Lathe Motor Mount

In order to mount the new brushless motor, I needed to make a motor mount. I started off with a piece of 8x8x1/2 Aluminum angle. Unfortunately, I didn't measure the slots in the base before I ordrered the material, so I only got a 6" wide piece.... and the slots in the base are on 6" centers...:(. So I picked up a couple of stainless steel cutoffs at my local surplus metal dealer and made some spacers.

To bore the pilot hole, I set the angle up on some 1-2-3 blocks and held it down with a couple of strap clamps. I used a large drill (61/64) to drill out a starter hole. Then I used a boring head to slowly open the hole up to the 110mm pilot diameter for the motor.

Drilling the starting hold for the pilot bore

First pass with the boring head

Manny passes later

Almost there :)

After boring the hole, I drilled and tapped the four M8 holes. The other leg of the angle got four notches to clear the 3/8 bolts and a pattern of clearance holes for M8 screws to attach the spacers.

After cutting the spacers to length, I surfaced them top and bottom to make sure they were the same size. Then I drilled 1/2" holes for the mounting bolts and tapped two M8 holes for attaching the angle.

Stainless Spacer bars

I used 3/8" carriage bolts to attach the spacers, since they fit the slots in the base well and can be tightened from the top. The angle and the Motor are attached with M8 screws. I like metric fasteners whenever possible, but when interfacing to older machines this may not always be practical.

Motor on Mount attached to base plate

Closeup of spacers on base.

I was finally able to get the whole assembly wrestled into the cabinet. Unfortunately some of the sharp corners left gouges in the paint. I will go back for some touchup work once I get everything installed.

Installed in the Lathe

Apron Rebuild

Ok, today I got my apron mostly reassembled. There were a couple of parts that needed to be replaced. Thanks to the shop at work I was able to turn these while without a lathe...

First up is the Idler bushing on the Cross feed clutch gear. This is just a simple stepped bronze bushing, but the walls are fairly thick, so I couldn't find an off the shelf one to modify. I used a 2" drop as a starting point and just whittled away.

New bushing (pressed into gear) and old one for reference

The next item to be replaced was the pinion shaft that rides on the rack. The gear teeth were worn out and the shaft had about .002"-.003" of wear at the bearing surfaces. I bought a new 20 tooth gear and made a sleeve to fit over the back to get the length and diameter to be the same as the old one. I then made a replacement shaft out of pre-hardened 4140. I think this will be my go-to shaft material for future projects. I used a carbide insert and as long as I didn't try to take too shallow a cut, I could get a really nice surface finish. I turned the main shaft down to 0.687" and the stub to 0.501 to give a decent prss fit into the gear. One slight modification over the original design was the key. The Clausing shaft has a #3 woodruff key, but I couldn't find the right size cutter at work. So I made a flat key instead.

Old Pinion (top) and new parts

New Pinion assembly (Top) and Original for comparison.

After the parts were done, it was time to put the whole thing back together.

Front of the rejuvinated apron

Half Nuts - Before

Rear View - After

Top View - Before

Top View - After

I decided to leave the handles unpainted for now. I think the clutch handle looks much better now, but I am not sure about the half nut handle yet. I am still waiting for some good weather in Pennsylvania so that my source can finally get the worm gear out of storage. Also, at some point I am going to have to figure out how to rework/replace the half nuts, since the threads are pretty worn out.

Lathe Painting - Part 3

I was able to make some more progress on the painting these last two weekends.

Rear cover, apron and a couple of handwheels

 I painted the rear cover and the apron outside and worked on the bed and the headstock in the garage.

Bed and Headstock

I checked on removing the headstock from the bed, but the Clausing service manual didn't reccomend it. So I painted the two parts together.

Together again at last :)

After a week of drying, I was able to put the bed back on the base today :) I also got the spindle re-installed with new oil seals.

Old Motor Mount

New and imporved Motor cabinet

 Here is the new motor mount in the now clean base. I will need to do some touch up work on the bottom. the Motor assembly is not easy to wrestle in and I got some gouges in the paint :(

Lathe Painting - Part 2

Today, I was able to put the first coat of paint on the base:

Bottom of Base after first coat

Top of Base after first coat

I choose a light shade of gray than the orginal shown below for two reasons:

1. I wanted to better match the shade of gray on the Bridgeport
2. The lighter color should help maximize whatever lighting I can put up in the garage 

At this point, I think I am going to re-paint the external parts but the internal ones like the back cover and the motor mount plates will stay the original color. I will also leave the tail stock for later, since it's pretty easy to remove once I feel like painting again :)

Samples of original color on back cover and bottom of the bed

In addition to the paining, I also did some more de-griming :

Headstock and bed after some more cleaning

Back Cover with less grime

Motor Mount before

Motor Mount Parts Now

Gear Train before

Gear Train Parts Now

Lathe Motor Replacement

A while back I was fortunate enough to get my hand on a surplus 1.5KW (2 Hp) Brushless Servo Motor from Panasonic. As it turns out, the WJ200 series of VFD drives has firmware features to run a brushless motor in sensorless vector control mode. This means, that the servo can be used without using the encoder.

New Servo Motor vs Old Induction Motor - Half the Size, Twice the power :)

Lathe Progres - Base Cleanup and Painting

The last couple of weeks have mostly been disasembly and prep work. I have finally made some progress on re-finishing the Base:

Getting ready to pressure wash the Grime off

Lathe Teardown and Initial Cleanup

I spent the weekend pulling the lathe down to just the headstock and the bed. I did discover a few discouraging things in the aprons though:

Hmm, I think I figured out why the power feed wasn't working....

I am still puzzled how I missed that little fact during my initial inspection... I guess I was happy that the chuck only had 0.003" of run out and that the bed seemed in pretty good shape.

There is also some wear and tear on the inside of the apron, but nothing fatal. I am currently trying to find replacement parts or better yet, a replacement apron assembly. I have a lead on one at Plaza Machinery, but I an still awaiting confirmation.

New Addition for the Shop :)

Since getting the mill I have been trolling the local Craigslist entries in search of a reasonably sized lathe.  This weekend, I found a used Clausing 6303 12x24 inch machine up in Temecula (~30 minutes north of here). Supposedly this machine had been sitting in a garage for 30 years.

Here it is on the trailer in front of the garage:

 Hmm, That angle looks kind of familiar ,....


Here is a closeup of the headstock showing some of the Grime that still needs to come off:

Mill Vise Fixture Plate

I was inspired by this article on Tom Liptons OxTool blog to make a clamping plate for my mill vise. As Tom points out, this is a great way to hold on to those odd parts that won't really work in the vise but would be easy to hold in the T-Slots, if you just didn't need to take off that darn vise...

Fixture shown clamping a thin part
 

Fixture used as an Angle Plate

Idea for controlling flying chips

I was getting annoyed at having chips flying in my face and across the garage. After a few moments of thinking, I came up with the following setup:

Panels Set up near vise

The front Shield consists of a wood base with a slot for a piece of lexan milled into it. Both the front and the side pieces are attached to the mill table using magnets from old Hard drives. These magnets are used to move the head in and out and are made from high-energy rare earth magnets. This means, that they REALLY stick well. :)

Hdd Magnet mounted to base of front window

HDD Magnet and mounting block for side panel

In use, the front shield keeps chips off of the operator (me) while still allowing me to see the cut. The side walls keep the chips near the machine instead of having them fly all the way across the garage.