& Yet More About the Lathe

Posted on December 1, 2011 by graywolf

I got a reply from the seller. To paraphrase: “I didn’t know it was junk, so it isn’t my fault”.

Or, in his own words:

“As I said in the ad; The only thing I checked is if the machine turned on. Which it did. It was clean, lubed and appeared to be lightly used. I’m sorry to hear of all the other problems you have apparently encountered with the unit, as I did not know they existed. I’m happy you can acquire the needed parts. Evidently, your a machinist, I’m not. I just bought the machine to do one project, and it was to small. I never even bought any tooling. The guy I bought it from got it from an auction. So, what I got is what you got.”

The following is what I have just ordered to fix the lathe to the point where it will run. The free stuff is parts that come with the lathe that the guy I am buying the parts from tossed in for free. To put the lathe in “out of the box” condition, I would have to order another $80 worth of parts from Mike. Mike sells on eBay  (macnc11). Ever inquired about something from an eBay seller, and have him telephone to see exactly what you were looking for? Mike did. 1000% (yes I typed three zero) recommended. I guess this proves that some days you lose, and others you win.

Description Quantity Unit price Amount
Leadscrew Support #270 - Mini Lathe ref. 1 $9.22 $9.22
Saddle Retainer #92 - Mini Lathe ref. 2 $6.07 $12.14
Half Nut#75 - Mini Lathe ref. 1 $0.00 $0.00
MT2 Short Live Center #143 - Mini Lathe ref. 1 $15.39 $15.39
Change Gear Set of 10 - 30, 35, 40, 40, 45, 50, 55, 57, 60, 65 Tooth Size 1 $34.00 $34.00
Hex wrenches, set of 4 (#311) - Mini Lathe ref. 1 $0.00 $0.00
Spanner, 8-10 (#312 - Mini Lathe ref. 1 $0.00 $0.00
Oil Can (#310 - Mini Lathe ref. 1 $0.00 $0.00
Spanner, 14-17(#313 - Mini Lathe ref. 1 $0.00 $0.00
Description (optional) 1 $0.00 $0.00
Subtotal $70.75
Shipping/handling $11.65
Total $82.40 USD

Note to recipient

I’m including #75 Half nut “No Charge”, it can be made to work if you choose, the pin needs to be moved toward the center, also the #313(14-17)wrench. I can have these in the mail today. Thanks —–Mike

 

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And Sometimes We Are Lucky

Posted on November 30, 2011 by graywolf

Started tearing the lathe down to see what was what inside the headstock. Stripped the lathe down piece by piece until I took off the motor cover. What’s this? They motor is not supposed to be mounted at an angle!

Turns out all the motor mount nuts were loose. The funny sound I was hearing was the toothed pully moving against the toothed belt. I tightened up the motor mounts nuts set the proper slack in the belt, plugged it in and turned it on.  The proper parts spun, remember all the gear train had been removed. Installed the bits to drive the spindle, and… it turned smoothly like it should.

So, I put the gear train back on and a couple of the covers….

Partially reassemble lathe

With the gear train back on, where I stopped for the evening (see above photo), I tried running it again. Everything so far is working smoothly. Tried it in forward and reverse, and then again with the lead screw (a long screw that provides power feed to the carriage)  engaged.

Great, so I am not going to have to spend $60 on transmission gears right away.

For some of the other parts I am waiting on a quote from a guy that buys returned ones from Harbor Freight,t and strips them for parts. Only problem is, he does not want to sell bits and pieces, but whole sub-assemblies. So, for instance I can get a thread cutting change gear set from him, but not an extra 50 tooth gear that I want for cutting metric threads.

This is better than I thought it was going to be this morning, but still not a happy making thing. But, I now guess that it will only be about 1/2 what I thought it would to fix the lathe. In other words I will have in it about what a really nice, not a bargain, used one would  cost.

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More on the new lathe

Posted on November 30, 2011 by graywolf

Interestingly, it is the current model 7×10 according to the model number, but how did it get so screwed up so damn fast? Below is my survey of it so far, not even counting the things I have fixed already, mostly missing screws and adjustments.

