Personally i wouldnt mind a multipart project fixing those gears. Perfecting little bits like that to just get everything running as good as it can be is why i love watching machining
easyest way would be just making shim stock.But you would need a grinder,for grinding those. Or you buy them. Remaking all the gears would be mess or the Shafts.Depending,what they fucked while making@@artisanmakes
@@mrb.5610 After he fixed the motor pulley with a previously missing grub screw, the motor noise was minimal. Certainly nothing that would be significantly reduced with another motor.
Cast Iron is used for backplates because it's dimensionally very stable, it dampens vibrations, it's much more resistant to getting dinged up or chips embedding themselves into it than steel and it's got better wear resistance since it is basically self lubricating. If you plan on changing chucks regularly for the next 30 years, it might make a difference, but I think regular steel is totally fine for a hobby shop. Maybe be extra careful about cleaning the spindle nose, so you don't have any chips embedding themselves into the steel.
Yeah. Cast irons the way to go for all the reasons mentioned above. Here in the UK it's also pretty hard to get cast iron blanks cheaply for things like this, but on the other hand, incomplete sets of rusty weight training plates aren't worth much, and occasionally turn up on places like Facebook marketplace/Craigslist/etc as "Free to collector" when the current owner get's too sick of tripping over them.. Really cheap cast iron weights are awful though, with sand inclusions and voids a plenty, but if you can blag a few rough ones from a decent brand, the iron is pretty usable stuff. Still not perfect material, and it's always handy to have a couple spares for a project in case the first one turns out to be junk, but it's better to have some of these and occasionally curse their level of impurities than to not to have any and curse the availability and cost of virgin cast iron offcuts.
@@J.C... It doesn't do much with hobby grade machines and hobby grade speeds and feeds. On these machines, you got other stuff than your backplate to worry about when it comes to chatter. In theory cast iron dampens vibrations better, but if your backplate fits well, it shouldn't make a difference, even on bigger machines. I'd say cast iron rules because it's insanely more resistant to dents and scratches, which makes it perfect for any kind of mounting surface. My solid toolpost is made of cast iron for that reason.
The proper grade of grey cast iron may have said properties, but a well machined and balanced steel, aluminium, brass or even wood structure will have better characteristics than an iron casting of dubious quality. Which is why I intend to replace most of the crappy cast iron parts of my machine bases and drill press head with a chunky laminated birch construction. It will weigh probably triple and be a birch to move around though.
There are several components like the bed that you couldn't realistically make with the lathe. You could in theory mill things square, bore and tap holes to screw together but it's just not going to work. I'm not sure there's any machine that can ACTUALLY make itself and every component it contains. Robots can't truly reproduce lol
@@CatNolara I think you can build a lathe with no other machine tools if you additionally allow the usage of a crafting foundry and hand tools (hope you enjoy hand-scraping the ways!)
Thicker oil. Chainsaw chain oil has an extra sticky additive which stops it flying off, sometimes called climbing oil. Lol, in my youth, banana skins in an old car's gearbox was a great silencer!
The reason why Cast iron is normally used it is soft and easy to machine also cheap. 1045 is a bit of overkill in comparison, any steel or even brass provided its not threaded will do. Being a 4 jaw you usually go for the narrowest solution as they are normally going to be the one holding the biggest parts. You could have just drilled and taped new threads in the back of the chuck and that is a perfectly acceptable solution even oh a tool room lathe. The thing that might be worth attention or checking at the least is the tail stock. When drilling a hole I noticed it jump a little. This could be related to a bent chuck or drill bit but sometimes it it the tail stock itself. Even on commercial grade machines it is quite common to see this problem normally due to abuse but i have encountered it several times on brand new machines. It isn't to difficult to test, all you do is mount a clock against the chuck and measure the concentricity of the tail stock quill at different extensions. As its difficult to measure the quills internal accuracy the usual method is the fit a dead center and measure that with the quill wound in , out and central to generate a its center line in relation to the chuck axis. You may find it's pointing in the wrong direction. You can also do this on different locations on the bed as if your lathe has been re scraped in particular this can be off. Its very common on a re scraped lathe to have the carriage ways pointing downwards towards the chuck as well. Its a shame to see just how sloppy the internal gear train is in the head stock those lathes have gotten a lot worse over the years. The lubrication specked for them is also not the greatest. It's the most basic cheapest hydraulic oil and nothing more. In my machine that is the same as yours I had the same problem. I substituted the 32 iso for some engine oil used in Automatic transmission in classic Minis/ Motorcycle wet clutch engine oil. It shut it up and it felt a lot smoother in operation. When I worked in machine tool repair for 25 + years when faced with similar problems I have upped the viscosity by either using an iso 68 or a blend of 46 and 68. It depended on heat it generated. I have used additives as well but thats a deep dark hole that is best not one dived into here. Any way none of this was intended as criticism just a heads up . Cheers
The machinists at my work (hydraulic repair shop) use brass pieces on their steady rests because ball bearings would ruin the chrome on the rods. They put the machine coolant where the steady rest runs to keep it lubricated
For round cast iron I look for people giving away old weight sets on craigslist and facebook. I put a 6" 4 jaw on my 8.5" swing lathe, made the back plate of 1/2" sheet steel. No issues a year later.
Oil between the guides and the part also helps a lot with steady rests to keep them from wearing out faster and from marring the part. Really cool modification vid!
