Lathe tailstock refubishment

[olderdan]

When I first acquired my 1939 model B South Bend lathe I became obvious it had had a hard life.
It was a war effort supply to a UK dockyard and was purchased at auction.
After the usual refurbishment the main problem was tailstock base wear, unlike the saddle there were no bed wipers which are now added.
The wear seemed to be more pronounced at front resulting in the barrel being tilted downwards, after a few years of use by adding shims between the sub base I decided that a more permanent solution had to found.
After removing the wear ridges and hand scraping the base this came in the form of line boring the tailstock casting on the lathe with a long boring bar supported with a three point steady with the saddle pushing it along the bed ( a spring placed under the clamp bolt) the cut stopping at the threaded end.
The actual size was not critical as a new barrel would have to be made to suit, about .025 thou was needed to clean up.
This left the problem of a now eccentric thread at the hand wheel end and a few options were explored, I am not a fan of rack feed tailstocks as they can make larger drills difficult to control so I decided to keep things as original as possible and work around it. As I knew how much material had been removed the threaded boss was bored out and an eccentric bush was made ( easy to align as there is an oil hole at the top).
A new barrel was made using the original bronze feed nut and I now have a good as new setup no more wandering drills and between centres turning is a breeze, not bad for a 77 year old lathe.

While everything was dismantled I decided to convert to a lever clamp system, so a flat surface was milled on the base in preparation for this and a hole bored though the back face in line with the clamp bolt.

I will detail this in another post as it has been a great mod and makes backing out small drills much easier.

[Paul Jones]

olderdan,

I like your solution using an eccentric bush to compensate for thread height differences after re-boring. Nice tailstock restoration work. Question: how did you ream out the new Morse taper in the tailstock?

Regards, Paul

[olderdan]

Hi Paul,
Thanks for the kind words.
I used a home made tool steel No2 reamer as a bought one seemed expensive for occasional use.
This is left handed as it was the only way I could mill it in the lathe at the time, works o/k and a bit worn in now so useful for a cleanup now and then.

Regards
Olderdan

[

[Paul Jones]

Hi olderdan,

This is amazing and I should have known you have the skill to make your own reamers. Thank you for the photos and inspiration.

Regards, Paul

[DIYer]

Thanks olderdan! We've added your Tailstock Refurbishment to our Lathes category,
as well as to your builder page: olderdan's Homemade Tools. Your receipt:

Tailstock Refurbishment by olderdan

tags: tailstock

[Moby Duck]

This reamer has got me thinking. Hardest part for me would be making a perfect Morse taper blank. Would it make any sense to make the reamer from an old Morse drill shank or a relatively cheap Morse size change adapter? Soften/harden it as necessary during the process. I often wish i had a Morse clean up reamer.

Your quote "not bad for a 77 year old lathe", has me wondering whether you are anywhere near the same age as the lathe, but whatever age you are, I would add "not bad for you too". I have 52 years of Navy and Dockyard experience and can only imagine the neglect and abuse that it might have received in its earlier life. I am pleased to see that it has found a caring home.

[DIYer]

Thanks olderdan! We've added your Left Handed Reamer to our Machining category,
as well as to your builder page: olderdan's Homemade Tools. Your receipt:

Left Handed Reamer by olderdan

tags: reamer

[olderdan]

Hi Moby Duck
Yes you could make a reamer starting with a MT drill shank, I think it would have to be a carbon steel one for heat treatment not HSS.
I used this idea making a tailstock Die holder arbor from an old drill by boring out and fitting a shank, I think you would have to do this to get a workable length for milling.
The lathe is four years older than me so I feel younger when I use it, the worst damage it had was 2 teeth missing from the back gear bull wheel, usual freeing a jammed chuck syndrome, repaired now just a little noisy
Regards
Olderdan

[tonyfoale]

Dan,

I found your suggested post. Great job. As I mentioned in the other post I will take the opportunity to make the barrel as big as I can within the strength limits of the tailstock housing, in order to go up in morse taper size.

[mr95gst]

Dan,
Did you ever end up posting a thread about converting the tailstock to a lever clamp? If you did, I couldn't find it.