At this point, it is looking like I would have been better off buying a new one. I paid $300+SSH for this used one, and a new one is currently $500+SSH. But if I have to put $200 into it, I am out my labor, and of course do not have a warranty on it. Of course, the eBay seller, did not disclose all those problems, and shipping on something this heavy is out of sight,  so returning it is not sensible either. That would sort of be like tossing $60-70 in the trash. So, here is where it is:

Harbor Freight “Chicago Machinery” 7×10 Mini Lathe Model 93212

DAMAGED PARTS:
Spindle Gear (14)*
H/L Gear (24)*
Leadscrew Support (270). This is simply broken off. Unfortunately, I have to buy the assembly not just the broken bit.
Saddle Retainer (92),  2ea. These had one of the three screws on each side missing and were bent. Caused by pure ham handedness and ignorance.

MISSING:
Chuck Jaws, External, Set of 3 (166). Wow looks like $40 to replace, I would rather buy a larger chuck since that is about 1/2 the price of a new one.
MT:2 Live Center (143)**
Change Gears, Set of 10*** (30, 35, 40, 40, 45, 50, 55, 57, 60, 65) I will also probably add an extra 50 & 60 tooth gear so I can do metric threads too.

Also MISSING, but have substitutes, or don’t care:
Hex wrenches, set of 4 (311)
Spanner, 8-10 (312)
Spanner, 14-17 (313)
Oil Can (310)
Chuck Guard (201)
Protective Cover (235)

*This, according to web sources, is a real common failure point. I have not actually gotten that far into the machine, but when I tried running it on the low gear setting things worked for a moment then everything stopped moving, but the motor was still running and the was a grinding noise. Ran OK on high speed. So I figure these transmission gears are broken. On the other hand, if I have to tear the lathe down to that point, I figure I might as well go to the expense of replacing them with metal gears and putting in tapered roller bearings.

**I think I would just as soon have a dead center. Everyone thinks the live center is better, but a dead center is more accurate.

***Since I have to buy them anyway, I may check into getting an extended set that will do about any thread you can imagine. Turns out I only need extra 50 & 60 tooth gears in addition the the set that comes with the lathe.

 

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Kitchen Machine Shop

Posted on November 28, 2011 by graywolf

For real, not metaphorically. The lathe I mentioned buying from eBay arrived today. Completely disassembled. I spent an hour cleaning it a bit and reassembling it. I did nothing about setting it up properly, so it is not yet ready for use.

Photo of lathe

Used Harbor Freight 7x10 inch metal lathe

There it is on top of my old Craftsman tool chest. Fits like the chest was made for it. When I bought it on eBay last week, I also joined the 7×10 Users Group on Yahoo! After assembling it I logged on there and the top post was about Harbor Freight having a tool set for the lathe on sale today only. I immediately jumped over there and ordered one. Saved $20 at $29.95 instead of 49.95, can not beat that with  a stick, can you? The will give me the basic stuff I need to try out the lathe.

The eBay seller used that 50/50 packing method they seem to like. You know, old packing materials, just enough so that you have a half and half chance of getting it undamaged. What eats me about it is I told him how to pack it properly. It arrived with only minor damage, I wonder if he packed it that way so he could say the post office caused it?

My friend Robin, who runs the downtown post office, hauled it out to the loading dock for me to pick it up. That was nice of her. Especially, as the post office is up a long flight of stairs from the street. With service like that, no wonder the Postal Service wants to close that branch down.

Anyway, I hope this will give me the ability to make those impossible to find bits and pieces for the old stuff I am always getting into. If it works, it is a decades long dream come true.

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Where Did the Month Go?

Posted on November 25, 2011 by graywolf

And a month goes by without a post, not that nothing good happened, just that I was lazy as a dog on a hot August afternoon.

I finally received that check for the photo of a keyboard McGraw/Hill wants to use in an upcoming textbook.

