10” Utilathe (Miss Metric) Overhaul Repair

[Brent H]

So, an exciting day in the life and times of Miss Metric. At some point in the life of the lathe it was dropped or fell or tipped over and the apron hand wheel was pretty buggered. In the bag of parts I found most of it - the centre (on the lathe) the wheel, and the handle. The handle was broken off the wheel and the wheel was missing a spoke:



After some grinding, cutting fitting and lathe work - and some welding with the high nickel cast iron mig wire we had some success:


The Blue arrow is an inserted chunk of steel ground into a reasonable shape to fit and welded to the wheel. It is slightly wonky if you put it in the lathe and rotate it at 200 rpm but it should run true enough for hand speeds on the apron

There are a few places ai could have ground a bit nicer but @ShawnR was enroute with some tasty treats to throw over the Covid line so I counted it all good

 

[DavidR8]

Nice work, is that wire from Blue Demon?

 

[Brent H]

Hey @David_R8 - yes it is the devil indeed!

I am still dialling it in - seems to run nicer on my Everlast at home. The miller at work has too much “brain” and not as easy to fudge around the settings.

 

[DavidR8]

Hey @David_R8 - yes it is the devil indeed!

I am still dialling it in - seems to run nicer on my Everlast at home. The miller at work has too much “brain” and not as easy to fudge around the settings.

I was looking a buying a roll of that wire and was genuinely shocked by the price.
Instead I bought a TIG welder so I could run silicon bronze rods! Bahahaha, clearly I failed Econ 101.

 

[RobinHood]

Nicely done Brent.

That is one thing I did not try on my hand wheel repair on the CMT: high nickel rods. I should, just to see - got nothing to lose - I already have a replacement and it would just be nice to repair the original one…

 

[6.5 Fan]

Nice work. If that hand wheel gets up to 200 RPM your arm may fall off.

 

[Susquatch]

There are a few places ai could have ground a bit nicer but

Hey, I think it's absolutely beautiful! Very well done Brent!

 

[PeterT]

high nickel cast iron mig wire
Nice job. Didnt know such an animal existed. Could that wire work in TIG process or is there a TIG equivalent I wonder? That looks like it would have a lot of applications in, how do they say 'gently used' machine components. I'm not a welder but assumed braze is what stuck best, unfortunately not a great color match for iron.

 

[Brent H]

@PeterT - I bought the first roll for the ship to try and fix a cast iron valve body. It worked well so I tried it out at home. It wasn’t so costly for my first roll (2lb) at the time I bought it. I welded up my son’s exhaust manifold that was split In half. Was still 100% 2 years later.

I am still trying to get the heat right for max penetration- it is 0.035 wire. Not sure if they make a 0.030?

If you check out my Cincinnati rebuild it was great!!

 

[DavidR8]

Not to hijack @Brent H 's thread...
I think this is the wire. $148 for a 2 lb roll

Nickel 55 Cast Iron MIG Wire

ENiFe-CI Nickel 55 welding wire is designed for welding gray iron castings to themselves as well as joining them to mild steel. It can also be used to repair castings. The welds are moderately hard and require carbide tipped tools for post weld machining. Free shipping across Canada

canadaweldingsupply.ca

Sorry only .035 and .045.

I think this this is the TIG rod

ERNi-CI Nickel Alloy 55 Cast Iron TIG Rod

Blue Demon ERNi-CI Nickel alloy 55 Cast Iron TIG Rod available from Canada Welding Supply. Free shipping across Canada

canadaweldingsupply.ca

 

[Brent H]

@David_R8 - it is now pretty much off the charts for cost - sad - that said I have repaired way more expensive items than the roll cost. For a one time repair - nope.

Next time, I will set up and braze it. It may have been a better repair option. BUT: On the ship it takes about 2 hours to set up the oxy/acet torches. I will not go into it (bane of my existence) but suffice it to say: stupidity of the irresponsible condemned the responsible. So having the MiG works well

All that said it still takes about 1/2 hr to set up the Mig welder and then get the nut kickin that the other crew ran out the gas and didn’t get a new bottle.