Best advice for a fixed steady to avoid marking the work I've had is to use a well oiled strip of thin card wrapped around the work and clamped in the steady like a 'P' clip if that makes sense.
Sometimes I wonder. When I was still using a 1943 SouthBend 9A, the lathe was essentially silent as long as the backgear was not in use and the tumbler gears were in neutral. A virtually silent induction motor driving double reduction V belt drives and hydrodynamic journal bearings in the headstock, there was nothing to make much in the way of noise (the change from fibre to roller thrust bearings added a tiny amount of noise). The arrangement allowed the SB, 16 cutting speeds, neutral without turning off the electric motor, slack belt turning for very delicate work, very quick disengagement of the drive from the headstock, etc. It took very little time to change spindle speeds, insignificant compared to the total time to do most jobs. As to belt drive slip, that is just a sign that you are pushing the lathe too hard, and in my opinion, a good thing. Precision toolroom lathes such as the Monarch 10EE and Hardige HLV used belt drive to the headstock. Amongst other things, this provided compliant isolation of the headstock from sources of mechanical vibration. So, really, for a small hobbyist lathe, why a headstock gearbox with all its attendant complexity, problems, and noise?
I don't have any if the tools you do (lathe/mill etc..) but one thing I've always appreciated that you show is that with a little bit of time and effort you can 'convert' cheap shoddy parts into genuinely good tools. Obviously when buying tools you pay for them to not be rubbish in the first place. And for some people, like pros running a commercial machine shop, you don't have time to fix stuff and time spent doing so is lost revenue, so spending on the high quality tools is a must. But for a hobbyist having fun and doing stuff 'just cause' its a great way to build up a collection of tools with less spend (and improving skills in the process).
that and cast iron is way better than steel at keeping its size under small temperature changes. with a back plate in a hobby lathe it might not be that relevant, but if you are after real precission, every micron counts.
I have a similar lathe, just sold under a different brand name in South Africa. The gearbox sounds exactly the same, I'm also think ing of pulling it apart, but first I'm trying a thicker oil. Thanks for the video.
Hi. Great video as always! I have the same lathe, and also copped the same issue (with bolt holes) when I bought a 4 jaw chuck. Instead of making a back plate, I drilled 3 holes in the chuck to suit the lathe. Works a treat.
Noisy gears: You can try a thicker oil, like the oil that is used in differential gear boxes. You still can see metal shavings in the oil, maybe you should place a magnet at the bottom of the box (usually the outlet screw). Collects the shavings and they don´t go round and round infinetely... But don´t magnetize your gears and bearings!😉
I agree with the other comments about thicker oil for your gearbox. The oil you were using seems very thin for gear oil especially if it wasn’t really warm when you either poured or removed it. Whilst a much thicker oil won’t completely remove all the noise I think it will really make quite a difference. Love the channel 👍
Instead of Ball bearing for the steady rest I would highly recommend making some wear pads out of PA6, its fairly tough and when lubricated with oil it won't damage your surface, I've used mine a lot on Chrome rods and its just wonderful, ofc you are limited with doc and load but it's completely resistant to chips and embeds small chips without surface damage
instead of kerosene, run a gear oil full of emulsifiers/detergents, i.e. automatic transmission fluid, since ATF will pull all the dirt into suspension, and drain. just make sure you do one or two flushes with normal gear oil to remove the emulsifiers and detergents as those are not good for splash lube geartrains in the long run. although it's a fairly good solvent, kerosene has a very low lubricity so you risk causing more harm than good.
I do this on diesel engines. When an oil change is due I will suck out maybe 500mL of the old oil (or none if the oil level is low anyway) and fill it back up with ATF. I drive around 50km and then change the oil. The ATF really cleans out the engine and removes a lot of dirt from all the little oil passages.
I bought a cheap Chi/Com 13x40 lathe back in the 1980's. Gear Head, very noisy. The oil they recommended was thin. I have heard of people using 90 wt gear oil. I am going to try a synthetic multi-grade because my shop can get below freezing in winter. Thanks for your great videos.
After seeing and hearing this I went down to the workshop and checked on my lookalike. At 710 rpm it increased noise level 20 dB.At max speed 30 dB. Smooth running. No risk of hearing damage.
The tinny housing covers in effect amplify all noises between their sources and your ears. Sticky-backed acoustic foam on the cabinet inside where accessible would help.
I was told by Hare & Forbes Sydney, a few years ago, if the noise of the gear box is so annoying, put heavy gear oil in to to quieten it down. Which I did. I have the Al 760, the Hare & Forbes anniversary model.
I should I also found the grub screw on the motor shaft missing - also the head stock bearings were not as tight as they should have been. I bought it new..
That back plate turned out great. It makes me motivated on figuring out why I'm getting so much chatter with an old lathe I bought. I would love to be able to make clean looking parts like that!
From the generous amount of backlash you demonstrated in the lathe gears I think that I would work hard to determine the cause before replacing any parts. While it is possible that the gears are not machined correctly it’s also possible that the center distance(s) between shafts might be a bit off. It doesn’t take much error in either or both to create a lot of play. This sounds like something to work on when your project list is depleted. Well done video.
Maybe get a slightly thicker oil, and tungsten disulphide additive for friction. Both should help with sound. And a magnet in contact with the oil so as it spins the magnet pics up metal from the oil (most automotive automatic gear boxes and some manual have magnets in the sump or the sump plug)
He first needs to disassemble the gearbox and remove the grinding grit that the factory left inside there. . The problem cannot be solved with magnets, since abrasives are not magnetic. Magnets are only attracting the fairly solt material that are being torn off, not the harder grit that is causing the problem.