We dissolved the Photography Club due to lack of interest. Really, my not having the energy to do my job keeping it going, and no one else had the time to do it either. That was a sad thing, but the board of directors voted to give me the funds in the club treasury. That along with the check from McGraw/Hill made a very nice birthday present for me.

I am in the process of moving my account to a new bank. The new bank provides free checking, free checks, a free debit card, a free safe deposit box, free travelers checks, free cashiers checks, and who knows what else to their senior citizen customers. The old bank provided new fees. Not a hard choice to make.

Yesterday, Thanksgiving Day, I went to some friends for dinner. Good food, good company, good times, what more could you ask for?

I have wanted one of those Chinese Mini Lathes for several years, but I needed to use the money to fix the computer. Then I found a used one on eBay for about 60% of the price of a new one. I could just stretch to buy it and fix the computer. So it is in the mail. In the mail? The thing weighs 80#, but he says he mailed it to me this morning.

I am taking a break from picking up the living room. I have not been keeping up the apartment as I have not been feeling very well all summer long. How bad is it? Well, it used to be I could pick up the apartment if company was coming over in about thirty minutes . So far, today, I have been working on the living room for about four hours, and it is not done, maybe an hour more to go. Then there are the kitchen, the bedroom, and the bath (not in too bad a shape because I cleaned it really thoroughly a couple of weeks ago) to do.

Then the closets all need to be emptied out, repacked with what I want to keep and rest tossed. It was very hard to start, but then I thought, “I will pick up everything that has a place, and put it in its place”. Once I had done that, it was a matter of sorting through the rest. Three trash bags, mostly of old mail. Some of that stuff was dated from more than a year ago.

Anyway, if I can finish the living room today, the kitchen tomorrow, and the bedroom on Sunday, I figure I will be in a lot better shape. Might even feel comfortable having someone over.

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Wow!

Posted on October 24, 2011 by graywolf

I just drank a half bottle of wine, and am drunk.

Who would have thought? I usually drink a bottle of beer and it does nothing. So what is the result of this lack of discipline? The new header on this blog. Old cameras and a photo of an old bicycle. Add the computer an you have most of my current interests. Kind of limited, heh?

Actually, the wine, Oak Leaf Chardonnay, $2.50 from walmart, is not as bad as one might think, but I am not normally a wine drinker. My ex was a into wine, I have always preferred beer. Grolsch being my beer of choice. Sometimes I like a bit of wiskey, either Bourbon or Irish. I usually buy Henry McKenna, not expensive, but pretty good never the less. However, getting high is not something I like to do. I figure I am nutty enough without the help of chemicals. So, I did not expect this when I decided to finish off that bottle of Chardonnay.

I put on some coffee, so I should go get a cup of that…

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Kodak Monitor Six-20 Did Not Age Well

Posted on October 22, 2011 by graywolf

The monitor I mention in a previous post arrived yesterday.

Unfortunately, the bellows is falling apart inside, bits flaking off. Otherwise it looks fairly nice for being older than I am.

Photo

Image is a bit oversize for this blog, sorry (I did the photo in response to the post on the screen there). That is the Monitor Six-20 on the Left, and the Duo Six-20 I bought a few months back on the right.

I wish I had done a bit more research before buying it as it appears that disintegrating bellows are very common on this model. I probably have not got the get up and go to replace the bellows, much less make one for it. So it is a display only.

I have not yet respooled any film for it, but the Duo looks to be a working camera.

Added 10/29/2011:

The inside of the bellows, showing the damage noted above.

 

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I Seem to be Moving into the Past (Coffee Perolator)

Posted on October 18, 2011 by graywolf

Today I found a Pyrex glass percolator with the glass innards still there at the local antique mall. I have been keeping an eye out for one for several years, but all of them had aluminum replacement guts in them. Today there was one just as they came new. Of course I grabbed it.

I am drinking a cup of coffee from it as I write this. Quite tasty. Different from the drip machine we all use these days. Of course you have to watch it and not over perc the coffee, unless you like your coffee really thick that is.

