Craftsman 101.06260 lathe restoration

[BuckeyeDennis]

I'm in the process of restoring a cool old 1940-vintage Craftsman lathe, model 101.06260. The casting and machining is of very high quality, as I've come to expect of that vintage of American-made machinery. Here's the Craigslist photo showing it painted gray. (I left the stand behind when I picked up the lathe.) The original lathe color is blue, and I'll match that when I repaint it.

Craigslist photo.jpg (95.61 KiB) Viewed 15103 times

Inboard turning capacity is 10" over the bed, and 36" between centers. But the spindle is threaded on the outboard side as well, so if I devise an outboard tool rest (I'm considering making an outboard mount for the Shopsmith Universal Tool Rest), I can turn arbitrarily large diameters. It has a 4-step pulley on the spindle and drive motor and a minimum speed of 695 RPM, so a variable-speed motor drive would also be in order for large-diameter stuff.

As a bonus, it's compatible with all my Shopsmith lathe tooling. Both the spindle and the tailstock accept #2 Morse tapers. The spindle is threaded 1"-8, RH on the inboard side and LH on the outboard side. Amazingly to me, Nova sells a chuck adapter that fits both the RH and LH threads -- basically a precision cross-threading job on the ID of the adapter!

Overall, the old girl is in very good shape. But when disassembling the headstock, I found that some previous owner was fond of working on it with a hammer, steel punch, and vise grips. Which made disassembly quite a challenge. Some judicious filing cleaned up the outboard spindle threads. That let me remove the spindle thrust nut and spacer collar, and also mount a regular 1"-8 LH hex nut for use with pullers and such. Everything else on the spindle should be a nice slip fit, but it was still jammed up tight after a couple weeks of marinating in PB Blaster. I finally got it apart today, resorting to oak blocking and 4-pound hammer persuasion on the "slip-fit" parts. The bearings still feel OK after that abuse, but I'm going to replace them anyway.

The various PO dings will clean up OK mechanically, and the ones that can't be removed entirely will be hidden when assembled. The worst scars were from someone assembling it with the pulley setscrew not seated on it's flat on the spindle. That kicked up some pretty big burrs on the spindle OD, but hand filing & polishing will take care of those.

Those big OD burs then formed some scars on the ID's of the aluminum pulley and a couple of steel spacers. They all have 25mm bores, and the scarring is not extensive. So here's my first question for you guys: what's the best way to clean up the ID's of those parts? A round file followed by sandpaper wrapped around a dowel? A reamer? Small drum sander on a Shopsmith? What I don't want to do is open up the whole ID, and lose the precision slip fit.

[rpd]

If you have some 25mm rod, make a D-bit reamer to clean up the bores.

[BuckeyeDennis]

If you have some 25mm rod, make a D-bit reamer to clean up the bores.

Google wasn't much help on how to make D-bits, and a standard 3' length of 25mm drill rod cost more than I paid for the lathe. But a 25mm hand reamer cost even more ...

A Google search on deburring bores did turn up an interesting discussion on deburring internal keyways ... it seems that is often a manual process even in machine shops. Using files, grinding wheels, Dremel tools, etc. I'm beginning to think that knocking down my burrs with a round file, and then smoothing with sandpaper wrapped around a 3/4" dowel, will be the practical method for me.

[rpd]

If you have some 25mm rod, make a D-bit reamer to clean up the bores.

Google wasn't much help on how to make D-bits, and a standard 3' length of 25mm drill rod cost more than I paid for the lathe. But a 25mm hand reamer cost even more ...

A Google search on deburring bores did turn up an interesting discussion on deburring internal keyways ... it seems that is often a manual process even in machine shops. Using files, grinding wheels, Dremel tools, etc. I'm beginning to think that knocking down my burrs with a round file, and then smoothing with sandpaper wrapped around a 3/4" dowel, will be the practical method for me.

OK something similar to your dowel and sandpaper, a lap. and the good news is it's made of wood. start at the 12:45 min mark in this video to see how to make/use one.



If you want to thy making a D reamer , note that 25mm = 0.984252 inches so you could start with a length of 1" rod, turn it in the lathe and grind/sand it down to the appropriate size for the pulley bore, most likely slightly larger than 25mm. These instructions are for making d bits to drill parts for bagpipes http://www.machineconcepts.co.uk/smallpipes/tools.htm

Or you could take it to a machine shop, They would probably have a reamer and do it for a reasonable price.

[Dansmith]

Nice find, Dennis. I like older machinery. As to the bores, if it were me, I would not use a file. I have a tendency to mess things up with a file. I would just start with fine emery cloth, and see if that does the trick. On the other hand, is it just cosmetic and better left alone?