Use brass for 0,5 mm washer next time. Steel washer will slowly wear the casting of the steady rest. Brass washer will wear too, but thats a much easyer replacement than the casting.
To hold the chuck key in reach I just put a magnet in the place I want to store the key. Huge benefit: it's dead easy to relocate. I just can't make my brain to put the key in the same place twice in a row...so I still spend time looking for it, despite this very clever trick. Another trick for you : invest in an inverter so you can vary the speed continuously without stopping the lathe. Can be very handy for ultra low speed (taping) or variable diameters (facing)
There are lots of things you can look at in no particular order. Gear meshing issues (cast and not ground properly), slop in gearbox, unbalanced pulleys, unmatched belts, low viscosity gear oil (use heavier oil as others have recommended). Import lathes are a project, but you can fine tune them to be very quiet and precise with some work.
At a former workshop I used two old Vdf Boehringer lathes with hydrocopters, the ones for copy threads. One of them was making a terrible noise from the gearing to the copy spindle, and i dropped in 120w gear oil in it. The noise disappeared. It had a much lighter grade in before. The noise in gearbox can sometimes be from the axle splines giving a play to the gears.
For the steady rest, I noticed one design where each half had v-grooves at the interface and a dowel pin in the middle. The pins were parallel to the bed, so apart from movement along the Z axis the two halves would be constrained and repeatable.
To solve the problem of lost keys for drill chucks, I glue a magnet to the machine in the ideal spot and then slap the key on that. And no drilling or tapping required.
Nice job(s) ! You might consider using long, (40mm) M8 grub screws in place of your bolts to hold both your4 jaw back plate and your 3 jaw chuck. I've done that to the three chucks I have for my lathe and believe you me, it's a lot easier to get nuts onto the grubscrews than it is to get a bolt started into a hole with little clearance. If you don't like it you can always change it back again.
hey with your gearbox whot I did is put thicker oil in as that makes it much quiter to run and use I also put more than its supposed to have also helped
I can't wait for you to get into that gearbox. There are a lot of people out there with this lathe, or any lathe like this that needs the gear box sorted out. I will be an awesome series of videos.
I have that lathe to and the sound problem on my lathe was the gearbox pulley. Try to unscrew it a little bit and the sound disappear. It is some failure in the construction so then you tighten the nut the ballbearing will suffer and that make noise.
having the 4-jaw come flying out as its only just held in the 3jaw... im guilty of this too. its a 4jaw! you dial the work in anyway! but i am wary of the jaws barely engaging. be careful? hmmmph. a good steam engine is extremely critical on tolerances.
It is a small lathe but not a hobby lathe, it is around 240 cm ( 8 foot-ish?) Bedlength and the 4 jaw fits very nice, it is steardy enough,.and the dialing in? Thats normal for the 4-jaw, if you dont want that, dont try to turn square blocks
Great vid as usual. One or two negative comments on here which is a shame. Definitely needs a magnet on that drain plug. Could you just slap a big old speaker magnet on the side of the gearbox to attract the metal particles? That's not going to help much if some of that is casting sand though. Good job on the steady rest, I love improving tools and making them my own.
@@artisanmakes- the gearbox still has particles of the (non-magnetic) grinding grit inside, which were in there from the first day you used the lathe. Oil changes might remove some of it that's floated off, but even a few grains will destroy that gearbox over time.
The chuck bolt on method you must find tedious surely? Keen to see your take on it. Also I highly recommend wood down on the ways when changing the chuck over as eventually your luck runs out. Ask me how I know
Nice job. If worse came to worse, you could put an oil treatment in to quiet the gears a bit; until you get ready to tear it down. I know a few guys that have done that.
Hi Have you considered changing the viscosity of the gearbox oil. It is probably a ISO 46 oil at present. Try a ISO68 and see what happens. Alternatively add a gearbox additive like STP. Nulon also make a non-Neutonian oil additive as well. Cheers.
Has similar issues with my Lathe. I found that increasing the viscosity of the oil and installing quality 'matched' drive belts reduced noise considerably.
Good job on that back plate mate! In the future, you can find good cast iron fly wheels on old treadmill motors. They are normally around 6" so it's a good size.
I hope you'll talk a little more about that magnetic drain plug when it arrives. I'm just about to pull the trigger on an AL250G as well and would like to get a magnet in there from day one when I start flushing the crud out of the gearboxes.
The chuck adapter blank I used for my 4-jaw cost more than the chuck itself. I removed about a kilogram of iron fitting it up. I think some of that black "gold" still turns up in the shop occasionally, in the form of smudges and rust spots.
The oil look to be far too thin for a straight cut gearboxi would try some 40w straight hydraulic oil, there s metal in the oil you drained out, which means it is not doing its job! Love the mod on the steady rest! Phil
Hi Mate, next time you need a biggish piece of repeatably good quality cast iron for something like this, consider a discarded flywheel, brake disc, or even a crown gear from a car or truck. Most mechanical workshops, and panel shops, will let you take their scrap for free. They do in Melbourne, anyway. I don't know for sure why to use cast iron, but it may have something to do with the cast iron absorbing vibrations much more effectively than steel does. Also, did you balance the chuck adaptor assembly? Always a good idea to do that, it saves your bearings.