Some of the ways we did it in the past was actually better, although usually not as convenient as the way we do it today. The lady at the mall told me that they sell a lot of the old glass percolators to people who want to use them, rather than collectors. I am kind of surprised. I more or less thought I was the only one who wanted one to use.

Best way to make coffee:

Campfire Coffee is the best. Take a #10 can of cold water toss in a pinch of salt, the eqg shells from breakfast, and a double handful of coffee. Put it on the fire and as soon as it starts to boil and the grounds turn over and sink, take it off. Use a cup of cold water to settle the grounds and serve. I recently told someone how to do this, and he said it was the best coffee he had ever had.

French Press is next. Put the grounds into the press, Pour in boiling water, when the grounds settle use the press to push them to the bottom of the carafe. The good coffee shops use a French Press to brew individual cups of coffee for their customer, the bad ones have drip coffee  in vacuum flasks.

Vacuum Pot. This is hearsay on my part.  However people who do it that way say it is excellent.

Pyrex Percolator. Pyrex because you can actually really clean it, and you can see when it is ready.  If you are using it on an electric burner you need a wire star to keep it from cracking, I made one out of a wire coat hanger, I do not know if you can buy one any longer.  It takes 15-20 minutes, about the slowest way of making coffee. The trick is to take it off the burner just before it reach the right color for you, it will continue to perc for a couple of minutes and drip for about five minutes.

Drip filter the easiest way to make some decent but not great coffee.

By the way, you can use the pinch of salt and eggshells with most of the methods, they take a lot of the rank bitterness out of the coffee.

I do not leave the coffee on the heat, if it cools down before I drink it, I reheat a cup full in the microwave oven.

There you have it, Graywolf on Coffee. My cooking specialities were coffee, steak, chili,  scrambled eggs,  and home fries. With most other things I am pretty much average. Unfortunately, I do not get the practice I used to. The campfire coffee and not measuring were the things I learned from a good chef. They do not measure so each time you have their dishes they are very slightly different. Another trick they use is leaving something out of the recipe when they give it to you, so theirs taste a bit better than when you make it.

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And Yet Another Old Camera

Posted on October 17, 2011 by graywolf

I just won a Kodak Monitor Six-20 on eBay. New sniper service. New credit card, the first one I have had in about 15 years.

Photo from Camerapedia artical

 

The photo above is from the article on http://camerapedia.wikia.com/wiki/Kodak_Monitor

The camera I won has the Supermatic shutter, and the Kodak f/4.5 Anastigmat Special lens, in other words the top of the line version. Unfortunately, the lens appears kind of hazy in the photographs. Hopefully, it will clean up nicely.  Actually, I would rather have found the Vigilant with that lens and shutter as there is much less to go wrong with it, but they are a lot rarer. The Monitor with that lens and shutter was the Kodak top of the line folding model from 1939 to 1948.

An interesting thing about the Monitor is that is was in the  616 film version the preferred camera for taking photos of airplanes to trade back in the day. Those guys woud shoot a lot of the same photos and trade the 2-1/2 x 4-1/4 negatives for negatives of other airplanes sort of like trading cards. Unfortunately 616 film is even harder to find than 620 film these days.

Anyway, I have been trying to come up with one of these cameras for awhile now, but have always gotten out bid, I got this one for 8 cents less than my maximum bid. It was cheap enough that even if it is only good for displaying on top of the book case, I got it for a fair price. I can hardly wait for it to arrive.

 

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A Visit From the President

Posted on October 17, 2011 by graywolf

The President of the United States of America passed through Boone today.

Since they blocked all the main intersections traffic came to a halt for more than an hour. Luckily I was right by the Ruby Tuesday here in town so I pulled into their lot an had a beer and hamburger while waiting. So, I can thank the President of the United States of America for the lousiest hamburger I ever ate as well as all the other nice things he has done for me like freezing Social Insecurity, cutting assistance, keeping gasoline and food prices high, and making the dollar worth nothing.

They say he came through town riding his big black 1.2 million dollar campaign bus, that we the people paid for. And of course tying up everyone in town for more than and hour. There is one thing I am proud to say about him, “I did not vote for him”.

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