Well Christmas has come and gone, and as the retailers would say only 362 shopping days left till next Christmas. I hope you all had a great time with family and friends and I hope that the New Year celebrations will also be a time of great fun. Please remember don't drink and drive.
Well the weather improved since last weekend. We had a lousy weekend in regards to snow and ice. The Airfield here was even closed due to the ice accumulations for almost 3 days. This allowed me to go in and pickup the metal I had ordered previously as well as purchasing the 1.25" countersink I would need and the extra drill bits I would need. I didn't do much during the week due to celebrations, some work and clearing snow and ice away around the house.
What little I did during the week was again clean, prime and paint a few small pieces. This time it was the lever that moves the transmission shaft left or right for high and low as well as a lever that moves the second three step pulley up to tighten the belt. Here is a picture of these two parts.

Today I spent some time installing the two plates that would mount on the lathe and accept the studs that would hold up the overhead drive. First I cut the 1/2" by 4" plate to length, approx 11" for the top piece and 7" for the bottom piece. After rounding the corners and dressing them up a bit I placed it on the lathe to calculate where the first hole would go. Once held in place there was quite a bit of rocking around on the bottom plate so took out the large sanding wheel and carefully ground down a high spot on the lathe. Once this was done the plate laid up against the lathe body a lot better. After a little calculation based on the measurements received from two other lathe owners I drilled the first hole. The plan was to keep the piece on the drill press after drilling the hole so that I could drill the countersink at the same time without moving the piece. Unfortunately the countersink has a 5/8" dia shaft and my drill press only has a 1/2" dia capacity. Oh well I'll talk to a friend and see about going to his shop and drilling the countersinks out there.
Without the countersink I still went ahead and drilled out the remaining holes. First I spray painted the back of the plate so that I could scribe the holes from the back side. I then took a clothes hanger and cut it apart. I ground the one end down to a point and then placed a 4" 90deg bend in it. I then slide that down the inside of the lathe and carefully moved it around in the existing hole to scratch out where I would need to drill the hole on the plate. I then took the plate off and used a washer drilled out to 5/8", the size of the bolts, to assist in locating the centre of the hole, I then centre punched and drilled out the hole. I then mounted it back up and carefully filed out the hole such that I could insert the bolt. I did this three times for the upper bracket and once for the lower bracket. The upper bracket covered 6 holes that were in the lathe body however I've decided only to used the outer 4 holes to mount the plate. The lower bracket had only two holes but after looking at this I decided to drill one more hole and tap this to accept the 1/2" bolts that will mount the lower plate. Here is a picture showing the two plates installed. The upper bolt in the lower plate is the new one I drilled and tapped in the lathe cabinet.

You should be able to tell that they are not countersunk yet. Once I get them countersunk I will carefully scribe where the upper right mounting stud should be based on measurements and installed this stud. After that stud is installed I will support the overhead bracket and slide it onto the stud so that I can position it to be able to mark out where the other three studs need to go. This job will be for another week as I first want to countersink the plates.

Well until the next installment have an enjoyable week and Happy New Year to all.

Harold

Well I'd hoped to be able to show you the steps I took to making a transition plate that would mount to the existing holes and then be setup so as the overhead drive would mount to this plate. After discussion with some of the other lathe owners the decision was made to buy some 1/2" steel plate and carefully drill out holes in the plates to match the holes in the lathe body. I would secure this plate to the lathe using countersunk bolts. I would then drill holes into the plate in the location where the mounting holes should be to hold the overhead drive. These holes would be slightly under 1/2" dia. I would then chamfer the back of the hole and place a chamfer on the stud that would go into this hole. I would then carefully press the stud in and weld this stud in place. With all 4 studs properly secured I would mount the two plates and then mount the overhead drive on the 4 studs. By doing it this way I do not drill any extra holes into the lathe and thereby do not compromise any more of it's integrity.
So that was the plan however mother nature got in the way. I had placed an order with the local metal supplier for some round stock for the "shake adjusting nut" as well as some flat stock for this transition plate. However on Friday when I was supposed to pick it up we ended up with the start of an Ice storm. So far we've had I believe the better part of 10-15mm of ice accumulate on roads, vehicles, trees etc. So I was unable to pick this metal up. This storm is expected to finally end late Sunday so looks like a fairly quiet weekend will be had. No reason to go driving so we'll stay nicely at home. Because of this I cannot do much this weekend. I hate taking too much stuff apart too far in advance so I'm not going to strip more pieces apart. About all we did this week was clean up a few parts from the drive. I've cleaned and painted the two bearing caps and I've cleaned and prepped two hangers for their primer and paint. Here are the pieces I am working on. The two bearing caps are on the left on the wood plate and the two hangers are on the right warming up before priming today.