I have never used a steady rest I always held wood turnings with my free hand so I really don't know how helpful they are but you did a cracking job of upgrading that one I hate the springs on chuck keys, theyre infuriating....I know why theyre there but they always annoy me so much I take the springs off. Great adapter for the four jaw Nice job Thanks for sharing
If you want to see why that's an absolutely terrible method, go look up "russian lathe accident" and you'll watch a man turn into flying ground meat in a few seconds. Never ever ever ever hold stuff that's spinning in a lathe While this lathe won't do that, it will still absolutely break fingers or arms. But in the case of accuracy - a steady rest will keep things concentric far more effectively.
@@vinland5558 erm yeah nasty that was a big lathe and I could see it starting to happen...loose clothing around a piece turning that must not have been an odd shape I woulkd never reccomend holding the work but what I was doing was very small stuff and certainly not as high a power lathe as that....nasty indeed... yuck thanks for the share
I had to make the exact same thing last year. Steel like yours seems fine to me but I did use cast iron as I happened to find an old cast pulley that I was able to turn down and it works perfectly. In the process I realised an other source of similar cast metal is gym weights so that might be an option should you ever need any more. By the way turning cast iron is messy as, I prefer free machining steel.
I'm not sure if you've seen it but, I've seen the channel "We Can Do That Better" use a carbide cutting tool like you used to turn down that adapter plate to effectively cut indicator lines in to some of his hand cranks. Watching you tap alignment dots into that adapter plate made me think of this. If you haven't changed out your four jaw chuck yet you might want to do that to have the perfect alignment instead of the dots which aren't in a perfectly straight line.
It seems like you need a lot more belt tension, normally your "upper" part of the belt (closer to the wall) Should be running without any jumping ect. And your lower (chuck side) belts can jump an wobble a bit (if I've seen the rotation correctly, if not vice versa
re the cast iron backplate: several others have addressed other reasons: however, cast iron being softer & more brittle than any other part of the assembly is likely intentional as well: better to damage a simple adapter plate than the spindle or the head:and it would be softer than the bolts. it also cracks & crumbles rather than shatter, bend or distort: limiting the risk of secondary damage during the failure. basically, its a designated failure point in a metal that provides ease of use advantages, too.
That gearbox sounds like a real old clanker. I made my own 6 speed box for an old Zyto .With 2 speed belt from the motor I get 12 speeds. My box is quieter made on a home converted clarke pillar drill with Chinese cutters from RDG tools. Not perfect but better than a lot of lathes you hear about. I have also put a 8000rpm variable speed Ac Dc motor on it so I can have high speed for small parts and can reduce the speed and use the low ratios on the box for torque. Rev range 8600 down to 35 rpm
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I also wonder it the low price of those cheap lathes is not offset after some time by the amount of time, better replacement parts, and all the headaches in order to get it work as you expect (vs a much more expensive but precise and well built one)
You can just drill the chuck, not an issue on a 4 jaws as there is plenty of material to drill. The register accuracy doesn't matter on a 4 chuck, since you need to adjust it anyway.
Try using a heavier weight gear oil in your gearbox. 70-90 weight should work well as a cheap fix. Also, Lucas makes an oil additive which is very thick and clings to the gears and works well to quiet gear noise. Lucas Heavy duty Oil Stabilizer, if it is available in your area.
I’m not sure what oil they recommend in that gear box, but depending on your environment(I assume it’s warm year around?) you could increase the viscosity. While it does steal horse power, a higher viscosity straight cut gear lubricant may decrease gear noise significantly.
I hot-glue a couple of neodymium magnets to housings to hold my chuck keys. Of course, that's on a drill press where chips aren't always flying everywhere🤣
With respect to the lathe noise, may I recommend one thing that may help. Try replacing the regular V-belts with a product called "Link Belt" by Fenner Drives (USA). This stuff, at least in Canada is sold by the foot (metre?) and as the name implies is made up of individual links that can easily be added or removed to get the ideal length. Also given this ability, if you have a headstock spindle that is belt driven, you can mount a Link Belt without having to remove the spindle to slip it on. Most importantly I have found my machine is much quieter than when running with regular V belts. Hope that may be of some use. Paul
I think you should use some higher weight oil. That thin oil looks like it's having issues making it's way to the top gears. Especially since not only the outsides of the gears, but also the gearing shafts need lubrication. I guess that the loose gear in the back right corner rattled pieces of itself and the shaft away. While thicker oil might not have mitigated that, it would have definetly made it last longer.
I just now realized how slow lathe work is on your lathe. When I saw this 21:29 and the small amount of material the tool removed and then this 21:55. I commend you for doing all this. Not to mention this as well 22:41. It is extremely hard to drill the holes even if you have an DRO. Taking an accurate edge messurement from a inner circle is extremely hard. There's a lot of back and forth and even then you can't be sure if it's spot on or not. I have never even seen a metal lathe in real life but I can relate in some way cause of all the videos I've watched. How did you managed to messure the center of the grove you made for the spindle nose anyway? Home Improvement is just an awesome show :D
Remember that these chineese lathes dont have dedicated oil lines and rely on the lower gears spraying oil to the top gears. But this only hapens on the biggest rpms. So it makes sense to run the lathe on the highest rpms so that everything gets lubricated.
