Again a pretty slow week. Went into work on Tuesday at 0400L so that I could send a package overseas with some of my workmates who were heading to RAF Leuchars. Then went into the office and left 12hrs later. With a busy work week no major projects were done. I did pick up all the steel and castors to make movable mounting brackets for the lathe. Ended up getting cast iron castors since they were cheaper and had a heavier weight rating. I don't really plan on moving the lathe a lot. Mostly the moving will be while the restoration is happening. At the same time picked up some steel so that I can make the collet draw bar for the Van Norman Mill I purchased. Here is a picture from another Van Norman #10 owner of the collet draw bar that I need to make. Not really too difficult. will be made out of two pieces that will be press fitted together and then welded together. The two harder sections will be boring and threading the one end and making the hex bolt on the other end.

 At this time still awaiting delivery through the Post office of the collets that I bought from the US. The arbors are at the Inlaws and will be picked up somewhere down the road.
Well I said that I painted the cabinets last week and this week I painted the lettering on the cabinet doors. At the same time I gave the collet tray support arm it's coat of paint as well. Here are some pictures showing the interior of the small cabinets, cabinets with the door installed and the collet arm. Sorry for the poor quality of the last picture.

These will just set off to the side for now along with the collet tray until the rest of the body of the lathe is finished. First job this week will be to make the dollies and then later will be to finish the work on the lathe body itself. 

Well have a great July 4 weekend south of the border and we'll enjoy a great Canada day north of the border.

Harold

Well another reasonably hectic week comes to a close.
We started the week on Wednesday driving for 3hrs up to Orillia Ontario to pickup a Van Norman #10 Milling machine. I plan on using this machine to fix and repair/make parts for the two lathes and other items. For those not familiar with a Van Norman this on has a rotating head such that it can be either a Horizontal or Vertical Mill. This particular mill replaced the Model 1/2 and was most likely built just after WW1 since the patent date on the machine is 1917. The serial number is 9182 however pretty sure there were not that many made as they are not common out there. These were eventually replaced by the much more popular Van Norman #6 and #12 Milling machines built just before and during WW2. Anyway here is a picture or two of the machine and a short video of it running. The pulleys for gearing and motor are not original they were installed by a previous owner however they do provide more speed changes than original as well, from 95 to 395RPM.

 

 I still need to pick up tooling for this machine since very little came with it. As of now I have 3 arbors coming and a complete set of collets. Still need to pick up bits, vice and clamping devices.

Anyway even spending time on this machine I still managed to do a little bit of work on the Hardinge Lathe. First off I finished painting the inside of the cabinets and will now mask this off and finish painting the exterior of the small cabinets. As well I painted the large tray that fits under the lathe and have also fitted the two tracks for the collet tray. Luckily enough I found all 6 of the nuts and bolts that secure the tracks to the tray. Since I had all these not sure why we did not have the tracks as well. However it was a relatively simple job to re manufacture those. Here's a quick picture of the hardware after I started cleaning them with a brass wire wheel. Once they were wheeled clean I chased the threads in the nuts with a 5/16 by 18TPI tap. This went quite smoothly just cleaned out some crap and loose rust from them. The bolts on the other hand were a little harder. After wire wheeling them only 4 threaded into a nut smoothly. The other two needed some work due to thread damage. When I went to chase them with a 5/16 by 18TPI Die the die would not easily thread on. It actually needed to cut metal to thread on. Not sure if there was a little difference in the thread pitch or what so all I did was clean the first couple of threads and then let the nut chase the remainder.
Here's a picture of the hardware while being cleaned as well the tray.

 One last thing I started this weekend was painting the raised lettering on the cabinet doors. I was looking for something that would work well with the Charcoal colour and stand out however not be too obnoxious a colour. I first thought of a bright silver since I plan to polish as much of the bare metal as possible however after having a close look at it decided there was not enough contrast. I've painted a few letters with the same gold colouring I used on the #39 but for some reason one coat is not doing it. Will let the first coat dry and then do another coat to see if that works better. If that colour does not work then I need to look for something else. Hopefully by next instalment I'll have these done or at least almost done. Well have a nephew to look after today and deliver him off to camp tomorrow. See you next week.

Harold

It hasn't been a very busy week in the shop. Worked all week at the day job and did not really have the energy to spend extra hours working on the lathe, especially since I am on call and therefore don't really want to get too involved in something in case the phone rings. However we did do some work and here's what was done.

I carefully cleaned the change gear label and the sellers label. I managed to track down a company that is supposedly the successor to the original selling company. Unfortunately they did not have much info to pass on . I also found two brochures on EBay from the Hill Clarke company from 1917 however the seller said there was no adverts or talk about Hardinge Cataract Quick Change lathes.
After cleaning both plaques I gave them a light spray of Matt black paint and once dry I carefully sanded with 400 grit to expose the raised surfaces. Once the sanding was done I sprayed a coat of clear coat to protect the surfaces. Although they are not pristine they came out pretty good. The sellers plaque unfortunately was a little more worn down in the centre and therefore did not come out looking as good as it could of. Here is a couple of pictures of the plaques after clear coating.

 I've finished painting the gear door cover and later this week will reattach the plaques to the cover with brass screws for the change gear plaque and either brass screws or brass rivets for the plaque still not sure. The small screws I have seem a little too big for the sellers plaque but are just the right size for the change gear plaque.
I've also started painting the two small cabinets and their doors. I've decided that the insides of the cabinet will have an ivory colour to allow the insides to be a little lighter in colour. As well I also repainted the inside webs of the lathe body with the same colour. I'll have pictures of these two items next week when the cabinets are hopefully finished. Previously I was thinking of carefully filling in all the small holes and marks with Bondo however after trialing a small piece I've decided I'd rather have the antique look with all the marks that came with age and the original casting process. Also over the next week or two I will be painting the two legs and the tray. Here is a picture of one of the legs after it's second coat of paint. The actual colour is a charcoal grey hammer coat and is darker looking in person then the photo. Hopefully some time when the doors are open and I have a lot of natural light I can get a real good picture with a more realistic colour.

