Worn Engine Lathe Evaluation

[@stevecallachor]

The finish you got is what we call cat's tongue, remedy is to increase the feed and reduce the speed. You can't take a shallow cut with insert you showed us. It is possible to get a piece of stock which will not give a good finish. Try a different piece. Your taper is due to bed twist which is nought to done with level...........they use lathes on ships, don't confuse level with twist. Good luck! Steve

[@pauldzim]

Umm, this is his personal/work lathe, he probably uses it every day. I'm pretty sure he would have tried more than one piece of stock. Also he specifically said it was a 40 thou cut, that's not shallow..

[@jdod64]

That's a fairly light cut. I make 3/16 cuts roughing with fairly hard feed regularly on machines at the shop I work in

[@DavidHerscher]

This is a great video. Makes a task that seems insurmountable on the surface and breaks down into logical parts. Thanks for sharing this!

[@wheelieking71]

"There's your problem" Best short scene I have seen in quite a while! LOL, love it!

[@lookcreations]

That was a very good overview of assessing a used lathe Wes. Thanks Mat

[@ArnieTF]

"there's your problem" Love the dry humor

[@erickieffer8440]

I’ve learned that lesson too.

[@jimliechty2983]

Great Video Wes, and a great explanation of how, where, and why to test. To me.....the pluses seem to far out weigh the negatives ....the time, sweat, and unknowns, associated with replacing, should be a huge motivator. With your skills and attention to detail, I have confidence you will identify and repair the problem. If space allows ....maybe a 2nd engine lathe would take away some of the pressure.

[@WatchWesWork]

I do think the machine is worth putting some time and effort into. If I had to put a lot of money into it (hiring an outside company to rebuild it) it would be harder to justify. It's never going to be a Monarch or an Axelson.

[@stevecanny1583]

Very nice Wes, very instructive, very useful insights into how to evaluate lathe condition. Will love to see any repairs you decide to make or hear about your decision-making process if you decide to get a new (to you) one, best of luck either way :)

[@WatchWesWork]

The hardest part is finding a time when I can live without the machine for as long as it takes me to rebuild it.

[@TheMetalButcher]

The secret to keeping any lathe around for a while is the wipers I've found. They should be treated like the oil filter on a car, and changed on a similar schedule. Perfect wipers means no grit to get in, so basically no wear.

[@SteveSummers]

Very nice Wes, Not going to do this on the old hendey, I don't feel like getting depressed today 😳. Nice work by the way, your subs are moving up fast, 👍 left for ya

[@WatchWesWork]

We can thank Sunppaa for that. I'll bet that Hendey is in better shape than you think. Those machines came from an era of HSS tools and plain bearings. The pace was much slower in those days. Plus that machine was so fantastically expensive when new, I'll bet it was well cared for.

[@SteveSummers]

Unfortunately she has seen better days, lots of ware in the tail stock, compound and lead screw. Like you said though after using it for several years I work around it.

[@WatchWesWork]

An engine lathe can be pretty clapped out and still make very good parts. Much more so than a mill. I've only run worn out machines, so I'm used to it. Once, I got to run an almost unused 50 series Monarch. It was incredible. You dial in .03 and it cut .03.

[@SteveSummers]

Everything I have is 2nd or 3rd hand also. I do get to run a new 2 axis cnc / manual mill at work, man those ball screws are nice, makes me feel bad when I use mine at home. Mine is about the worst I have ever see as far as the y axis. I make due with what I have because I haft to :) I'm still glad I have it even if it's junk.

[@bluegrallis]

@@WatchWesWork We had an addition to the shop back when our 'big' lathe was the Monarch. It was a BIGGER Monarch that had basically been unused, and stored since new. A very fine machine to say the least. The only thing wrong with it, was some bone-head ran a fork truck into the cross slide handle, and broke the ring off the spokes.

[@intjonmiller]

Great overview, and thanks for the info about the book!

[@tmurray1972]

Have ya tried a .01 to .02 finishing cut with a .015 NR insert, preferably with a positive rake, at a higher RPM and a much slower feed rate like .002 to .003 IPR? Adjust the head stock for taper and the cross slide gibs. It looks like a decent lathe to me, just depends on how much accuracy you want out of it, as to how much work you’re willing to put into it. And 1045, 1018 sucks for finishes anyway…lol, Try a piece of 4140 or brass or aluminum.

[@joeromanak8797]

Assuming for the moment that you love this lathe so much that you decide to do whatever it takes, are all of her problems fixable? I don’t have experience with anything like this so what could be done and how would you tackle the repairs?

[@machiningbasics1729]

Great video ! Not doing this to my big lathe as frankly I don’t want to know how worn out it is 😂

[@WatchWesWork]

Yeah, there's no sense measuring it if you can't do anything about it.