Not sure the weight oil it calls for or if you have ever tried heavier oil, but thats what I did for mine. Different model but basically the same. I put 75-90 syn gear oil and it is way way quieter. The gears rattle way less. Tho they all could use custom made shims for sure. But been running it for 6 years and no issues.
might try some cheap Butyl Car Sound Deadening Mat around the inside of the motor pully area. One side is super sticky just stick it on the inside of the panels, Don't bother with the gear area no way it would stick anywhere in there. it wont silence the motor just help keep the noise vibrations down
I'm no machinist, but I do have a small lathe, perhaps your size and a milling machine. And I couldn't help but wonder after you made the statement when you were making the register that it has to be pretty much spot on. I think I would have machined the o. D on that blank just to help prevent it from vibrating from wobbling a little bit by not being true to the lathe.Make it easier for the centerpiece to be right on before you start cutting it. Do you think that is a valid concern?
Fill the gearbox with oil up to the top gears, but only if this box is tight at all. This means that the gears cannot wobble as easily. To be honest, it's real crap for the money. I converted my speeds and the entire drive to V-belts. Super quiet.
Having a small assortment of carbon steel shim stock and a punch is really, really handy for things like this. "Precision Brand" markets both for a reasonable price. You can get it at any of the usual suspects.
You know, noisy gearboxes are usually fixed with mixing liberal quantities of sawdust with the oil... 😁 Seriously, it will be interesting to se you tackle the problem! Perhaps get a noise meter into the footage, to add some visual suspence to the footage? (Camera recording tries to level soundlevel, just recording will not let you hear improvement all that well.)
Thanks for the vid! I also found the "you need cast iron for a backing plate" mentions when looking on info to make my own. Hard to find any good arguments for it though. Only thing sounding reasonable was "cast iron dampens vibrations". But I'm thinking it's a "cargo cult" thing: nobody really knows, but just copies each other. Maybe in some applications you really need cast iron, but steel works fine in most. By the way, I would have just drilled a 3- hole pattern in that cheap chuck.
I think it can help not gall the threads on threaded spindles buuuut..... if you oil it before you thread it on there will be no issues AND the backplates for an TOS SV-18 lathe are steel and the spindle is threaded so I guess it's just a thing from 100 years ago that remained engraved in some people's brains and now they pass it on as a requirement also cast is more rigid than steel but unless you have a large and relatively thin backplate it isn't really worth it imo
its the whole cast iron package that matters, not just vibration dampening. cast iron has better themal properties, wont change size as much with temperature changes (we are talking microns here thou). it is also self lubricating, which matters most for backplates that screw on the spindle (not this case). its better with handling small chips, they will dig into the iron and have a lesser risk of damaging the spindle surface. then again, for this particular case scenario, while cast iron would be better, its not a must. the cast quality is also important, impurities and voids in the casting are a no go. i mean, if you are going for cast iron, do it right. with imports thou, "hope for (good quality) cast iron and may do with what you get" lol. but you are right, there is a "purist" mindset going around on this subject. yes, cast iron is the better option, but an option non the less.
@@tobiasripper4124 all your points are valid, but you definitely want a steel backer/chuck or atleast something not cast if you spin at high RPM alot. I am not sending any of the pumps or heavy equipment I repair to Mars, so thermal expansion rates aren't much of a concern (for me), and dampening I've really never seen a significant enough difference in a cast iron backer, to justify the extra time/effort of going out of my way to get an Iron backer, when usually I have a chunk of material or can go grab a piece of steel if i have to or weld something together that works. Most of my chucks are rather large tho, so finding a chunk of cast iron to just make a backer can be time/cost prohibitive for me. I think if you did some raw in the field comparisons of steel backer vs iron, you'd find yes on paper the iron backer may be better, but in reality the small advantages are so minute it doesn't really give you any felt difference. Especially if you use the full range of your lathes speed changes. Granted on a mini lathe I don't think that matters nearly as much as it does on larger machines.
almost motivated to fix my steadies... really should have gotten one of the followers replaced, thread was counterbored so far there was no thread! yeah... sat on a shelf getting rusty for many years now. dont get used much anyway? still, do hold off on certain jobs because of it...
Run thicker oil. It will help with sound. Pluses straight cut gears should have thick oil .like a 140w or higher. The gear boxes I work with oil is as thick if not thicker then honey
Chris, exactly what I was going to mention too! BUT on the cheap chinese stuff doing heavier oil really trashes the motors and they really struggle to keep up. I went with some differential gear lube on mine to meet in the middle. Reduced the buzz down to a purr.
@cjm5002 ok. I'm not familiar with the these machines or any lathe for that matter. But thinking about trying to find one. I can see how the extra resistance from the heavy oil would draw down the small under powered motors. I didn't even think about that effecting the machine. I forget that it is a mini lathe. The camera work makes easy to miss that it is a mini machine
The gearbox was full of grinding grit from the factory. He's never properly cleaned that grit out, so it will continue to destroy that gearbox the longer he leaves it in there. . The weight of oil won't solve the problem of it literally tearing itself apart every time he uses it.
@johncoops6897 I didn't know it was full of grit . I Figured it was just excess ware from over use. Being that it was a used machine. Heavier oil will not fix any damage but helps quite worn gears
![What's in the box?! 1890s Safe [Restoration]](/img/n.gif)
Personally i wouldnt mind a multipart project fixing those gears. Perfecting little bits like that to just get everything running as good as it can be is why i love watching machining
I was thinking the same thing. Maybe remaking the gears to avoid the need for spacers? Remaking them as helical gears? Or even herringbone gears?
