I'm posting a little early this week as I will not be here on Sunday. On Thursday 01 Aug at 1130pm my Grandmother who was 101 years old finally left this earth. So on Sunday I'll be driving enroute Kalamazoo with the parents to go to her funeral.
Early this week on Tuesday I took a drive to Vershire Vermont and picked up a Van Norman 10" dividing head with tailstock and 3 dividing plates. It's in really good shape but a lot bigger than I anticipated. It was missing a collet draw bar which I'll talk about later and it is also missing a Chuck. This chuck could be either a 4" or 6" chuck with 2.25" dia thread with 12 TPI spacing. If anybody knows of a Van Norman chuck or other manufacturer with these parameters please contact me. After picking up the dividing head went down to Harvard Mass. and spent the night. Next morning went and visited Jeff at Tools4cheap and picked up a set of shell mill holders for the Van Norman Mill. So spent a pleasant 2 days on the road driving through some scenic country side. Had to be careful near Massena NY as I ended up passing approx a dozen horse and buggies from possibly Amish persuasion thank goodness they were going in the opposite direction so as to get a better look at them.
Once I got back home it was right to work. The Hardinge #39 Lathe has had a bit of a workout in these last couple of weeks. First we needed to make the collet draw bar for the VN#10 milling head and now we had to make a collet draw bar for the dividing head. Essentially this draw bar was made the same way as the last one with the exception of length and some diameters to fit the hole in the dividing head. I'll attach a few pictures showing the parts being machined. One thing I did different was that when I welded the two pieces together I used the lathe to hold them in place between centres so as to prevent the draw bar from going off centre due to the welding process. This worked like a charm. And yes I had to file the 3/4" bolt head by hand again. Can't wait to get the milling machine up and running so I won't need to do things like that again.

 One quick thing I did for the #86 Lathe was to make new spacers that go between the lathe and the two cabinets so that filings don't fall into the cabinets. I also primed and painted them the same beige colour as the inside of the cabinets. Here's a picture of them as well. And yes the observant ones will notice and extra hole in one of the sheets. Seems like I forgot about the measure twice cut once saying.

 Early in the week I also took some time to make the two long bolts I needed to secure the cabinets to the legs. These are the ones that have the spring on them to allow the lathe to flex a little as the cast iron moves due to temperature fluctuations. I also wire wheeled the 8 bolts to bolt the cabinets to the lathe body. Once I get back from the funeral I hope to be able to put the lower half of the #86 lathe back together and have her rolling around the shop on her dollies.
Well that's all for now we'll see you again next week with another installment of "As the lathe turns":-):-):-)

Harold