 

[Hacker]

I feel your pain. Unfortunately in large organizations it is easier to put a rule/standard/practice/procedure in place then dealing with the root cause. I call them stupid bugger rules.

 

[Brent H]

When I was making the handle repair on the lathe I needed to cut a taper on the adaptor and so I used the compound to do this. It was only about 3.5* so nothing serious. I had a bugger of a time to use the compound as it was very stiff to turn. Today I had my guys take it apart and see if there was an issue. I had replaced the compound complete in 2019 as someone had run the part into the headstock and it was not working properly. Guess what......yep, about a 20 thou bend right on the outer end of the new compound. You can see several "slam" points where some careless idiot rode the tooling or the compound into the chuck. The bend starts right in the middle of the compound where the tool post attaches. $1800 USD down the toilet......UGH!!

 

[DavidR8]

Oh man... that really sucks.
Is this a case of "not my stuff, so I'll treat it like crap?"

 

[Brent H]

@David_R8 - you got it. We are struggling to find good quality people (as most companies are these days). A lot of abuse on equipment and a blah attitude when it comes to taking ownership of the equipment. We also have a strict policy of not using equipment if you are not trained to do so, however, questioning any individual’s competency seems to be outside of my jurisdiction as it “could be found offensive”. My one guy who loves the lathe is down there trying to scrap/lap it back to a reasonable tolerance for use. I am not looking to purchase another one so soon after the first one took a hit. We also found the drill press is all seized up with respect to the quill operation and there are scads of grinding particulate caught up in the vise table. Could be someone trying to do cylinder grinding on the press - it never ends -

 

[DavidR8]

@David_R8 - you got it. We are struggling to find good quality people (as most companies are these days). A lot of abuse on equipment and a blah attitude when it comes to taking ownership of the equipment. We also have a strict policy of not using equipment if you are not trained to do so, however, questioning any individual’s competency seems to be outside of my jurisdiction as it “could be found offensive”. My one guy who loves the lathe is down there trying to scrap/lap it back to a reasonable tolerance for use. I am not looking to purchase another one so soon after the first one took a hit. We also found the drill press is all seized up with respect to the quill operation and there are scads of grinding particulate caught up in the vise table. Could be someone trying to do cylinder grinding on the press - it never ends -

That would really frost me so I feel your pain. Good on the fellow trying to make it right. I'm sure there's a huge amount of frustration fuelling his work.

 

[Chicken lights]

@David_R8 - you got it. We are struggling to find good quality people (as most companies are these days). A lot of abuse on equipment and a blah attitude when it comes to taking ownership of the equipment. We also have a strict policy of not using equipment if you are not trained to do so, however, questioning any individual’s competency seems to be outside of my jurisdiction as it “could be found offensive”. My one guy who loves the lathe is down there trying to scrap/lap it back to a reasonable tolerance for use. I am not looking to purchase another one so soon after the first one took a hit. We also found the drill press is all seized up with respect to the quill operation and there are scads of grinding particulate caught up in the vise table. Could be someone trying to do cylinder grinding on the press - it never ends -

We are missing the farm boys. (No disrespect if anyone grew up in the cities) I don’t know how else to say that, I used to have a 5 and 10 foot rule. If you’ve shown common sense I’ll work within 5 feet of you, if you’re not then I try to keep 10 feet away. Growing up logging, in shops and working with day drinkers has given me good reflexes

But yes it’s brutal out here these days, it’s like half the workforce is on pogey or retired in the last two years.

 

[Metalistico]

Hats off to you on that resto, that Lathe is a beaut, I'd love to find 1 for myself

 

[Brent H]

Just the electric stuff to do. VFD is mounted inside the cabinet. New proper belt on the motor and pulleys are aligned. She is smooth as silk on the bed (LOL) just gotta get her motor running and que the AC/DC “she was a fast machine….”

 

[DavidR8]

Looks awesome Brent!