Jerry Marcantel
08-07-2010, 12:32 AM
If some of you can remember when I first joined SMC, my first post was "I built a lathe stand", or something to that effect.. Any way, it was built for a Boice Crane lathe, which without the extension looks like it's a bowl lathe. The stand I built for it was from my old lumber racks I had when I was in business years back. The steel is 1/4 X 3" X 4". The stand is 80" long and the top of the stand is 34", pretty heavy, solid and IMO, perfect..
After getting the lathe to work, using a treadmill motor and all controls, I broke my neck . That slowed me down just a bit, and stopped me from painting the stand. In the meantime, I made some drawings of a pulley, and a spindle adapter from 1 X 14 tpi to 1 X 8 tp and took those over to a machine shop that had given me a lot or work in the past, and I felt I would return the favor. Instead, they told me I couldn't afford them, and said they would give the work to one of their employees. He made my adapter, and pulley, and I installed it on the BC lathe.
A few days later, the chuck I ordered from Toolnut arrived, and I set it up and tried to make something... I had big time wobble, I checked everything out. The spindle was reading true with a dial indicator, and the chuck body, a nova G3-D was showing .033" out on #3 jaw area, plus #3 jaw had .010" movement. I did all kinds of stuff to get the chuck true, but it still had wobble. I was starting to get disappointed, and disgusted with that BC lathe. It was once a good machine, but now it was outdated.
One day about 2 months ago I was on CL, and saw this lathe for sale for $50, and recognized it from a posting 2 months earlier for $100.. Since I was disgusted with the BC, I went over to where the lathe was, and got it. The tail stock was not the right one, and the lid for the pulley was missing, but I could live with that.
I have this friend here that has a welding shop, but also has a lathe and mill that he doesn't know how to use, so he let's me use it for my projects. I concentrated my time on making an adaptor for the tail stock. It needed to come up 1/2", so I got a piece of 3/4" steel, squared it up to size, and then set to milling 1/4" x 1 3/16" off each side of the steel to fit between the bed rails. That completed, I then made the lock washer? that locks the tailstock rigid. I also turned a couple of nuts thinner for the washer that locks the tail stock in place.
Now I needed a J 8 stepped pulley, 2"/4", and another seperate 2" J 8 pulley to fit on the motor.. That was a lot of fun because because I couldn't find any 4" aluminum at any of the recycle places in Tucson, so I used a piece of 3" long x 4" od steel he generously offered. I actually needed 3 1/4" but that was whatwas available. Turning the 10 grooves in the 4" was pretty easy, but turning the 4" down to the 2" part of the pulley was tedious to say the least. When I got it down to 2", and started the groove, I didn't have room for the 10th groove unless I relieved the side of the 4" pulley. I just didn't have the room for tool clearance, so I had to make a tool that that would allow me to remove 1/16" that would allow me to get my 10th groove. I managed that, and completed the pulley.
For those of you that don't know, a J 8 belt only has 8 grooves, and I was concerned with getting 10 grooves. Having those 2 extra groove allows me to adjust my motor .092" either direction, so now I can get perfect belt alignment.
After cutting the grooves, next was boring the 1 1/8" spindle hole for the pulley. That's a story all by itself, but I got the mission accomplished. I also made 5 tool rests, and another 2" aluminum pulley to attach to the existing 2" pulley on the motor. Got the parts home, and everything worked like it is supposed to, but this Delta Milwaukee has the belt coming up through spindle housing, so I had to make remount the motor.
Back to my friends shop, and 2 days later, I'm done...Took all the parts home, started to mount the motor, and realized that the motor wires needed to longer. I really didn't want to splice my wires, and with that thought in mind, I reasoned all DC motors will run in either direction. So I connected the circuit boards, and when I got to the red wire going to red, I connected it onto the black spade, and connected the black wire onto the black spade... Moment of truth is near, and all I needed to do was input the speed, and push the start key. Wow, it ran in the correct direction all of 3 seconds and went "pop". Oh oh...... I then connected the wires to the proper terminals, and punched in the speed and then start button. It ran about 1 1/2 seconds and "popped, and shut down. Oh crud, now I've done it..... I spent all this time making parts for my lathe and now I fried the circuit boards and possibly the motor. I took the boards into town hoping to find someone to test them. They checked out ok, so head back to the house, reconnect everything, and I'm good.
My dimensions indicated that a 47" belt would be perfect, but when I got over to the Belt and Bearing place, I was informed they don't make a J 8 belt at 47". Any size up to 46", skips to 54-57"?, and then any size larger than that, plus they didn't have any in stock. Went back home and checked, double checked and decided that 46" would work. I called the supplier and told him to order the belt. He said it would be in no later than today. I got it yesterday.
