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New to me colchester lathe

quitereal

quitereal

Andy
Well its home and on thr ground with no tipovers!
Unfortunately the photos were deceptive and it had been sitting outside for a year.
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Wrapped in plastic that is now disintegrating.
Home and unwrapped the real work began.
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The saddle seems frozen, the tailstock seems frozen - there is another new tailstock barrel among the parts. It did come with the removable gap, two steady rests, a tailstock and various tooling.
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The headstock seems free, appears to have oil in it and doesnt feel crunchy so thats a good sign.
The motor looks to be a 440/220, another good omen.
It'll take some elbow grease to deal with all the rust.
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It was a bit of a pain getting it off the trailer, the plan was to put the engine hoist on the trailer, lift it, put the skates on, roll it to the back of the trailer, then pick it with the hoist from the ground. The trailer though was decked with 2x8 and the supports under that were 24" apart, so I observed flex and foresaw breaking through the deck. So I had to lay bits of plate down to spread the load and get it to the back of the trailer. Also blocked the trailer up at the back. Once there I grabbed it from the ground with the hoist and had a guy drive the trailer out slowly.
Thats where she sits atm, Im exhausted and messed my back up so just wanna lay down for a while.
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Im not terribly miffed about the rust, it came with a tailstock and what more could a guy really ask for eh.
It will be a bit of a project and some time before I get first chips, the garage is a mess and needs rearranging as well, Ill be happy just to get it inside, we have rain/snow coming monday.
 
I'm so sorry. I had no idea.

But two things, at least it was on dry prairies and not in Ontario.

Secondly, I think if you really need you can try Stanko for grinding the ways. They could perhaps grind other bearing surfaces if you need. If the gears inside the headstock and the bearings are good it will be worthwhile.
 
Another member bought one that looked similar (perhaps a *little* oil on the ways, still), and it finished out to be a very nice lathe indeed!!

It was stored outside a tool and die shop for a year in Ontario...

I'm sure that yours will work out as well.
 
This guy doesn't post much anymore, but some of his 'rust bucket to decent machine vids' are quite motivating. The real question is condition of ways & important sliding surfaces once the Titatic coating is removed.
www.youtube.com

BasementShopGuy

My name is Brad. I'm from eastern Pennsylvania. My 3 passions in life are shop work, music and fishing. Shop work is the focus of this channel. Throughout my high school years, I was grooming myself to become a machinist, but once I graduated, I decided to work with my father and became a...
www.youtube.com www.youtube.com


His insert has seen a hard life
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Push as much rust off as you can from all the flat machined areas with a single sided razor blade. It works surprisingly well and reasonably quickly given the task at hand......... Buy a box of the blades as you will go through a few....
 
Dabbler said:
citric acid and sodium (bi) carbonate?? cheaper, more effective, just as safe, lasts longer, and acts faster. what's not to love?
Click to expand...
X2. If you can warm it ie: ultrasonic cleaner, it speeds it up much faster as well.

I usually degrease separately if needed. Citric acid clean then baking soda clean(but if you add it to the citric not needed) wash with water & wipe dry then soak it with oil. Wipe it off and for handles etc whatever you want looking nicer a quick trip to the wire wheel on the bench grinder.

Also nice because as the citric acid is working it gives you time to disassemble & work on larger parts.

Anything I didn't want the citric acid to affect I covered in grease
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Congratulations, it looks great. It's going to be a little bit of elbow grease to get it back. But elbow grease is cheap. Don't let the rust bother you. Cast iron doesn't rust like mild steel. It looks worse but cleans up beautifully. I don't see any pitting which is a good sign.
Martin
 
Check out the videos of this guy. He has an old Axleson lathe he bought and a Radial arm drill, and a milling machine. They all sat outside for years while he was restoring them. He gets hard to watch sometimes but he has the patience of a Saint and his machines come out beautiful.

 
quitereal said:
Im not terribly miffed about the rust, it came with a tailstock and what more could a guy really ask for eh.
Click to expand...