Well I hope to be able to pick up the metal on Monday and then be able to work on this stuff over the next week. More news next week.
To each and everyone of you  Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. May you all have a wonderful Christmas season.

Harold

Well I'm back at home after spending some time with my Mom and the rest of the family. Since we are of Dutch descent we've always had a little celebration for St Nicholas Day, this year we had all the family together and celebrated this day instead of getting together on Christmas as I will be working then. So for all you Dutch people or of Dutch descent "Prettige Kerstdagen en een Gelukkig Nieuwjaar".

So onto the meat and potatoes as we would say. It's a cold day up here and the shop is not that inviting when it's this cold. So we turned on the heater to get it at least up to a comfortable temperature.
Last time I talked about requiring measurements for mounting the Overhead drive assembly I picked up. Well I recieved measurements from two people that matched up within thous. So first thing I did this morning was measure out approximately where these holes would be in relation to the existing holes. The picture below shows the back of the lathe with the existing holes as well as 4 black circles where the new holes would need to be in order to mount the overhead drive. At this time I have a slight concern as to location of holes in proximity to the other holes as well as the total number of holes that would be in the back of the lathe when done. So I'm going to consult with the other lathe owners to see what the opinions would be on how to get around this problem. I'll brief you on the solution at a later date.

Previously I had started cleaning up the clutch mechanism from this overhead drive. When I took it apart and cleaned up the parts I found there was a company name stamped into the unit with a patent date. Here are a couple of pictures showing this data

For clarity this is what it says " The Carlyle Johnson Machine Co. Manchester Conn USA Patented May 13 1902 Size 0  C***** No 97096"  Unfortunately what is written in front of what I expect is a serial number is illegible. I spent some time on the web and eventually managed to find and print out the patent for this date for the company for this "friction clutch". I even found out the company is still in the business of manufacturing clutches and brakes.

I now took the cleaned parts and started putting them back together. Here are two pictures showing this. 

In the first picture you can see the driveshaft with the selector mechanism that slides left or right depending on the speed required. In the foreground from right to left is the solid bearing, the outer clutch portion and the inner clutch portion with the spreading fingers. When these fingers are spread apart it grabs the inner wall of the second item and transfers the drive power to the drive wheel which is mounted on the right hand side of this item. You can see the complete assembly in picture two showing both the large and small sprocket for the two different speeds. Before setting this all aside I spent some time adjusting the fingers to I hope the right settings for the clutch to work. On the finger is a small screw that adjusts the cam blocks which provide the pressure to force the clutch apart. You can use these small screws to adjust the fingers as the clutch wears with use over time. I believe I have them set okay based on hand moving the outer sleeve mechanism back and forth however the final test will be when it is all connected up. The good thing is that these small screws are accessible once the entire mechanism is put back together. 

Well that's all for this week. I hope over the next week to make a decision on how to mount the overhead drive as well I hope to purchase the steel required to make the "shake adjusting nut" I talked about a couple of weeks ago. Although I will be working over the holidays a fair amount will be on BB standby at home so I should have some time to work in the Shop over the holidays. 

Well, have an enjoyable week and be careful on the roads, winter is here and the ice comes along with it.

That's all for now see you next week

Harold

Well we have success. After a week of spraying Liquid Wrench over it every day the "shake adjusting nut" finally came off. However it did not go without a fight. I had to force it every step of the way until the last few threads. I think that when they made this the tolerances were so tight that just a little bit of junk was enough to bind it up. There was no obvious rusted areas however there was one line in the nut which was as a result of galling. I'll include a few pictures here of what I mean.

