I.    Set screw scarring

    During disassembly I had trouble getting some of the pulleys and gears off of their shafts.  In a couple of cases they had to be pressed off, though they were made to be a slip fit.  After disassembly it was obvious that the hardened steel setscrews had been tightened to the point that divots had been taken out of the associated shaft.  The steel thus displaced had formed a ridge that locked the piece into place, thus making removal difficult.  As several of these pieces have to be removed to remove the spindle, something had to be done to prevent this occurring in the future.

    After the parts were cleaned I carefully filed off the ridges on the shafts and smoothed the gouges in the parts formed by the ridges during disassembly.  To prevent this from reoccurring I made new setscrews out of brass machine screws.  I looked in my area for premade brass setscrews, but none were available.  I prefer this to the alternate method of using a small brass disk between the screw and shaft.  They are a pain to get into place and keep track of during disassembly.  The brass setscrews have worked fine so far, without loosening.

II.    Spindle Pulley Bearing Movement

    The spindle pulley has bearings between it and the spindle shaft.  These are needed for when the backgears are engaged.  The pulley is unlocked from the spindle and rotates on these bearings.  The pulley now drives the backgears which drive the spindle at a lower rotational speed than the pulley.

    On both the original headstock and the "newer" replacement, the bearings had migrated to one end of the pulley instead of supporting either end.  This despite the fact that on the newer headstock they were a light press fit!!  There is a removable setscrew that fits in a hole through the pulley leading into the space that is supposed to be between the two bearings.  The purpose of this is so you can add oil for the bearings.  On the original pulley this setscrew had a square head that prevented you from inserting the setscrew all the way to the shaft.

    For now I made another brass setscrew and, after repositioning the bearings, screw this almost to the shaft to keep the bearings from moving all the way together.  I will later lock these bearings into place with a thread or sleeve locking compound.  I am waiting to do this, as I am debating replacing the plain bronze bearings with oil filled sintered bronze bearings.

    In addition when I fix the bearings in place I am going to position the bearing a the large spindle Backgear out a little so that the hub of the gear rides on the end of this bearing, rather than the rim of the pulley.  An extra .001 or so is all I need.  This will allow me to set the parts up against each other, rather than leaving a small gap that the unsecured pulley can rattle around in.

III.    Oil Cup Felts

    The oil cups originally had felt wicks installed.  These slow the flow of oil from the cups so that it slowly drips onto the bearings rather than flooding them all at once.  They also act as a filter to keep dirt from reaching the bearings.  In all four cups these felts had long ago disappeared.  The countershaft bearing cups had filled with crud at the bottom and instead of oiling the spindle roller bearings, the previous owner had packed them with grease.

    I made a major blunder with the countershaft has sintered bronze bearings, and I mistakenly thought that seeing as there was no hole from the oil cup to the shaft (the opening stopped at the outside surface of the bearing), that the oil would not properly reach the shaft.  So after cleaning out the crud I drilled a 1/16th inch hole through the bearing.  This is fine if you do not mind oil being flung all over the shop!!  Even with new felts the oil flows much to rapidly into, and out of, the bearing.  I will have to press out these bearings and either reinsert them with the hole covered, or put in new ones.  I am leaning toward replacement, as they were a little scared during disassembly due to the setscrew problem above.

    Back to the felts.  After discussing the problem with my live steam E-mail forum (instructions on how to join are at in the "Live Steaming - Home Page" accessible from the Live Steam Links page), I replaced the felts using disks cut from a craft shop felt square.

    At punch or the sharpened end of a brass tube is used to cut out the disks.  They are then stacked like washers until the small shaft that forms the bottom of the cup is filled.  Tamp down each layer with a rod to insure a tight fill.  One mistake I made was that I started with disks cut to the same diameter as the inside of the shaft.  This allows the oil to seep around the outside of the felts.  I discovered this about halfway through.  I then switched to disks 1/16th inch larger in diameter.  The felts work well as is, but when I get a chance I will redo this job using disks all the larger size to further slow the flow of oil.

    The brass tube method is a pain as it quickly looses the sharpness of the edge.  The edge rolls up a little as you press down and rotate it to cut the felt.  I tried a paper punch, but the tolerances were loose enough that the disk remained attached to the material one one side.  I have a cheap gasket punch set from Harbor Freight that I have never found a material thin or weak enough for them to cut through using the standard "Hit it with a hammer" method.  I was able, however to use the die edge to cut through the felt by twisting it in the same manner as the brass tubing.  As the set only cost about $15, I feel I have finally gotten my money's worth out of it!

IV.    Reversing Gear Carrier

    The holes in the headstock that lock the reversing gear carrier in its' three positions (clockwise, neutral, and counterclockwise rotation) were partially filled with paint, and one was out of line by a fraction of a diameter.  This was just enough to prevent the positioning plunger from fully seating.  I'm not quite sure how that position ever stayed in gear!  Additionally the carriage is also little tight for part of its' travel due to bed wear.  This combination caused the power feed mechanism jumped out of gear quite readily.

    To correct this I turned a drill bushing out of a grade 5 bolt.  This was inserted into the hole for the positioning plunger, and the holes were cleaned out using a drill.  I used the next larger size drill to enlarge all the holes enough to recenter the out of alignment hole.

V.    Motor Wiring

    I replaced the rotted motor and power switch wiring with a short extension cord.  The socket end was cut off, and another length to reach from the switch to the motor was also cut off.  The ground wire was spliced at the switch, and the Hot and Neutral leads wired to the switch.  In addition I fabricated another length of ground wire and attached this, using a crimp on terminal ring, to the lathe body.  The ground wire was also, of course, attached to the motor case.

    A new toggle switch was used in place of the original, mostly to avoid the pain of getting the stubs of soldered on wire off the old one.  This is a standard electronic store variety as was the original.  This does not provide for reversing, nor does it have any big panic button feature (of course neither do many of today's new power tools).  For now though it is at least as safe as the original setup.  I am looking into replacing this arrangement with a more modern one, which will hopefully also have a switch to reverse rotation).  With the present setup another DPDT toggle switch could be used the swap polarity to the motor coil, to provide for reversing.  After I get a new motor I will work to update the power switching.

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