Powermatic 45 restoration project

[Doug Morgan]

I am not a weatherman so I could not predict the weather today. I took a safe route and cleaned and polished a bunch of parts.

I took the parts that I wanted to polish and really went to town on them.
Polish 2.jpgpolish.jpg
Later I continued to polish more parts as seen in the next picture, these along with cleaning a bunch.
lots of clean parts.jpg

These parts are not finished by any means of the imagination, but any step forward is a good step. I did love the shaft for the variable speed being polished. It turned out sweet!

IMG_1399.jpg
Check out the rusted pulley in the above pic then the look at the pic above that for that same pulley!

I also took the time to clean the holes in the variable speed mounting bracket.
Hole original.jpg

You can see that the holes were not clean in the picture. I took a rat tail file and cleaned out every hole.
Hole1.jpg
clean holes.jpg

[Tony Zaffuto]

I got a Powermatic 45 at a school auction about 6 or 7 years ago. Was 3 phase, and I simply replaced the motor.

Mine is also missing the indexing plunger, but, I don't miss it. Mine is also missing the Powermatic name plate/badge.

When you speak of missing the wrench, what wrench do you mean?

[Doug Morgan]

I got a Powermatic 45 at a school auction about 6 or 7 years ago. Was 3 phase, and I simply replaced the motor.

Mine is also missing the indexing plunger, but, I don't miss it. Mine is also missing the Powermatic name plate/badge.

When you speak of missing the wrench, what wrench do you mean?

There are 2 wrenches that came stock with the lathe. One was the wrench to tighten the tailstock, and the other was the faceplate wrench. Both of these are difficult to find. The indexing plunger for the powermatic 45 is $62.00 as an assembly.

[Tony Zaffuto]

$62.00 for the plunger assembly!!!!! I only paid $35.00 for my lathe!

[Baxter Smith]

Looking good! Good luck with it.

[Doug Morgan]

I got a Powermatic 45 at a school auction about 6 or 7 years ago. Was 3 phase, and I simply replaced the motor.

Mine is also missing the Powermatic name plate/badge.

Do you still have the 3 phase motor? Just curious.
Also is yours a Variable Speed or step pulleys?
As for the name plate you can take a photo to a someone who does silk screening and have them silk screen an image onto tin or aluminum and with a little work have a new plate. I contacted a friend of mine who is going to do that for me. I cleaned up an scan of the original plate and it will be a actual size (since I scanned it in and verified it to be a 1:1 ratio of the original). The model number is easy but the serial number is the difficult one. As I understand it the serial number is in a X-YYYY, X being the year it was made and Y being the number of the lathe. Mine has a 4 for the year (1964) and the serial number.
powermatic Photoshop.jpg

[Doug Morgan]

A fellow woodworker sent me this last night. It put in perspective the work I am doing and a Smile on my face .
pm45.jpg
These prices would be a representation of the Powermatic 45 in 1997. He told me to multiply these by 1.2% to get 2011 prices. LOL

[Doug Morgan]

$62.00 for the plunger assembly!!!!! I only paid $35.00 for my lathe!

Yep thats what they are asking for a unit that is no longer in production. My father-in-law is rebuilding a 1936 Ford 3 window coupe and talk about prices on NOS!

[Doug Morgan]

Looking good! Good luck with it.

Thank you Baxter, I will continue to post pictures of my unit as things progress. Today I hope to finish stripping the the paint from the bed and have that ready for priming.

[Julian Tracy]

Here's mine:
http://juliantracy.com/Powermatic%2045%20lathe/

I understand the gold isn't for everyone, but I'm not much for puke green either... The gold is obviously a little shinier than I prefer, but it was the closest I could find on the rack to Powermatic yellow and I did a test on the door first and that didn't look so darn "shiny". Than I painted the whole darn thing and it was like "Ooops! - that's kindof loud!" But what the heck - it's painted and it's in use and it sure looks like a gem in my dreary (not really) basement workshop.

Mine was already converted to a simple step pulley system with 4 steps. I added a small pulley to motor shaft to get me down to I think 2-300 rpm as opposed to the 4-500 minimum with the smallest of the 4-step pulley steps.

Solid as a rock and had new bearings when I bought it. I see no use in powdercoating a large ww lathe - it's not like the paint's gonna take a beating, but then I just like to get my tool restorations done in a day or two and start using them. Have too many projects to make them month long endeavors.

Good luck on yours.

Julian

[Doug Morgan]

Here's mine:
http://juliantracy.com/Powermatic%2045%20lathe/

I understand the gold isn't for everyone, but I'm not much for puke green either... The gold is obviously a little shinier than I prefer, but it was the closest I could find on the rack to Powermatic yellow and I did a test on the door first and that didn't look so darn "shiny". Than I painted the whole darn thing and it was like "Ooops! - that's kindof loud!" But what the heck - it's painted and it's in use and it sure looks like a gem in my dreary (not really) basement workshop.

Mine was already converted to a simple step pulley system with 4 steps. I added a small pulley to motor shaft to get me down to I think 2-300 rpm as opposed to the 4-500 minimum with the smallest of the 4-step pulley steps.

Solid as a rock and had new bearings when I bought it. I see no use in powdercoating a large ww lathe - it's not like the paint's gonna take a beating, but then I just like to get my tool restorations done in a day or two and start using them. Have too many projects to make them month long endeavors.

Good luck on yours.

Julian

As long as you like the color nothing else matters. I want to restore it to original so I am painting it the original green. I love your tool holder. It really dresses up that area of the lathe and is quite functional.

[Don Jarvie]

Tip for cleaning holes. Buy a couple of wire brushes used to clean copper pipes before soldering them. Take one and cut off the handle and chuck it in your drill. Cleans the rust out very quickly. Use the other one by hand.

[Doug Morgan]

Tip for cleaning holes. Buy a couple of wire brushes used to clean copper pipes before soldering them. Take one and cut off the handle and chuck it in your drill. Cleans the rust out very quickly. Use the other one by hand.

Your timing is fantastic. I am quickly coming to that phase of the project. Thank you....

[Doug Morgan]

Getting discouraged on the progress here. Its taking more time than I really care to, for the removal of paint on the underside of the bed. There are more corners than the entire rest of the machine. Sandblasting just comes back and hits me in the face due to the inside corners. Chemical stripper has taken a lot of time and effort with small advances.
underside of bed.jpg
Wire brushes on drills cannot get into corners. Wire hand brushes take a very long time and cramps the hand and if there is chemical stripper then you end up getting burned if not careful. Any suggestions?

[Julian Tracy]

Looks clean enough to me. No one will EVER look into those corners - cut yourself a break. Unless you like tedious useless work...

JT