Picked up an old lathe (2 Viewers)

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Spook50

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So yesterday I bought this old Craftsman lathe. I think it's a 109, but can't find any pics of one that's totally identical. 109 seems to be the closest match to this one though. Need to find a tailstock that'll hold an MT2 or MT1 arbor so I can put a chuck on it and be able to drill out copper and bronze stock. Lubricate everything and just clean it up, but everything looks true (by eyeballing) and it runs. Going to take my dial gauge to it once I get it mounted to my steel top work bench and see just how far out it is if at all. Looking forward to getting this running so I can work on building and restoring old DC motors.

Edit: Turns out it IS a 109. Found a tag covered in gunk that shows it's a 109.21270

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Before I go crazy using it for the side hustle I'm hoping to do, I'm going to work on restoring and updating it so it'll hold its own against modern benchtop lathes and give good results in any custom work I wanna do.

Also turns out this puppy was manufactured in 1949! Now I REALLY want to get it fixed up nice because I love antiques like this and restoring them.
 
nice! how are the ways? were they hand-scraped originally, if you can tell?
 
nice! how are the ways? were they hand-scraped originally, if you can tell?
Still learning the terminology so I had to look that up lol. As far as I can tell there's no obvious wear on the ways and everything runs smoothly, just sticky from way old grease and oil. I need to figure out if there's a way I can replace the bushings on the main spindle with actual bearings. Would have to machine out the races and I don't know if there's enough bed to do it, so might be stuck using bushings still, IF the originals need to be replaced. It looks like it was very well taken care of; just stored for many many years.
 
That's cool. I've got an old Craftsman 101 lathe. Mine was built in the 40's too by Atlas. I have had to replace a few parts on mine and have been able to get them all from Clausing.
 
nice! how are the ways? were they hand-scraped originally, if you can tell?

Lathe bed ways are generally precision ground not scraped. The dove tails in the cross slide and compound are scraped to run true and retain oil.

A good question to ask is the condition of the lead screw. The first foot closest to the head stock will show wear on a tired lathe.

The good news is plenty of parts out there.

Congrats on your lathe Spook50!
 
Bringing this back up because my tinkering with my blower motor parts motivated me to get this set up at least for some temporary use, but I need to get a considerable amount of cleanup done. There's recently been a lot of videos uploaded to YouTube (Hand Tool Rescue posted a restoration of a 109 just over a year ago, so that timing was fortuitous) so I've been able to learn a lot about the working of this. I got the chuck off a few nights ago. It's a 6" Cushman 3506; 3-jaw scroll chuck on a backing plate. I got it dismantled as fer as I could get it, degreased and washed it thoroughly, and stuck it in some EvapoRust for a couple hours. With the exception of a couple small spots it cleaned up beautifully. I managed to get the spindle out (damn small; only 14mm diameter with a 1/2-20 threaded end) but the backing plate for the chuck has some thick corrosion and was seized to the spindle. After heating it up with my MAPP torch and spraying some water where it's threaded on a few times, it came right off. The plate is soaking in the EvapoRust right now so I've been looking at the other parts tonight.

Headstock.jpg


The spindle appears straight with hardly any noticeable wear, but I see someone on eBay makes a solid heat treated spindle that's much stronger so I may just replace with that shortly. There was also no play or obvious wear in the bushings the spindle rides in either. I would still like to (ideally) replace them with sealed angular contact bearings, but I can't find anything with a 14mm ID at this point. Only 12mm and 15mm. Also in the plans is a more stable cross slide since chatter is a very common complaint attributed to the original cross slides and tool holders on these, and a DC treadmill motor with a speed control so I won't need to play around with pulley or the planetary gear assembly to change speeds.
 
Watching intently. Love me some lathes.

A 6" chuck on that small of a lathe seems enormous to me. My smaller lathe chuck is a 6" 3 jaw scroll like yours, and it's handy, but it's not that small, lol. The spindle on my machine is L00, so significantly larger than yours.
 
Watching intently. Love me some lathes.

