Flather is a 14" chuck, 36" between centers engine lathe. (story on his purchase is here) I won't go into any detail here but move on along with the teardown. My inetention is to take him apart and look him over and get him up and running. The temptation to strip and paint is great, but I know what kinds of delays that leads to. He goes back together as is.
Knowing little about lathes of any sort I began with what seemed simple. The tailstock. Turns out it comes off pretty easy. Two bolts go down thru the tailstock, thru a sort of sled it sits upon that actually rides the ways, and into a clamping piece that moves along beneath the ways. These two bolts are used to clamp the tailstock in position on the ways when in use.
Left is the bottom side of the tailstock, and below that is the sledlike arrangement. The two holes for the clamping bolts are seen. The arrow in the red circle points to one of two lugs that are tightened against, by screwing in a bolt from each side of the tailstock; these allow the tailstock to be moved laterally relative to the ways; this is done for centering the tailstock in relation to the chuck, and can also be used to offset the tailstock for taper cutting. The amount of pressure that can be brought to bear on each lug is enormous. The indicated lug was shorn off and has been replaced.
Right is the underside of the sled, the side that rides the ways. The two bolts, just above the yellow dot, are the other side of the lug-fix. Really doesn't seem like such a bad job.
Piece to the left is the part that rides below the ways and which is pulled up tight by the clamping bolts when the tailstock is locked in a postition on the ways. Pic up and left has a blue dot that shows where the clamping bolts descend and this piece sets below there.
Below left is the cross feed with the compound removed.
Left is a closer view of the lug-fix as seen from the top; the hex head screws hold the lug in place..
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Below is the compound assy. Left is the compound. The round piece to the right is simple the table is sits upon. This table, in turn, sits upon the cross feed. The lead screw seen in the pic left engages the bottom of this table and that is how the handle move the compound when turned. The old single tool holder is shown also.
I am finally figuring out all the nomenclature. It would appear that the carraige is the entire assembly of compound, cross feed - which is essentially the saddle, and apron. I want to get all this off. The compound was easy. Next come the apron. Left you are looking at the top of the saddle, but the large screws seen hold the apron up against the saddle from below. The need to be removed and the weight of the apron lowered gently onto blocs. Lacking a correct screwdriver I ground an old cold chisel to closely fit the screw heads. Clean the slot, slip it in, pull it around with a wrench, glory be! Well, it wasn't really necessary. All four screws were quite easy to loosen.
Here, on the right, is the apron, red, from the aft end of the lathe. See two of the screws on top?.
And on the left is the forward end of the apron, seen as if standing by the chuck. (If all this explanation seems a bit simple I am recalling how close to total ignorance I am, and thinking someone else with a vague interest in mw lathes might stumble in here wishing enlightenment. When machinists talk about this stuff you might as well play loud music. They launch into technical profundities at the drop of a vowel. All is lost.)
To the right we have the next problem. The lead screw, red dot, and feed rod, blue dot, must be removed prior to dropping out the apron.
Now look left and admire the white dot, on the collar at the fwd. end of the lead screw. There is a slot tip screw embedded there. I have taken it out, but this does not free the lead screw to move aft - why?? The splined feed rod is ready to coming right out, but it hits that collar and is stopped.
To the right is the block into which the lead screw and feed rod insert. The two bolts that go thru the broken casting hold this block, and screw and rod, firmly in place.
Looking left you see that the block would sit left of the break, holding the ends of rod and screw. Yellow dots show where the bolts go thru the break. Blue dots are the threaded holes for the allen cap bolts that are the 'fix'.
Above is the whole works. The broken-off piece of cast iron is actually broken into 2 parts. The smaller broken part is held in place by the angled screw on the left. The entire thing sits right into the break in the pic to the right.
Pic second to the right is the same as the above but from the other side.
Above is the answer to my question, I hope, as to why the lead screw and feed rod don't come loose. Up underneath and behind the piece that encompasses both are two bolt heads. It is the same setup as the block at the aft end. You just have to reach up there to find them.
This page was last updated on: August 14, 2006
Pic below is out of context. It is the new acme thread bolt I made to replace the mushed one, in the middle. Very pleased with it.
I was right about the 2 bolts up inside releasing the lead screw and feed rod. Here is the apron completely off the lathe with lead screw and feed rod still attached..
And here, left, is the saddle, bolts in respective holes, and apron gone missing. I lowered it onto boards as I loosened the screws. Not too heavy to handle, just awkward with the screw and rod still in place.
Buncha stuff here. Right is the halfnut end of the apron. Ok, pic below right shows the halfnut handle, yellow dot. When this is turned it rotates the round plate in the pic to the right, yellow dot. The arced slots in this plate grab the pins on the jaws, blue dots, and this closes, or opens, the threaded jaws. They grab the lead screw, seen to the right, and this sets the pace for thread cutting. Not quite that simple, but close. These jaws just slide out for easy removal.