[@jimzivny1554]

Good video, looks like a great machine just needs some work to correct normal wear and tear. Just a thought, possibly mount a new remote one shot pump if the old one can't be repaired, I think oil from within gets oil into places that you can't from external oiling, also make sure the lines are all clear. You may be able to get replacement clutch parts, Google might be your new best friend! I'm a new subscriber, looking forward to seeing the repairs, thanks for sharing.

[@WatchWesWork]

I will try to fix the lube pump, but if I cannot, I will use a remote one shot pump. I think I have a spare one somewhere.

[@taiwanluthiers]

If you can rock the cross slide it means the gib needs adjustment. Problem is the uneven wear, and it would be extremely tight at the start of the travel vs. the middle. Also the head needs to be aligned.

[@ab-shop]

Good morning and thank you for your nice video : could you say, please, where i can find the list on your hand, with the value that are good or not good when you check a lathe? It will be very useful for me, i have to buy a used lathe so i will can check the wear conditions of bed ways etc!!! Thank you in advance for your answer !! Alberto.

[@demportboy1584]

Just seen this, so most of your finish problem is the type of tool you are using. If the material isn't a tool steel you should use high speed tooling, the shape of the cutting tip sharp or slight radius with relief coming away from the cutting tip, not a horizontal attitude. Even the tip tool you are using have their own types of steel to be used on. I would love to show you but the trip is too far. Bill in Brisbane.

[@James-fs4rn]

very helpful and informative. thanks for sharing.

[@grosseileracingteam]

When all you've got is a hammer, everything starts to look like nails.

[@Netherlands031]

what do you mean by that (in this context)

[@grosseileracingteam]

@@Netherlands031 It might be a worn out lathe, but work with what you have. Some people don't have a lathe.

[@johnstrange6799]

Interesting. Thanks for making the video.

[@AgustinCesar]

Future Wes, is May 18 2022, the YT AI recommended this video. Why? I don't know, but I got to tell you, your voice is quite different.

[@hatman6431]

I hardly subscribe on KZbin, but you are da man, Wes.

[@JourneymanRandy]

Very helpful Wes. Thanks

[@TimothyGambino9085]

You didn’t check the cross screw and nut And don’t level a lathe you twist the casting on purpose until it cuts with no taper.

[@meocats]

might just be the chuck jaws bowed out, not the lathe itself.

[@akfarmboy49]

2 1/2 spindle bore is great

[@santopezzotti730]

Can you tell me where to find the PDF copy of that manual you’re talking about

[@policedog4030]

As far as trusted websites, I think the top three sites to download out-of-copyright material are 1.) Google books; 2.) Archive dot org; 3.) The Library of Congress

[@stumpy2816]

👍👍

[@madscientistshusta]

Wait a minute..your not sheogorath!😡

[@billgator2005]

first i am not a hotshot machinist but..that cut seems very consistant and between the thread type scratches it looks like near mirror finish. so..let's get right to it.. i think you are mistaken about the lathe and perhaps you need put your prejudice aside and see the facts... the problem here is an incompetent machinist...

[@WatchWesWork]

OK. So it wasn't the spindle bearings that were completely hooped or the .008" of slop in the cross slide. It was the monkey at the wheel.

[@sparkiekosten5902]

"A closer look at more of my junk."........Ewwww! All jokes aside that is still a nice lathe and although it is Chineesium it looks to be well built. It is a shame age gets to any lathe but it looks like it is worth the save! Keep up the good work!

[@tomwanek673]

Just looking at getting into machining as a hobby, and checking out used lathes. This is super helpful in showing what to look for and how to evaluate the issues that any used lathe is bound to have. Thanks for such a detailed look at evaluating a lathe.

[@danaitch3880]

Not a bad lathe all in all. I would kill for a foot brake on my 1440GT, they are all too handy. 2.5" spindle bore, that's very nice also. 7.5HP! Once you tune it up, that's some decent power for sure. (21 downvotes this day, four years on? How?! Better yet - Why?!)

[@theshootindutchman]

Although mostly above my pay grade, that was really cool!

[@noelgrech8315]

I think you have a decent lathe but I do not agree on how you were measuring bed wear. I would put the tip of the dial indicator to sit on the portion where the tailstock slides. When new (the lathe) the saddle and tailstock ways are true and parallel. When the lathe gets older and would have seen a lot of work, the front ridge and the flat part(on the inner side) of the bed where the saddle slides tend to wear out and go lower but never the tailstock guides. So if you want to make a better assessment of the bed and see how much the saddle dips you should try this method. TKS

[@jeromeclements6532]

I worked in a shop many years ago with some nearly new equipment and some worn out junk equipment. If you bitched about the old crappy stuff, the owner would say: "Look, anybody can do nice work on a nice machine, but it takes a REAL machinist to turn out nice work on a junk machine". That was the old dudes story anyway.