Reckon a 3 phase motor with a vfd would cure a lot of the noise - the motor in the lathe at present sounds as rough as old boots !
Same here but I wish someone else would do it first :) I can see it going wrong in so many different ways
easyest way would be just making shim stock.But you would need a grinder,for grinding those.
Or you buy them.
Remaking all the gears would be mess or the Shafts.Depending,what they fucked while making@@artisanmakes
@@mrb.5610 After he fixed the motor pulley with a previously missing grub screw, the motor noise was minimal. Certainly nothing that would be significantly reduced with another motor.
Cast Iron is used for backplates because it's dimensionally very stable, it dampens vibrations, it's much more resistant to getting dinged up or chips embedding themselves into it than steel and it's got better wear resistance since it is basically self lubricating. If you plan on changing chucks regularly for the next 30 years, it might make a difference, but I think regular steel is totally fine for a hobby shop. Maybe be extra careful about cleaning the spindle nose, so you don't have any chips embedding themselves into the steel.
Steel can, actually make chattering worse so I'd consider making a cast iron one at some point.
Yeah. Cast irons the way to go for all the reasons mentioned above. Here in the UK it's also pretty hard to get cast iron blanks cheaply for things like this, but on the other hand, incomplete sets of rusty weight training plates aren't worth much, and occasionally turn up on places like Facebook marketplace/Craigslist/etc as "Free to collector" when the current owner get's too sick of tripping over them..
Really cheap cast iron weights are awful though, with sand inclusions and voids a plenty, but if you can blag a few rough ones from a decent brand, the iron is pretty usable stuff. Still not perfect material, and it's always handy to have a couple spares for a project in case the first one turns out to be junk, but it's better to have some of these and occasionally curse their level of impurities than to not to have any and curse the availability and cost of virgin cast iron offcuts.
@@J.C... It doesn't do much with hobby grade machines and hobby grade speeds and feeds. On these machines, you got other stuff than your backplate to worry about when it comes to chatter.
In theory cast iron dampens vibrations better, but if your backplate fits well, it shouldn't make a difference, even on bigger machines. I'd say cast iron rules because it's insanely more resistant to dents and scratches, which makes it perfect for any kind of mounting surface. My solid toolpost is made of cast iron for that reason.
@@Reman1975damn that was poetic
The proper grade of grey cast iron may have said properties, but a well machined and balanced steel, aluminium, brass or even wood structure will have better characteristics than an iron casting of dubious quality. Which is why I intend to replace most of the crappy cast iron parts of my machine bases and drill press head with a chunky laminated birch construction. It will weigh probably triple and be a birch to move around though.
the joys of having a lathe, the only machine that can make every part of itself including add-ons.
That was always the thinking behind rep rap 3D printing.
Can a lathe really remake every part of itself? What about the bed? That would be way too big to be machined on a similar lathe.
There are milling attachments that COULD let you do it but it's not a good idea
There are several components like the bed that you couldn't realistically make with the lathe. You could in theory mill things square, bore and tap holes to screw together but it's just not going to work. I'm not sure there's any machine that can ACTUALLY make itself and every component it contains. Robots can't truly reproduce lol
@@CatNolara I think you can build a lathe with no other machine tools if you additionally allow the usage of a crafting foundry and hand tools (hope you enjoy hand-scraping the ways!)
Thicker oil. Chainsaw chain oil has an extra sticky additive which stops it flying off, sometimes called climbing oil.
Lol, in my youth, banana skins in an old car's gearbox was a great silencer!
The reason why Cast iron is normally used it is soft and easy to machine also cheap. 1045 is a bit of overkill in comparison, any steel or even brass provided its not threaded will do. Being a 4 jaw you usually go for the narrowest solution as they are normally going to be the one holding the biggest parts. You could have just drilled and taped new threads in the back of the chuck and that is a perfectly acceptable solution even oh a tool room lathe.
The thing that might be worth attention or checking at the least is the tail stock. When drilling a hole I noticed it jump a little. This could be related to a bent chuck or drill bit but sometimes it it the tail stock itself. Even on commercial grade machines it is quite common to see this problem normally due to abuse but i have encountered it several times on brand new machines. It isn't to difficult to test, all you do is mount a clock against the chuck and measure the concentricity of the tail stock quill at different extensions. As its difficult to measure the quills internal accuracy the usual method is the fit a dead center and measure that with the quill wound in , out and central to generate a its center line in relation to the chuck axis. You may find it's pointing in the wrong direction. You can also do this on different locations on the bed as if your lathe has been re scraped in particular this can be off. Its very common on a re scraped lathe to have the carriage ways pointing downwards towards the chuck as well.
Its a shame to see just how sloppy the internal gear train is in the head stock those lathes have gotten a lot worse over the years. The lubrication specked for them is also not the greatest. It's the most basic cheapest hydraulic oil and nothing more. In my machine that is the same as yours I had the same problem. I substituted the 32 iso for some engine oil used in Automatic transmission in classic Minis/ Motorcycle wet clutch engine oil. It shut it up and it felt a lot smoother in operation. When I worked in machine tool repair for 25 + years when faced with similar problems I have upped the viscosity by either using an iso 68 or a blend of 46 and 68. It depended on heat it generated. I have used additives as well but thats a deep dark hole that is best not one dived into here.
Any way none of this was intended as criticism just a heads up .