Well that's all the work on the lathe this week. In the coming week I hope to get up to Orillia Ontario to pick up a Van Norman #10 Milling machine. Once I get this in the shop I should be able to also work on getting the castings for my steady rest and tray supports machined down to the proper sizing. I look forward to playing around with the "new toy". I'll post some pictures up of course in the upcoming weeks of this machine and the work I'll do on it.
Now if only I could win the lottery and then I could spend all my time on my hobbies as opposed to going to work to make the money to spend on the hobbies.

Till next week

Harold

Well weather's not the greatest, overcast and cloudy with possible rain showers coming so no use going for a little stroll. All cleaned up after going out for supper so no use going back into the shop to work. I guess this would be a good time to write up the blog for the last few weeks.

Before I get to far into this dissertation a little side note. One of the owners of a similar Hardinge Cataract has decided he wants to sell his machine. This one is Ser#44 built in 1917. The lathe is located in NE Ohio and he is asking 2500$ for everything he has. If you are interested in this lathe you can contact him at markusfu(at)hotmail(dot)com Just to give you an idea of what he has here are a couple of pictures of his lathe.

Now on to my story. As you know I went on vacation to visit my Grandmother for her 101st Birthday with my parents for the last week of May. Earlier this year I bought an overhead drive system from a fellow in California who was parting out a lathe. I had this shipped to my cousins in Kalamazoo where my Grandmother is. So I now have the overhead drive assembly with me in Ontario awaiting its turn in the restoration queue. Here is a picture of what I got. One big issue with this might be the alignment of the holes in the lathe body. That will be an interesting time when I try and fit it back together. Everything was well packed and survived the 1000km trip back home.

While I was there in Kalamazoo I received an email from a fellow in Ottawa that revived my faith in humanity. I believe when I started this blog I mentioned that I had bought this lathe from a fellow in Ottawa who had beat me to buying this lathe from another fellow in Ottawa. Well when the fellow I bought it from decided not to continue the restoration due to missing pieces and the complexity of the work I purchased the lathe from him. I then emailed the original owner in Ottawa to see if it was possible that he might still have the pieces. I originally heard nothing back. This occurred around February this year. Well while in Kalamazoo I received an email from the original owner stating he'd found some of the missing items and if I wanted them I could have them. These items included the gear case cover door, the half nuts, two stops for the stopping bar and some nuts and bolts. Not only that they were mine no charge. He also wondered if I would be interested in buying some NOS Hardinge collets and collet dead centre. I said sure and when can we meet. Most people would either have just thrown the stuff away or tried to sell them for as much as they could. I was really flabbergasted when this did not occur. My thanks to Clyde in Ottawa. Not only did he have these pieces but when I went through the nuts and bolts I found the half moon locking piece for the lead screw that was missing as well and that was completely unexpected. So now we have essentially all the critical items needed to get the lathe back to running condition. Here is a picture of the some of the items he had as well as the door after I cleaned and primed it. I've also included a picture of the machinery dealers tag that was on the cover. The Company was Hill, Clarke and Company Inc of Boston and New York. I've cleaned the tag as best I can and will reinstall once the painting is done. 

  

 Now the next thing that happened was Saturday when I was back in Ontario at my parents I saw an ad for Hardinge collets from a fellow in Toronto. He had 74 collets in excellent shape and supposedly had 64 in 1/64 increments. All this for 375$ I jumped all over that and picked them up on my way home. Unfortunately when we sorted them all out he was missing the ones from 1/64 to 7/64ths but had all the rest. So I now have a second almost complete set of collets for the #86 lathe. Here is a picture of the collets on the new tray along with the NOS collets(in the very centre) I bought from the fellow in Ottawa.

As well I picked up the casting's I had made for the tray supports from a company in Grimsby Ontario. Initial   viewing was good however after a real up close look and checking with squares I noticed that at least one casting is not usable and a second will be decided upon once the machining starts on it. It turns out that the pins I made to locate the two halves were not quite big enough and large enough so they allowed the pattern to move a little while they were tamping up the copes. Since I needed to have a few more castings poured based on interest in these castings, I've fixed the pattern and will have some more cast before shipping any out. Here's at least a picture of those castings I have already. The one on the right is the original one that I used when building the pattern.

I've also had the legs, the tray and the two cabinets sand blasted and given a coat of primer. While working on the lathe body I noticed some small items. This lathe was supposedly built with some care because they were not cheap lathes when sold. These were a specialised lathe probably not used in the ordinary machine shop. With this in mind you'd think they would ensure that there castings were top notch. While cleaning the lathe I noticed that the pocket on the right end where the leadscrew and driving rods are secured was not a smooth surface. There was not enough material at the bottom of the pocket to be machined out. You can see the rough cast iron surface that is left in the picture below. Likewise in the rounded out pocket behind the nested gears the same problem arose. And lastly they did not even bother to file off small pieces of cast iron that filled small voids in the pattern. In the third picture below you can see a small blob of cast iron that was on the rounded edge at the bottom of the lathe body before I filed it away. So I guess there were some quality control issues in the Hardinge Factory in 1917 as well.

I finally decided on a colour, at least for now, we still have not painted a section. The colour will be a Charcoal grey with a hammered finish. It's a Tremclad colour that looks like it will look pretty good. I know these are only spray bombs but the price is still cheaper than Automotive paint with the catalyst and the reducers. Maybe next week we'll have a piece painted up to see what it looks like.

Well I think that's all for now see you in the next episode.

Harold