I have a slightly different opinion than others here. You are probably in a hurry to make that lathe pretty. I'd resist that temptation.

In my opinion, it doesn't really matter how you get the rust off of most surfaces. Just get it off using anything you want and anything that works.

But I think the precision parts are a different matter. The ways, the leade screw, and the mating ways of the saddle, tailstock, cross-slide and compound are delicate critical elements of a good lathe. It's important to avoid damaging them any more than they already are. Also, their appearance isn't as important as their function.

With that in mind, at a microscopic level, rust usually forms in the cracks and interfaces of the cast iron grains as raised particles of iron oxide that grow to be proud of the surface.

I'd begin by soaking in thin oil for a week or so to stop the formation of new rust and loosen the existing rust particles. Then as @140mower advises, I'd apply more oil and use a one sided razor blade to scrape off the rust as much as possible being very careful not to gouge or further damage the original cast iron. All you are trying to do in this phase is remove the proud rust. Easy does it.

Next, it's time to remove rust that didn't come loose. Avoid products that convert the rust or eat original cast iron. Instead, clean any remaining oil off, and use something like evaporust (which focuses on iron oxide rust itself not plain iron) with a toothbrush or plastic mesh scrubber. Just slowly work it in and let it work wiping off the old and applying new till you are happy. Happiness isn't a shiny original looking surface. Happiness is a surface with a new patina that is free of hard rust particles but has a light rusty coloured patina to it. If you are lucky, the majority of the original surface grains of the cast iron will remain dimensionally unchanged or at least less than a tenth removed. But, it will be what it will be, and whatever that is, is out of your control.

It will (and should) take forever to do this. Time is not a factor. When you are happy, you can apply some good way oil and use the machine. The saddle and tailstock will do their own work over time.

You can be aggressive with the rest of the parts and make them as rust free as you want.

That is my two cents.

Nice get!
 
I think you are on the right path. Of course, a machine tool all rusted up is not a good thing, but it isn’t a complete wreck either. My 11” Standard Modern looked similar to that Colchester (except a few parts missing) - there is some staining still present on the sliding surfaces, but like Susq says, the function is more important than the cosmetic.

The end result has been very favourable, the lathe looked really bad. In terms of the functionality now, it is pretty well bang on for that class of machine. I am not under any illusion that there has not been some compromise, but the pieces I have made on that lathe are good (‘er any shortcomings would not be due to a problem with the lathe, more of an operator issue).

I am very cost conscious (“cheap”). I have cleaned up three really rusty machines (i.e. had been stored outside some, had been sitting inside for several years, a quart of water in the main motor) - all are running well. In comparison, that Colchester looks not too bad. You have lots of work ahead of you, but be encouraged that it will work out well.
 
Looks like you should end up with a nice machine after the work is done, congrats again.

I've been using vinegar for removing mill scale and find it works really well on rust as well. Drop the part in for a couple of days and wire brush off the rust, scale and paint. I've made different size plywood "coffins" lined with plastic and filled with vinegar to soak parts in.

This will be an interesting project to follow, please keep the progress reports coming.

My lesson learned going forward - ask for pictures showing the current condition if no inspection is allowed and peel the covering off before leaving the yard.
 
When I said it was on the ground it wasn't quite yet - while still up on blocks I wire wheeled the rust at the bottom of the legs inside and out and applied some primer
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I went and bought a gallon of wd40 and filled one of those pressurized sureshot sprayers and started soaking everything down. The toolpost is free, and I was able to free up the compound. The cross slide, saddle, tailstock and 3jaw are still frozen for now. I'll keep flooding with wd40.
I'm using steel wool and wd40 on the ways. Found this
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So hardened ways, that's a plus.
All the lube points have these rubber membrane deals but the rubber is hard and crusty now so I'll need to aquire a bunch of those ball oilers.
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At some point here I'll try a salt and vinegar soak for all the smaller rusty stuff - toolholders and wrenches and stuff.
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Ill rinse and repeat and maybe free something else tomorrow.
 
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