Cheers
The machinists at my work (hydraulic repair shop) use brass pieces on their steady rests because ball bearings would ruin the chrome on the rods. They put the machine coolant where the steady rest runs to keep it lubricated
For round cast iron I look for people giving away old weight sets on craigslist and facebook.
I put a 6" 4 jaw on my 8.5" swing lathe, made the back plate of 1/2" sheet steel. No issues a year later.
Great tip with the weight sets!😃
Oil between the guides and the part also helps a lot with steady rests to keep them from wearing out faster and from marring the part. Really cool modification vid!
Best advice for a fixed steady to avoid marking the work I've had is to use a well oiled strip of thin card wrapped around the work and clamped in the steady like a 'P' clip if that makes sense.
Sometimes I wonder. When I was still using a 1943 SouthBend 9A, the lathe was essentially silent as long as the backgear was not in use and the tumbler gears were in neutral. A virtually silent induction motor driving double reduction V belt drives and hydrodynamic journal bearings in the headstock, there was nothing to make much in the way of noise (the change from fibre to roller thrust bearings added a tiny amount of noise). The arrangement allowed the SB, 16 cutting speeds, neutral without turning off the electric motor, slack belt turning for very delicate work, very quick disengagement of the drive from the headstock, etc. It took very little time to change spindle speeds, insignificant compared to the total time to do most jobs. As to belt drive slip, that is just a sign that you are pushing the lathe too hard, and in my opinion, a good thing.
Precision toolroom lathes such as the Monarch 10EE and Hardige HLV used belt drive to the headstock. Amongst other things, this provided compliant isolation of the headstock from sources of mechanical vibration.
So, really, for a small hobbyist lathe, why a headstock gearbox with all its attendant complexity, problems, and noise?
I don't have any if the tools you do (lathe/mill etc..) but one thing I've always appreciated that you show is that with a little bit of time and effort you can 'convert' cheap shoddy parts into genuinely good tools.
Obviously when buying tools you pay for them to not be rubbish in the first place. And for some people, like pros running a commercial machine shop, you don't have time to fix stuff and time spent doing so is lost revenue, so spending on the high quality tools is a must. But for a hobbyist having fun and doing stuff 'just cause' its a great way to build up a collection of tools with less spend (and improving skills in the process).
I've always thought of cheap Chinese tooling as a "starter kit", or a "cast parts kit" with a few maybe useful accessories thrown in. 🤣
that home improvement sound caught off guard :D:D
Edit: cast iron is used for backplates because of vibration and chatter dampening capabilities.
Could one (in theory) use titanium instead, then? Since that's also fairly good at dampening vibrations.
@@bjrn-oskarrnning2740 You could if you have more money than sense and hate yourself by machining titanium on a hobby lathe.
that and cast iron is way better than steel at keeping its size under small temperature changes. with a back plate in a hobby lathe it might not be that relevant, but if you are after real precission, every micron counts.
@@tobiasripper4124 If you're after real precision you won't make a chuck adapter in the first place.
It's "damping" not "dampening"...
I have a similar lathe, just sold under a different brand name in South Africa. The gearbox sounds exactly the same, I'm also think ing of pulling it apart, but first I'm trying a thicker oil. Thanks for the video.
Hi. Great video as always! I have the same lathe, and also copped the same issue (with bolt holes) when I bought a 4 jaw chuck. Instead of making a back plate, I drilled 3 holes in the chuck to suit the lathe. Works a treat.
Noisy gears: You can try a thicker oil, like the oil that is used in differential gear boxes.
You still can see metal shavings in the oil, maybe you should place a magnet at the bottom of the box (usually the outlet screw). Collects the shavings and they don´t go round and round infinetely... But don´t magnetize your gears and bearings!😉
I agree with the other comments about thicker oil for your gearbox. The oil you were using seems very thin for gear oil especially if it wasn’t really warm when you either poured or removed it. Whilst a much thicker oil won’t completely remove all the noise I think it will really make quite a difference.
Love the channel 👍
Instead of Ball bearing for the steady rest I would highly recommend making some wear pads out of PA6, its fairly tough and when lubricated with oil it won't damage your surface, I've used mine a lot on Chrome rods and its just wonderful, ofc you are limited with doc and load but it's completely resistant to chips and embeds small chips without surface damage
Great idea, never thought of that.
instead of kerosene, run a gear oil full of emulsifiers/detergents, i.e. automatic transmission fluid, since ATF will pull all the dirt into suspension, and drain. just make sure you do one or two flushes with normal gear oil to remove the emulsifiers and detergents as those are not good for splash lube geartrains in the long run. although it's a fairly good solvent, kerosene has a very low lubricity so you risk causing more harm than good.
I do this on diesel engines. When an oil change is due I will suck out maybe 500mL of the old oil (or none if the oil level is low anyway) and fill it back up with ATF. I drive around 50km and then change the oil. The ATF really cleans out the engine and removes a lot of dirt from all the little oil passages.
The noise improvement was remarkable, thank you for sharing your time.
I bought a cheap Chi/Com 13x40 lathe back in the 1980's. Gear Head, very noisy. The oil they recommended was thin. I have heard of people using 90 wt gear oil. I am going to try a synthetic multi-grade because my shop can get below freezing in winter. Thanks for your great videos.
So you've waited 40 years to try different oil?
