That little Southbend 9C lathe I picked up a couple months back is pretty nice all around, but the tailstock has seen better days. The part riding on the flat way is worn in rather deeply. Bad enough I've had to offset the ram nearly 1/8" to minimize taper. The obvious solution of course is to replace the worn piece, but that's Plan B right now. I was thinking to file/scrape down the worn side until flat and epoxy some shim stock in place. Good idea? Bad idea? Would that hurt the ways? Any better ideas? P.S. Anyone know of a steady rest available cheap?
Does this have a split tailstock? (If you could offset it, I presume that it does.) If so, put the shim stock between the base and the body of the tailstock, so it is not a friction item on your bed.
What shim material? With brass, probably not, unless it picks up abrasive swarf and turns into a lap. With steel shimstock, perhaps a bit of a problem, depending on how hard it is.
Mostly above.
You may wish to scrape or surface grind the bottom of the base true first -- more trouble there because you have to deal with the female 'V' way while doing this, but if it is that badly worn, you probably should do this anyway. I hope that it did not get this worn on
If you email me the approx dimensions of the bearing surfaces on the bottom of the tailstock and the amount you need to raise the tailstock, I'll send you some scraps of Turcite B or Garlock Multifil. These materials are made specifically for lining ways and can be scraped for alignment once epoxied in place.
The only downside I see to using them in this case is the fact they may compress a bit when the tailstock is clamped, but you can probably compensate for this by checking the alignment in the clamped condition.
Now is the time the " buy used American iron " guys will duck for cover- not only do you have a problem, but when you check prices for parts you will be shocked. I wager that the replacement parts for your tailstock will be nearly equal to a new import lathe.
Not so fast, we "buy used American iron" guys don't buy new parts, we go to eBay and buy used. There are plenty of parts there for used American iron, not so much for the Chiwanese machines. Right now there are 3 or
I would expect to pay the equivalent of about $20 for a piece of cast iron the right size to make a replacement (although I already have pieces the right size in the workshop) A bit of time with drill press and shaper, followed by a bit more time with the scraper and surface plate and the job is done.
Of course, I'm not a " buy used American iron " guy, I'm a " buy used British iron " guy, but the principle's the same :-)
Despite the problem with the tailstock, I can still cut without appreciable taper. Granted, I'm not building parts for NASA. The lathe I have was obviously treated very badly during its life, and it still feels quite a lot better to use than one of the imports. Just the other day I was playing with some carbide tooling and had steel flying off blue at a 0.010" cut. The last Chinalathe I played with would have stalled out.
I cant find Canadian iron but if i did i think my lathe would have to say Standard Modern and My mill would have ot say Excello
I like the idea or retiring solid equipment to my shop. Frequently just because its old doesnt make it worn out or obsolete. Machine tools can be replaced by automation or speed. Or due to an age based write off. If the company has depreciated the equipment to 0 and a more suitable replacement is available it is in their best interest to "retire" that old iron for essentially free or they lose part of the writeoff selling it for anything MORE than a dollar (Its costing them money to have it on the floor in the place of a more efficient peice)
I've seen this happen in some task specific industries like the mines where at the end of the length of a job (X number of years) all the equipment is officially depreciated to 0 because its not worth it for the owner to retool compared to liquidating it and letting the next owners "Make it fit"
Manual equipment being replaced by CNC or stuff from a closing factory old or not can be in beautiful shape and when retired into a non- production environment like prototyping or one off work can continue to work happily for decades.
Careful selection can make old tools have FAR more bang for the buck than new by getting a much larger and more rigid machine for the same price. The dark side is finding the right one and the time and effort involved as opposed to walking into a store and forklifting one out
My time was cheap I picked old iron too
Brent (My machine tools are double my age) Ottawa Canada
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