In the first picture you can see the galling line halfway up the side of the nut. The nut is threaded on the inner portion. You can also see the damage I created with a special wrench to try and remove the nut. I bought a very large Channel lock plier used on 3-4"Pvc pipe. It has three gripping areas. In the second picture you can see the fracture line where more of the nut flange is waiting to break off. In the third picture you see the pocket where the thrust washer sits. You can also see some of the threading if you look through the shaft hole to the back of the nut. I have decided that I will buy some new material and make a new "shake adjusting nut" If this works well, I will also make a new one eventually for the #39 lathe as that one is damaged as well. All I need to do is decide what material to make if from. The original was Cast Iron however I'll probably use some 12L14 steel instead to make the new nut. Now that it is all apart I can look at putting this all back together. However this will have to wait until I make the new nut and get back from some vacation.

Since all I did with the headstock was spend a few seconds a day rotating it and spraying it with Liquid Wrench I decided to do some more work on the overhead drive. It took a little tinkering but I managed to get the transmission assembly out of the casting. This was facilitated by removing the end caps and then carefully removing the plain bearings from each end. The shaft was then loose enough to slide side to side to allow the removal of two brackets which were used to hold the three step pulley in the proper location. Here is a picture of the assembly.

You can see the two brackets one is still on the left side and the other is laying on the bench by the larger drive sprocket. You can also just see the flat bearings on the shaft at either end. The assembly between the two sprockets is the actual transmission area. A "u" shaft rides loosely in the groove in the centre and moves the larger tube either left or right for low or high speed. I'll attach a few pictures and then talk about the parts that are in this assembly.

The first picture shows the sliding mechanism. in the second picture is a inner piece that is secured to the shaft by a set screw. In the second picture you can see a small screw and plate that was removed to allow the tube to slide off. When this is secured on the inner piece with the tube in place the tube can only move left or right a fixed amount, about 1 inch. On either end of this assembly is another assembly that slides on, this is in picture three above. The item in picture 4 is the inner part of this assembly. When the tube in picture 2 slides left of right there is a small stub piece of metal inside the tube that slides the 2 arms from picture 4 apart. Because of the cam effect of the two small blocks at the bottom of the arms it spreads the collar apart and locks it inside the outer assembly you see in picture three. This would then drive that sprocket. When the tube moves the other direction these two arms would come back together releasing its collar and the two arms in the same assembly on the other side of the shaft would seperate to do the same work and therefor grip its assembly and drive the gear on that side of the assembly. Because of the two different sized sprockets we have two different speeds. Hopefully when I get it all back together it works as advertised. My only concern is if the small collars that spread out get too worn then they will not lock with the outer assembly. If this happens then the drive assembly will not work as advertised. I will not know this until we are all done rebuilding the overhead drive assembly, so wish me luck with this.  Just to give you a sense of all the parts in this entire assembly here is a picture of all the individual parts of this transmission shaft assembly.

Once this was all taken apart I made up a quick little tool to help in removing the threaded spacers that were located in the bottom end of the casting where it bolts onto the lathe body. These spacers can be threaded in and out to compensate for the roughness of the lathe body casting as well as to properly locate the overhead drive right above the headstock. Here is a picture of the spacers before removal.

Once these were removed I put the dust mask and my face shield on and took two days to clean all the old paint off the casting. Once it was all cleaned and wire brushed to remove any surface rust we gave it a spray with a rust inhibiting primer. Here you can see a picture of the casting covered in primer.

There are three people that own these lathes that also have the same overhead drive assembly. I've asked them to send me pictures of how it is mounted as well as measurements for where the holes are in the lathe body. I need these as my lathe never had this overhead drive  mounted and there were no factory holes for this assembly. My hope is that these people send me measurements that match each other so that I can use those same measurements to install mine. If not then I will wait until the headstock is mounted and carefully calculate where it needs to be mounted to ensure its smooth operation.

I will be taking a break from the project as I will be heading home to visit Mom for the next two weekends. So the next time that I'll write in the blog will be 15 December.

For all you Americans out there have a happy Thanksgiving and a safe shopping day on Black Friday.

All the best
Harold