[@martindennehy3030]

What did he mean by nice work?? Nobody will do accurate work on a clapped out machine, and i would have told him that.

[@houseofbrokendobbsthings5537]

Very through - well done. Sometimes we have what we have. Often I shudder to admit defeat and throw something away.

[@paulvandal4444]

I just downloaded a PDF file of Georg Schlesinger's Testing Machine Tools. That's a golden find! Thanks, you gained a new subscriber for that.

[@CrazyPetez]

Very good analysis Wes. You’re way more educated and informed as a rural car/truck/tractor repair guy. Your an engineer👍.

[@KrisDouglas]

This looks like a Chinese copy of a lathe made by an English manufacturer called Colchester.

[@W1VLF]

Hi Wes Great video opened my eyes as to where all the wear points might be on my old Logan. What do you think most of the finish issues are coming from, the worn cross slide? Thanks for the excellent video. I just subscribed.

[@WatchWesWork]

I suspect that the main factors are the worn cross slide, a tendency for the carriage to rock on the bed ways, slop in the 3 jaw chuck, and possibly the spindle bearings. That's the order I would assign to the problem areas.

[@jeremycable51]

Pretty damn handy video here I need to rework my compound and crosslide

[@chrisjarvis4449]

at 1.44 if you were to put a pick up on that thing i bit it would play marry had a little lamb

[@powerq21]

Helped me, thank you & made me subscribe too!

[@eformance]

Something of note about your thrust measurements on the spindle, you need to bias the spindle in one direction, reset the indicator to zero, then apply pressure in the opposite direction. Total thrust cannot be measured without first biasing the spindle to one direction. Also, half a thou of deflection in the spindle bearings is a lot. My ENCO-1540 can't dial-in less than 3 tenths because the spindle bearings are not in perfect shape. You can measure an orbit of the spindle as it rotates, showing that you can never get it dialed in. That said, it will hold a thou if I babysit it, but it can be tedious. Also, .040 per side for a 16" lathe isn't a deep cut, it should be able to do .125 per side without falling apart, and .050 per side ad infinitum. If anything, a deeper cut, discounting chatter, should look better because it takes up all the slack in the system. If you're getting worse finishes with a deeper cut, , then....

[@WatchWesWork]

I thought about this too. I repeated the test using the tailstock to push the chuck the other way. The results were the same. I also checked the other end of the spindle. I'm still not sure if the bearings are really OK. Best case scenario, I have some no name Chinese bearings in there. The preload is adjustable on all of the bearing sets, but some thing have to come apart to do that. I guess we shall see. I think the movement on the indicator is bending in the spindle, not play in the bearings. It's hard to describe the way it feel to do the test.

[@FishFind3000]

0:50 YEP!

[@Ryan-dz3jo]

Very interesting content, thanks for the reference material.

[@VanoverMachineAndRepair]

What a great video thank you for the resource.

[@EngineerPEretired]

10:24 you are using the saddle to do your measurement yet, a moment before you state there is about a 3-thou drop in the ways... So, you might be in that section of the dip of the ways... Just saying. Also NEVER forget, the accuracy of all gauges, they have a 1-thou +/- on most of them. Of course you also have the surface you are sliding on, it can have a burr that gives you a false reading... I always suggest you mark and flip the tooling to confirm it is also parallel.

[@clarencewiles963]

Thumbs up 👍

[@jonkzak]

Thank you Wes for this video. Invaluable information.

[@dans_Learning_Curve]

Checking out some of your older videos. Nice job on this one!

[@zephyrold2478]

Hi, good informativ video, Bison chucks from Poland are very good chucks, just look at some of Edge Precision videos, my 160mm has 0.5/100mm runout and that is a standard chuck. I kinow that Edge Precision uses 4 jaw independant chucks but if he uses them its good enough for me.

[@mrrbob]

I have very similar lathe, looks almost exactly like yours but is is called a Enco 111-1450. Interestingly, it is actually a 16x40 and was under rated by enco for some reason. It was in a field covered up waiting for the owner who closed a business due to health/cancer issues to build another shop, owner decided that was not going to happen so he put all his machine tools up for sale. I thought I got a good deal. Turned out, no. After I checked it the way you checked this one all I can say is YIKES... Mine is worse then yours, it seems to have a lot of bed wear. It seems the bed ways are out of alignment with the tail stock ways by a lot also, I got to try and do some more checking but it just seems strange they would be out so much as my bed ways and tail stock ways look great. I guess you can't tell just by how they look.... I think I am going to try and evaluate the spindle bearings in the head stock to see if they are toast or are still good as described in your follow up video. Interestingly, the copy of the manual I downloaded shows double opposing angular roller hearings on the chuck end of my spindle. If they are good I'm going to try and figure out how to re-cut cross slide ways and regrind the bed ways. Will definitively do the cross slide but may or may not do the bed ways, I'll just have to start using it and see how all that works out. I am really starting to see the value in saving and spending a lot more on better machine tools right from the start. Interestingly, similar lathes are still sold new by Grizzly as a G0749 - 16" x 40" Heavy Duty Lathe, link here >> www.grizzly.com/products/16-x-40-Heavy-Duty-Lathe/G0749 ~

[@waggledanceterrafirma1706]

Thanks, you have given me hope and didn't know about Schessinger. 7th edition is available free pdf.

