Hello again
Really quiet week this time. Spent a few days doing overtime at work and leaving late. Then with the obligatory stop at the Officers Mess for an after work drink with a few cronies left little time to do much work this week.
Last week Saturday after picking up the nephew from camp went to Perth Ontario to go to Cardon's tools just east of Perth on Hwy#7. Picked up some involute cutters to make the change gears for the lathe and picked up a few more other sundries. One was a piece of brass sized so that I could make the brass washer that was still required on the Collet draw bar for the VN#10 Mill. Machined that up on Sunday afternoon once the nephew was safely on the train back to his parents. Here's a picture showing the collet draw bar in place with the brass washer. The draw bar works like a charm. Unfortunately the cutters I bought are 3/8" and 1/2" dia and those are two of the 4 collets from the set I do not have. I hope within a week or two to do trade with another VN owner to flesh out my set. Here's a picture of the draw bar with the brass washer. Oh by the way I lost out on an auction on EBay for a Van Norman vice for my machine. If anybody reading this blog knows of a Van Norman vice applicable in size for my #10 please contact me. Thanks

I then proceeded to clean up the area so that I could pull out the lathe body for the #86 and get back to work on this. I spent some time scraping the ways with a razor blade and then sprayed it with WD40 and used a 1000 grit sandpaper to do a little more cleaning up. I also carefully knocked down any little bumps on the edges with a jewelers file. Although not perfect the ways look in very good shape for a mill this old. After this was done I carefully cleaned and polished the end cap where the serial number and the date stamp is located. I also used a dental pick to clean out the letter/number stamping. After this was done polished the end with rouge and she looks good. Lastly I scuffed up the primer coat and spray painted two thin coats of the charcoal finish paint. Here's a look at the lathe body after painting and before removing all the tape and paper that protected the unfinished areas.

Once the paint had a chance to dry, removed the tape and newspaper, then I carefully cleaned and chased the threads for the eight bolts that hold the small cabinets on. As well I looked at the original sheet spacers that went between the lathe body and the cabinet and decided these were beat up so I'd buy some new sheet stock to make some new spacers. That was the last thing I did today before heading out for supper.

Next week I'll be heading into Vermont on Tuesday to pick up a Van Norman 10" horizontal dividing head from a fellow. Then I'll probably spend another day around the area sight seeing before coming back on Thursday. Then it will be back to work on the lathe to see if we can get the lower body parts all mated back together. Before I do that will have to make the nuts, bolts and spherical washer that holds the left cabinet to the lathe. Those longer bolts with the small springs were bent so need to make some new ones and I'm missing a few of the nuts. Nice thing is we have a long weekend next week so I should have lots of time to get lots of work done. 

Until next time have a great week.

Harold

P.S. only 4 more weeks until all those ankle biters go back to school and we have some peace and quiet on the street.:-):-):-)