other people play nice and dont kill each other (and us) off in job lots is hardly empire building, particularly when you give them self determination under "play nice" rules.

Think of it as having your older brother knock the shit out of you for torturing the cat." Gunner