Apron repair

[140mower]

Is that where you get the high performance sand from ? That's the sand I want

It's good sand to get, especially if they are still having their annual sand castle competition and it's sunny. (And the wife doesn't catch you looking)

 

[mickeyf]

Repair looks great!

(And the wife doesn't catch you looking)

My cousin famously said "I got married - I didn't go blind."

 

[Tomc938]

Repair looks great!



My cousin famously said "I got married - I didn't go blind."

Did they put that on his headstone?

 

[PeterT]

Looks great. I must have misunderstood your oiler layout. Maybe you only have 1 oiler feeding the entire channel which is why the channel has to be cut around the backside by the repair patch?
I thought maybe you had 2 oilers, one for each front & rear groove channel.

PS - don't get a bright idea to seal the case with a plate & partially fill with oil. If its like my lathe the shaft holes are just bored in the CI & oil just leaks out. Been there, done that.

 

[Tomc938]

Nice job Tom!
Are going out to Miracle Beach to get some sand for inside to match OEM specifications, or are you going to omit that part?

Beach sand isn't sharp enough. I gather up the stuff that comes off the coarse grinding wheel on my bench grinder.

 

[140mower]

Beach sand isn't sharp enough. I gather up the stuff that comes off the coarse grinding wheel on my bench grinder.

I figured that with the scenery and my need to live on the edge, the trade off might be worth the compromise. That and I figured that one pass through the gears and they should be sharpened right up.

 

[mickeyf]

don't get a bright idea to seal the case with a plate & partially fill with oil.

That's exactly how my lathe does it. The critical word is "partially". It does just have a fill cap and the gears are apparently splash oiled, or by oil carried up from the gears in the bottom. No channels and holes like Tom's. What information I have says what type of oil to use, but not how much to fill the apron. Apparently much less than I put in, since some days after I changed it it was still leaking out around certain shafts.

 

[Tom O]

Miracle beach about half way up Vancouver Island we camped there when we were young.

 

[PeterT]

That's exactly how my lathe does it.

Yea, an oil bath is a much better system which is why I gave it a try. I attached a bottom plate just bonded on with gasket seal. That part sealed well. I ran a low oil level so the lowest gear was more or less slinging rather trying to semi-submerge more of the train. I think its my so-so fits of shafts into basically drilled holes in the apron. There are no seals or O-rings or cover plates like I could see on other lathe parts manuals. My shafts look kind of rough except where they wore in. I contemplated making better fitting bronze bushings like I did for the power feed rod block, but at that point I just moved on. Its not ideal but its actually somewhat common on this vintage. As long as I squirt oil in there often, the gears are wet.

On the headstock side in a casting chamber overlying the gear box selection cluster, they have a foam pad which you keep saturated with oil. From there it spreads out laterally & weeps down through an array of holes down onto the gears. Some guys don't like to see oil drippings on the pan. But its not really a leak, its a sign of lubrication IMO, so there is always a paper towel there telling me they are wet. Rather primitive but I guess it mostly works.

 

[David]

Here's the finished repair.

View attachment 63580

All that is left now is to transfer punch, drill and tap the centre hole at final assembly. Probably over-kill to get oil from the front of the apron to the back, but the original casting did break, so there must be some mechanical stresses on it as well.

Heck yeah!

 

[jorogi]

Looks great Tom, nicely executed.
Beware of the M beach sand, it's that cheap metric crap.

 

[140mower]

Looks great Tom, nicely executed.
Beware of the M beach sand, it's that cheap metric crap.

It's generally the metric bikinis that you want to follow.... Smaller and younger.....