A 6" chuck on that small of a lathe seems enormous to me. My smaller lathe chuck is a 6" 3 jaw scroll like yours, and it's handy, but it's not that small, lol. The spindle on my machine is L00, so significantly larger than yours.
It's a fun learning process, especially since I have mechanical skills but am starting from square one when it comes to machining.
The 6"chuck is definitely beefy (bigger than the entire headstock assembly in the first pic), and HEAVY. Based on its static weight alone I would like to go ahead and get the solid spindle to avoid warping over time. OTOH as long as this has sat, if this spindle is still true I shouldn't have to be concerned. As big as the chuck is though, if that's still close to true I'll keep using it since the extra weight will hopefully provide some resistance to vibration when in use. Ideally though I'd like to find a 4 jaw independent chuck that I can thread in to the spindle and it's large enough to hold the armature of my old DC motors.
 
I have two small(ish) lathes, one 1949 South Bend 9 (which would later be rebranded a 9C), which I'm restoring and a late 70's vintage Myford Super 7 (which is being used to rebuild the SB9). I looked long and hard (and jealously at Johnny's, which is large enough to do anything on) at Atlas/Craftsman lathes before I bought the others. I settled on them because I couldn't find an Atlas/Craftsman or SB light 10 I wanted, for a price I was willing to pay. Oddly enough, the guy I bought the Myford from had a Craftsman 10 sitting beside it; he wasn't interested in selling.

Anyway, during my research, I came to the opinion that when I rebuilt whatever I bought (I had no expectations of finding a mint working lathe - the Myford surprised me), I came to the conclusion that a small lathe like the 109 wouldn't benefit from anything but the OEM bushing design, unless a larger spindle was subbed in for the original. Just something to ponder as you upgrade. FWIW, my opinion is based on my 30+ years of machine design and my 4+ working in a machine rebuild shop.

Congrats on the lathe! Keep the photos coming. Oh, and BTW, Napa has a deal on drive belts.
 
I have two small(ish) lathes, one 1949 South Bend 9 (which would later be rebranded a 9C), which I'm restoring and a late 70's vintage Myford Super 7 (which is being used to rebuild the SB9). I looked long and hard (and jealously at Johnny's, which is large enough to do anything on) at Atlas/Craftsman lathes before I bought the others. I settled on them because I couldn't find an Atlas/Craftsman or SB light 10 I wanted, for a price I was willing to pay. Oddly enough, the guy I bought the Myford from had a Craftsman 10 sitting beside it; he wasn't interested in selling.

Anyway, during my research, I came to the opinion that when I rebuilt whatever I bought (I had no expectations of finding a mint working lathe - the Myford surprised me), I came to the conclusion that a small lathe like the 109 wouldn't benefit from anything but the OEM bushing design, unless a larger spindle was subbed in for the original. Just something to ponder as you upgrade. FWIW, my opinion is based on my 30+ years of machine design and my 4+ working in a machine rebuild shop.

Congrats on the lathe! Keep the photos coming. Oh, and BTW, Napa has a deal on drive belts.
I'm seeing your point on the bushing versus bearing argument. The bushings in there are nearly 30mm long, and the only bearings I can find for a 14mm shaft are needle bearings (which are rated for way more force and RPM than this lathe would ever do) that are only 16mm long. Based on stability, I'm thinking not only are you right by not benefiting from a conversion to bearings, but for as lightweight as this lathe is, the bushings would actually be better in the long run. Only issue really is cost, where the needle bearings would be $44 plus shipping, but the bushings are ~$120 for a pair. I might have to do a little more research. Before completely making up my mind. If nothing is LOST by covering to bearings, it might end up being a more cost effective solution.

As far as USING the lathe, do you have any experience turning segmented commutators?
 
I'm seeing your point on the bushing versus bearing argument. The bushings in there are nearly 30mm long, and the only bearings I can find for a 14mm shaft are needle bearings (which are rated for way more force and RPM than this lathe would ever do) that are only 16mm long. Based on stability, I'm thinking not only are you right by not benefiting from a conversion to bearings, but for as lightweight as this lathe is, the bushings would actually be better in the long run. Only issue really is cost, where the needle bearings would be $44 plus shipping, but the bushings are ~$120 for a pair. I might have to do a little more research. Before completely making up my mind. If nothing is LOST by covering to bearings, it might end up being a more cost effective solution.

As far as USING the lathe, do you have any experience turning segmented commutators?
I'm sure someone would be glad to turn the bushings for you... for much less than $120

as for the commutators, not yet...but these lathes, especially the SB9s were marketed for it. Why do you ask?
 