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To the far right look just above the red dot and you see one of the pieces that hold the lead screw in place for the halfnut to grab it. There are 2 such pieces and they are seen removed in the pic above, right and left above the blue dot. These two pieces are removed by backing out the large screws on the front of the apron. You can see the 2 bottom ones backed out in the pic to the right. Very easy removal.
This will make for a long scroll, but I wanted good documentation of the gears coming out of the apron. First is the matter of my being more than capable of turning things around and getting lost. Second is that I simply never trust a machine until I have torn it apart and have some idea of how it does what it does.
And one more piece moves agilely from hence to thence.
Last gear goes awol.
Directly above is the same set up as above left, but seen from the top.
Gear with the beveled face that is engaged by the little feed rod gear is removed and flipped face down. It is completely loose once the feed rod bracket is unbolted from inside the apron: 2 bolts. This bracket is above left, obligatory blue dot.
Flather's feed rod is, I fear, less substantial than that found on newer machines. While modern technology has given us the splined feed rod, Flather has but a single keyway cut down his length to engage the little gear on the end of the bracket: left of purple dot.
Another piece flies free in the face of adversity.
If you are having trouble seeing what is coming off, just look back and forth between the pics. Some pieces, as they come off, seem to disappear due to the way they snugly nest in the piece that came off previously.
This piece was fortuitously released when the knurled knob was taken loose from the apron face.
Off comes the other knurled knob from the face of the apron and another piece takes wing..
The gear that was floating loose in the slot to the left is out.
What was holding this gear in place was the push/pull knob that is nowhere to be seen. It is very chewed up in its splines, and I am making up a new one. It goes thru the middle of the gear, cream dot - maybe off-white, and removes from inside the apron.
A day of rain and warmer temps and the 2 - 3 feet of snow has receded. I can get into the lawnmower shed again. Temp is above freezing inside. I can handle this. The bucket of half gas and half diesel that I using to clean with has frozen in to a slush. Decide not to run the milkshed heater as the gas fumes are just too thick.
Not the first thing that I have made in machine shop class, but far and away the spiffiest. Glance below left and be amazed. What is it? Well, it slides thru the hole in the large gear to the left, yellow cirlce arrow, from the inside of the apron. That leaves it sticking out thru the apron at about where the blue cirlce arrow is, just behind the carriage handwheel. Its function is the engage the handwheel with the rack, when pushed in. Pull it out and the handwheel no longer engages the rack.
You can see that the old one is pretty chewed up. Yes, there are a couple of ragged teeth on the rack, but the damage is nowhere near what you see on these splines. Odd thing is, I would never have known it was damaged it I hadn't taken the apron apart. Worked as nice as could be even chewed like that. The new one fits in fine. Won't really know if all is perfect 'til I put the apron back on. Took me about 8 hours to make it out of 1.5" stock.
Below left is the saddle removed from the bed and flipped upside down. Not a lot to say; it is what it is. I decided against removing the cross feed lead screw. It looks fine and works well. Everything is all scrubbed up.
Directly below is the saddle flipped back right side up and back on the ways. The long piece with 5 holes in it attaches up underneath the far side of the saddle and holds it to the ways. The shorter 2-hole piece does the same, but it bolts up underneath on this side of the saddle from in the middle. Remove these and the saddle lifts right off, but be warned, it weighs a ton.
Next thing back on is the crossfeed. Look above and you see the crossfeed lead screw and the crossfeed handle. The crossfeed itself is to the left, upside down on the apron. It has one removeable dovetail. The cross feed simply slides onto the ways on the saddle.
Below the crossfeed is in place. The bronze bushing with nut is what holds and drives the crossfeed, blue dot left; another blue dot, below left, is on the same nut, now in place, so that turning the crossfeed handle will now move the crossfeed back and forth across the saddle.
The topside of the crossfeed is the machined mounting plate for the compound. The compound is on the left, upside down, and you can see how when flipped it will set down over the 2 bolts.
Below the compound is in place and the bolts on, one of which is visible here. The compound also moves on dovetail ways, one removeable, and is driven by the handle being turned, but it will also revolve when the 2 nuts are loosened.
The next decent day I will get the apron back on and see how my new part works. Then I got after the headstock. Everything is now cleaned above the tray. The tray itself is the mother of all tar pits.
Here is the wonderful lawnmower shed. Left is from door to back wall. Right is the other way. It is about 12x16'. At least it is out of the weather.
Links to further Flatherish adventures.
Lots of pages around. You may, or may not, be able to link to them from home. Organization is on the wane.