[@erniehenshaw4065]

My Logan 11" Lathe cuts a taper close to the headstock.Larger near the chuck about 5 thou.It has Vee ways there is no front to back movement on the saddle.It appears that the ways/carriage is worn.

[@davidwhite4474]

Keith Richardson on y tube has videos on a machine of his he got rebuild he owes . worth watching for you Wes on this subject . great work on this .

[@clarencewiles963]

A big part of the evaluation is replacement costs thumbs up 👍

[@puncherdavis9727]

I started watching Wes videos and how I get them nonstop recommended

[@tomray949]

I will be looking for the reference material you suggested . I have a Colchester triumph I'm cleaning up.

[@bulletproofpepper2]

So it eliminates everything down to one point and that one point is the indicator’s tip. What is the level for?

[@dwitcraft]

I didn't understand 75% of it, but very entertaining

[@NuclearHedgehog]

Very helpful indeed. Thanks for the book tip. It looks like just the book I needed to save me a lot of figuring out if/when I get my lathe project to the point where I can start evaluating what I actually bought. :)

[@danielwerger5641]

Great video Wes, thank you very much... I also have a smaller GRIP (KBC) lathe, and just for fun, I'll try a few of your tests to see how it stands up... Cheers, Daniel

[@aceroadholder2185]

A but late for the show, but I'd say the biggest bang for the buck or time invested would be to re-scrape the cross slide. I would guess that being mainland Chinese the scraping originally wasn't much to write home about and though it may have been ok when new, there were few contact points and it rapidly wore in the middle where it gets the most use. The good news is that it can fairly quickly be repaired (for scraping anyway). Doing that would probably do wonders for the surface finish.

[@WatchWesWork]

Yes, but see the other videos for details on the spindle bearings.

[@RobertKohut]

Nice!!

[@PaulHigginbothamSr]

I would think it would be 8,000 to make this lathe new again.

[@WatchWesWork]

Yeah that's a good estimate if you hired the work done.

[@richardshephard5335]

i am sure the Chinese make some wonderful things, like fireworks and noodles ect, but in my limited experience they don't make very good steel, tools or machines. they give us what we want cheap crap. if something is cheap there's a good reason

[@WatchWesWork]

You certainly get what you pay for. The machine has some good features, but it was built to a price point, and that is evident throughout the machine.

[@gixer1109]

The Chinese make some of the best tools money can buy, but only for those that will pay for it. What we tend to get is what our tool suppliers order, price being the main factor.

[@intjonmiller]

gixer1109 Precisely. There are amazing machines, especially from Taiwan. Blanket statements like "Chinese only make crap" really annoy me. Like there are no American or German companies that make crap.

[@6h471]

Jon Miller Yep, the Chinese stuff isn't all crap. In the shop I used to work in, we had several manual lathes, mostly older US built iron, and we also had a 16 x 56 Enco. Not exactly sure of it's size, but I'm pretty sure that was it. That thing is a damned good lathe and was used heavily. We had one problem with the feed gearbox leaking oil, which was just a matter of resealing the cover. I normally ran a slant bed CNC lathe, and a 24x144 bed type CNC lathe, both taiwanese, and top quality anywhere in the world.

[@lockbuilder]

Excellent video!

[@WatchWesWork]

Thank you.

[@j.k.j.j.k.j.99]

nice vid

[@jomgelborn]

nice job explaining all that.

[@WatchWesWork]

Thanks John. Did you give up on practical machinist?

[@jomgelborn]

Yeah, got tired of all cry babies. I'd rather watch videos like yours and learn cool stuff.

[@markgrevatt4867]

Hi Wes this is great advice to help get your lathe working properly. The manual you discussed does he have the same information on English Colchester lathes. I've just started the strip down on my Colchester master 6inch lathe. It was built in 1939. Would that manual cover my lathe. Just subscribed buddy. Very helpful 👍👍👍👍👍

[@leonanderson4727]

Thanks Wes for showing how to evaluate an engine lath. Using that caliper takes brains.

[@MultiDislikes]

disassemble, rub, hand scrap, reassemble, set gibs, align good as new again even if it started as a Chinese machine or a raw piece of cast it can all be rebuilt unless it's the ways on the bed that's not easy or cheap flame harden and re ground everything else can be restored.

[@WatchWesWork]

We'll see. I think the minor wear on the bed can be fixed by scraping.