Copper is soft and gummy, so a real positive carbide insert, or a sharp HSS tool should cut cleanly.

Also (this should go without saying) but since it's a rotor, make sure to turn it between centers.
 
I'm sure someone would be glad to turn the bushings for you... for much less than $120

as for the commutators, not yet...but these lathes, especially the SB9s were marketed for it. Why do you ask?
True, the bushings are a pretty simple design and wouldn't be difficult, especially if I can find sintered bronze stock.

I ask about the commutators because that's one of my plans with this lathe is being able to turn down and recondition worn DC motor commutators (as long as there's still enough copper on them to recondition). I understand copper is weird to work with, so was wondering if there are any pointers along the lines of what @GLTHFJ60 just posted.
 
True, the bushings are a pretty simple design and wouldn't be difficult, especially if I can find sintered bronze stock.

Here you go:
 
True, the bushings are a pretty simple design and wouldn't be difficult, especially if I can find sintered bronze stock.

I ask about the commutators because that's one of my plans with this lathe is being able to turn down and recondition worn DC motor commutators (as long as there's still enough copper on them to recondition). I understand copper is weird to work with, so was wondering if there are any pointers along the lines of what @GLTHFJ60 just posted.
Again, FWIW, these lathes were specifically marketed to the motor rebuild market and there were only HSS cutting tools available in the '40s, so that (much cheaper) alternative would still be viable. I'd start with the recommendations from the Machinery's Handbook and see where that takes you.

I've never used carbide to cut copper, so I can't opine on that; I'd defer to Johnny's experience on that.

I will say that my copper machining experience is specifically on the electrical contact variety (I designed some welding fixtures for Peterbilt, once upon a time, and they were massive blocks of copper), although not motor rotors specifically. A lot of machining setup and cutting planning depends on the alloy, and it's probably hard to determine that from a motor delivered to you for rebuilding.

HTH
 
To be clear, i've never cut copper on the lathe, but I have watched more than a few videos on the topic, and that's what they always say. Nice sharp tooling. Point is, take my advice on cutting copper with a hint of salt, lol.
 
Here you go:
Hehe yep, I'm a loyal longtime customer.

@Malleus good points. There are a few machine shops here too that I can possibly pick for knowledge so I'll have to check them out. I really wish I knew a good way to tell (if there even is a good way) what alloy is most likely to be in these old motors.
 
I should have added, and I think Johnny would back me up on this, HSS is a better choice than carbide for interrupted cuts, as it's much less brittle. I would also recommend that you not stop the lathe during an interrupted cut; you need the rotational speed at the tool tip.

I would hope that someone in the Boeing suburbs has a little experience they'd be willing to share ;)

BTW, I ran across this awhile back, while I was looking for something else: Gibbons Engineering
these guys seem pretty open about what they do, and since there's no way you'd be competing with them at any level, I'd think they'd respond well to an inquiry about the business. Since they have an engineering staff, you should be able to pick their brains for some basic data.

And since you piqued my interest in the topic, a quick search turned up type of copper for electric motor commutator
and
machining copper for electric motor commutators
(yes, I'm easily distracted by bright shiny objects)
 
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I should have added, and I think Johnny would back me up on this, HSS is a better choice than carbide for interrupted cuts, as it's much less brittle. I would also recommend that you not stop the lathe during an interrupted cut; you need the rotational speed at the tool tip.

I would hope that someone in the Boeing suburbs has a little experience they'd be willing to share ;)

BTW, I ran across this awhile back, while I was looking for something else: Gibbons Engineering
these guys seem pretty open about what they do, and since there's no way you'd be competing with them at any level, I'd think they'd respond well to an inquiry about the business. Since they have an engineering staff, you should be able to pick their brains for some basic data.

And since you piqued my interest in the topic, a quick search turned up type of copper for electric motor commutator
and
machining copper for electric motor commutators
(yes, I'm easily distracted by bright shiny objects)
You beat me to it. I was planning on searching around for stuff on copper during my lunch break. I've seen on a couple fittings that diamond tip tools work week with copper too. Not a ton more expensive than HSS either, so that's something I'll have to dig more into as well.
 

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