Category: YouTube

In this episode of the 1941 South Bend lathe restoration/refurbishment saga, I disassemble the apron. The apron has several gears and levers that are used to move the saddle and cross slide. A number of these parts are held together with taper pins that can only come out one way, unless the are busted in multiple pieces and no longer line up with the holes. The ride on the struggle bus was not always fun.

I disassemble, with a little trouble, the single tumbler quick change gear box on my 1941 13″ South Bend lathe. The gear box allows you to control the speed the lead screw rotates, in relationship to the speed of the spindle. This allows you to accurately cut threads for screws, bolts and nuts as well as adjust the feed rate for facing and turning operations. I had a bit of trouble with some seized parts and things got a little hot.

In this video, I disassemble and clean the main gear train. These gears take power from the spindle and feed the input to the quick change gear box that ultimately powers the lead screw. These gears also include the reversing lever that can disconnect power to the lead screw as well as reverse its direction. I wasn’t able to fully disassemble some of the gears since I don’t have a press large enough to press out a few gear shafts. I believe I can still clean all of the parts that need cleaned.

Next in the disassembly and teardown queue for this lathe was the cross slide. Only a few pieces to it. This lathe had been retrofitted with a larger 250 thousands dial, thus the feed screw and nut were “adapted” for an 8 TPI threaded screw. No real surprises here, except for the dial locking screw was not what it should be. I’m replacing it with a knurled thumb screw and a brass shoe after everything is painted.

Started the tear down of the carriage with the compound. The compounds sits atop the cross slide and serves to add another layer of control when cutting on a lathe (i.e. tapers, screwcutting, etc.). I’m just covering the disassembly in this video. I’ll paint it before it goes back together.

This is the second of two welding squares I drew using Fusion 360 and then had cut on the waterjet at the CWRU Thinkbox maker space. Just a simple video of what steps I took to tack it together and weld it up. The welds aren’t perfect, but it is square. And practice, practice, practice.

Get the DXF files here:
Standard square: https://www.etsy.com/listing/1079117806/welding-square-dxf-files-for
Multi square: https://www.etsy.com/listing/1093722018/welding-multi-square-dxf-files-for

A quick win for this week. Tore down and cleaned up the thread chasing dial. This dial engages with the lead screw and is used to assist the operator in lining up the cutter when making multiple threading passes. Not much to it.

In this short video, I tackle cleaning and reassembling the 3 jaw chuck. This is a Westcott chuck, that thankfully was modified to come apart easier, but doesn’t look like anyone ever did. There was so much greasy gunked up swarf inside this chuck, I am surprised it even opened or closed.

Decided to start “simple” and rebuild the tailstock. Such a seemingly simple object is comprised of quite a few pieces. I used a refurbishing guide I got from eBay (link below) along with a kit of consumables to rebuild the lathe. Although the book doesn’t have every detail of every difference on these lathes, there’s enough there to make disassembly and reassembly possible.