While waiting for the belt to arrive, I went ahead and took a belt off one of my compressors, a "V" belt, and used it until yesterday.... The lathe is very quite and chuck runs very true. The tredmill motor is 2 hp, and I can run the speeds as low as 50? rpm, on the 2 drive to 4" pulley, and with the 2"/2" I can run it at 3210 rpm with all the lower speeds in between...I'll try to ID the pictures in the morning. I did have them ID'd and then I lost the details of the pics..... For those of you who got this far, thanks for your willingness to read this long winded story. The lathe stand is still not painted. I have a friend who has a Auto paint/body shop that said to bring it down and we'll paint in in one of his boothes.... Life is good... ....Jerry (in Tucson)
After getting the lathe to work, using a treadmill motor and all controls, I broke my neck . That slowed me down just a bit, and stopped me from painting the stand. In the meantime, I made some drawings of a pulley, and a spindle adapter from 1 X 14 tpi to 1 X 8 tp and took those over to a machine shop that had given me a lot or work in the past, and I felt I would return the favor. Instead, they told me I couldn't afford them, and said they would give the work to one of their employees. He made my adapter, and pulley, and I installed it on the BC lathe.
A few days later, the chuck I ordered from Toolnut arrived, and I set it up and tried to make something... I had big time wobble, I checked everything out. The spindle was reading true with a dial indicator, and the chuck body, a nova G3-D was showing .033" out on #3 jaw area, plus #3 jaw had .010" movement. I did all kinds of stuff to get the chuck true, but it still had wobble. I was starting to get disappointed, and disgusted with that BC lathe. It was once a good machine, but now it was outdated.
One day about 2 months ago I was on CL, and saw this lathe for sale for $50, and recognized it from a posting 2 months earlier for $100.. Since I was disgusted with the BC, I went over to where the lathe was, and got it. The tail stock was not the right one, and the lid for the pulley was missing, but I could live with that.
I have this friend here that has a welding shop, but also has a lathe and mill that he doesn't know how to use, so he let's me use it for my projects. I concentrated my time on making an adaptor for the tail stock. It needed to come up 1/2", so I got a piece of 3/4" steel, squared it up to size, and then set to milling 1/4" x 1 3/16" off each side of the steel to fit between the bed rails. That completed, I then made the lock washer? that locks the tailstock rigid. I also turned a couple of nuts thinner for the washer that locks the tail stock in place.
Now I needed a J 8 stepped pulley, 2"/4", and another seperate 2" J 8 pulley to fit on the motor.. That was a lot of fun because because I couldn't find any 4" aluminum at any of the recycle places in Tucson, so I used a piece of 3" long x 4" od steel he generously offered. I actually needed 3 1/4" but that was whatwas available. Turning the 10 grooves in the 4" was pretty easy, but turning the 4" down to the 2" part of the pulley was tedious to say the least. When I got it down to 2", and started the groove, I didn't have room for the 10th groove unless I relieved the side of the 4" pulley. I just didn't have the room for tool clearance, so I had to make a tool that that would allow me to remove 1/16" that would allow me to get my 10th groove. I managed that, and completed the pulley.
For those of you that don't know, a J 8 belt only has 8 grooves, and I was concerned with getting 10 grooves. Having those 2 extra groove allows me to adjust my motor .092" either direction, so now I can get perfect belt alignment.
After cutting the grooves, next was boring the 1 1/8" spindle hole for the pulley. That's a story all by itself, but I got the mission accomplished. I also made 5 tool rests, and another 2" aluminum pulley to attach to the existing 2" pulley on the motor. Got the parts home, and everything worked like it is supposed to, but this Delta Milwaukee has the belt coming up through spindle housing, so I had to make remount the motor.
Back to my friends shop, and 2 days later, I'm done...Took all the parts home, started to mount the motor, and realized that the motor wires needed to longer. I really didn't want to splice my wires, and with that thought in mind, I reasoned all DC motors will run in either direction. So I connected the circuit boards, and when I got to the red wire going to red, I connected it onto the black spade, and connected the black wire onto the black spade... Moment of truth is near, and all I needed to do was input the speed, and push the start key. Wow, it ran in the correct direction all of 3 seconds and went "pop". Oh oh...... I then connected the wires to the proper terminals, and punched in the speed and then start button. It ran about 1 1/2 seconds and "popped, and shut down. Oh crud, now I've done it..... I spent all this time making parts for my lathe and now I fried the circuit boards and possibly the motor. I took the boards into town hoping to find someone to test them. They checked out ok, so head back to the house, reconnect everything, and I'm good.
My dimensions indicated that a 47" belt would be perfect, but when I got over to the Belt and Bearing place, I was informed they don't make a J 8 belt at 47". Any size up to 46", skips to 54-57"?, and then any size larger than that, plus they didn't have any in stock. Went back home and checked, double checked and decided that 46" would work. I called the supplier and told him to order the belt. He said it would be in no later than today. I got it yesterday.
While waiting for the belt to arrive, I went ahead and took a belt off one of my compressors, a "V" belt, and used it until yesterday.... The lathe is very quite and chuck runs very true. The tredmill motor is 2 hp, and I can run the speeds as low as 50? rpm, on the 2 drive to 4" pulley, and with the 2"/2" I can run it at 3210 rpm with all the lower speeds in between...I'll try to ID the pictures in the morning. I did have them ID'd and then I lost the details of the pics..... For those of you who got this far, thanks for your willingness to read this long winded story. The lathe stand is still not painted. I have a friend who has a Auto paint/body shop that said to bring it down and we'll paint in in one of his boothes.... Life is good... ....Jerry (in Tucson)