[BuckeyeDennis]

I really like that lap, Ron. But making a D reamer, I'm afraid, is beyond my very modest metal-working skills and resources.

The tiny little steam-engine video was fascinating -- I watched the whole thing. And it has motivated me to take the Craftsman lathe to the next level. The lathe was actually manufactured by Atlas Press for Craftsman, and one of the options was a compound slide for metalworking. As it happens, a while back I lucked into a brand new compound slide from a mini-mill for only $30. I bought it with the idea of using it on my 10ER for drilling and possibly some light milling, but I think it should work just fine on the Craftsman as well.

This morning, I pressed the front bearing and spacer off of the Craftsman spindle, and then cleaned up the OD. I started with a flat file to knock down the highest points on the burrs, then stoned them flush with the unmarred OD, and finally smoothed with 220 grit and 400 grit sandpaper. It came out pretty good. The undamaged ends, where the bearings seat, miked out at 0.9841", or 24.996 mm. Plenty good for me, and the bearings fit with a light press. The center of the spindle measured about 0.0002" less, where I had to clean up more aggressively, but that should be plenty good for the pulley fit.

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In the photo above, I was using just my Shopsmith for a workholding fixture. I can't spin up that Craftsman spindle until I can get that old spur center out, and support it with a live center. So far the live center has resisted a couple weeks of PB Blaster soak, the full force capability of a Harbor Freight bearing splitter, and a few medium hammer whacks via a long punch. So now it's on to a nice long Evaporust soak.

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But first, I tested the fit of the burred-up pulley (above) on the spindle. And as they say, sometimes you get lucky. It turned out that the spindle itself made a dandy broaching tool. With only a few pounds of hand pressure, the outboard spindle threads sheared the taller burrs off of the aluminum pulley ID, and after a couple of passes I had a nice slip fit. To which I say "good enough". It still ain't pretty, but then it can't be seen. And anything I do to pretty it up will just give me a sloppier fit.

One of the steel bearing spacers also had a single small burr kicked up near the end of the bore. For that one, I carefully filed the burr flush with the nose of a small file like the one below. I don't have a clue where I got that file, but it was perfect for the job. I just took the burr down a bit at a time until I got a nice slip fit, and called it good.

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So Dan, I think the trick to filing is to use the right type of file. Personally, I'm more concerned about using abrasives, because they remove material relatively indiscriminately. Which is great for polishing, but in this case I wanted to remove only the burr, and not remove any material elsewhere in the bore.

[BuckeyeDennis]

This morning, I conquered what I hope will be the last serious rebuild challenge for this old lathe -- that spur drive in the spindle was stuck in an absolute death grip. The photo below shows my setup from an early removal attempt -- not shown is the large handscrew clamp that I used as a torque restraint for the HF bearing splitter. The final bearing-splitter attempt came after a week-long soak in Evaporust. It did put a dimple in the back end of the (American made!) drift punch that I was using as a ram, but the spur drive didn't budge.

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At this point, I decided that finesse wasn't the answer, and escalated to what I'll politely call "the BFH method". First, I ginned up some fixtures for driving out the spur drive, with the goal of zero damage to the spindle. A short piece of 1" black pipe was perfect to support the front spindle flange, an a 12" length of 1/2" steel bar (both from HD) made a sturdy knockout rod. I ground the ends of both pieces nice and flat with a Shopsmith disc sander. Finally, I cut a small length of 1" dowel to cushion the spur drive when it (hopefully) blasts free. If this doesn't work, the spur drive will have to be machined out of the spindle, and the Morse taper re-cut.

The BFH method.JPG (417.05 KiB) Viewed 14891 times

Ready to whack.JPG (425.68 KiB) Viewed 14891 times

And using the end of an ash log to take the pounding, we have success! As you can see, the problem with the Evaporust soak was that it couldn't penetrate very far into the taper.

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Tool abuse.JPG (462.19 KiB) Viewed 14891 times

I had resigned myself to buying a #2MT reamer and cleaning up a damaged spindle taper, but amazingly, the taper itself appears to be unscathed. The abusive PO had beaten the crap out of the back end of the spur-drive taper, though, mushrooming it considerably. The inboard spindle threads were not as badly battered as outboard ones were, so they should clean up nicely as well.

[nuhobby]

Awesome! I love it.
In my rust-hunting, I've several times found that impulse-strikes can do what continuous force cannot do.
Keep up the great work!

Chris

[Dansmith]

Good work, Dennis.

[JPG]

HMMMMMM I have a 10ER tailstock and socket that have resisted all previous attempts. I have a bigger "FH".

Will try soon. Der pipe is de secret. However the 'back' end of the tailstock is exposed. If it breaks, nothing lost - it is useless as is.

Will be adding(again) deep freeze followed by socket heating.