I spent 50 years working on jet aircraft, a little gear noise is minor compared to the ringing I hear in my ears. @@Andrew_Fernie
After seeing and hearing this I went down to the workshop and checked on my lookalike. At 710 rpm it increased noise level 20 dB.At max speed 30 dB. Smooth running. No risk of hearing damage.
I have the same 4 jaw from vevor. I just made two new threaded holes in it to convert it into 3 bolt system.
Didn’t think of that
yeap me too... but as a bonus I also made a mistake drilling closer the said holes
Me too. The chuck body wasn’t hardened so no issue and on my mini lathe any reduction in the amount of stickout is a benefit. I
The tinny housing covers in effect amplify all noises between their sources and your ears. Sticky-backed acoustic foam on the cabinet inside where accessible would help.
I was told by Hare & Forbes Sydney, a few years ago, if the noise of the gear box is so annoying, put heavy gear oil in to to quieten it down. Which I did. I have the Al 760, the Hare & Forbes anniversary model.
I should I also found the grub screw on the motor shaft missing - also the head stock bearings were not as tight as they should have been. I bought it new..
Home improvement and last man standing 2 of the best comedy. Sitcom shows ever!
That back plate turned out great. It makes me motivated on figuring out why I'm getting so much chatter with an old lathe I bought. I would love to be able to make clean looking parts like that!
I have the same machine. The spindle is not hardened. I drilled 3 additional holes for the four-cam chuck in the spindle. From Russia with love!
Interesting. My one certainty is, although it is only a mild hardness, 40s Rockwell if you believe the bite test
From the generous amount of backlash you demonstrated in the lathe gears I think that I would work hard to determine the cause before replacing any parts. While it is possible that the gears are not machined correctly it’s also possible that the center distance(s) between shafts might be a bit off. It doesn’t take much error in either or both to create a lot of play. This sounds like something to work on when your project list is depleted. Well done video.
Maybe get a slightly thicker oil, and tungsten disulphide additive for friction.
Both should help with sound.
And a magnet in contact with the oil so as it spins the magnet pics up metal from the oil (most automotive automatic gear boxes and some manual have magnets in the sump or the sump plug)
He first needs to disassemble the gearbox and remove the grinding grit that the factory left inside there.
.
The problem cannot be solved with magnets, since abrasives are not magnetic. Magnets are only attracting the fairly solt material that are being torn off, not the harder grit that is causing the problem.
Use brass for 0,5 mm washer next time. Steel washer will slowly wear the casting of the steady rest. Brass washer will wear too, but thats a much easyer replacement than the casting.
i was thinking the same some brass shim stock would do the job
To hold the chuck key in reach I just put a magnet in the place I want to store the key. Huge benefit: it's dead easy to relocate.
I just can't make my brain to put the key in the same place twice in a row...so I still spend time looking for it, despite this very clever trick.
Another trick for you : invest in an inverter so you can vary the speed continuously without stopping the lathe. Can be very handy for ultra low speed (taping) or variable diameters (facing)
There are lots of things you can look at in no particular order. Gear meshing issues (cast and not ground properly), slop in gearbox, unbalanced pulleys, unmatched belts, low viscosity gear oil (use heavier oil as others have recommended). Import lathes are a project, but you can fine tune them to be very quiet and precise with some work.
At a former workshop I used two old Vdf Boehringer lathes with hydrocopters, the ones for copy threads.
One of them was making a terrible noise from the gearing to the copy spindle, and i dropped in 120w gear oil in it. The noise disappeared. It had a much lighter grade in before. The noise in gearbox can sometimes be from the axle splines giving a play to the gears.
For the steady rest, I noticed one design where each half had v-grooves at the interface and a dowel pin in the middle. The pins were parallel to the bed, so apart from movement along the Z axis the two halves would be constrained and repeatable.
To solve the problem of lost keys for drill chucks, I glue a magnet to the machine in the ideal spot and then slap the key on that. And no drilling or tapping required.
Nice job(s) ! You might consider using long, (40mm) M8 grub screws in place of your bolts to hold both your4 jaw back plate and your 3 jaw chuck. I've done that to the three chucks I have for my lathe and believe you me, it's a lot easier to get nuts onto the grubscrews than it is to get a bolt started into a hole with little clearance. If you don't like it you can always change it back again.
At this point I wouldn't be surprised if the "I build a new lathe from scratch" video came out next week. Lol
And yet, he has the skill set to do it too.
The Lathe of Theseus.
@@DH-xw6jp a comment like yours should not go unnoticed.
I’d need a big industrial shaper for that eh
@@artisanmakes Look up the Gingery Lathe! It just takes sand casting and hand scraping.
hey with your gearbox whot I did is put thicker oil in as that makes it much quiter to run and use I also put more than its supposed to have also helped
Thicker oil will help. Maybe with some zinc additives
Ich hatte auch Langeweile und habe bis zum Ende gekuckt, tolle Maschine für einen Hobby Dreher. Daumen hoch.
The chuck key holder was genius bud! Love the channel and the work, stay awesome!
I can't wait for you to get into that gearbox. There are a lot of people out there with this lathe, or any lathe like this that needs the gear box sorted out. I will be an awesome series of videos.
I have that lathe to and the sound problem on my lathe was the gearbox pulley. Try to unscrew it a little bit and the sound disappear. It is some failure in the construction so then you tighten the nut the ballbearing will suffer and that make noise.
That backplate for the independent 4-jaw chuck is a great project. I made one of those myself a while ago.
Nice project, great work on your new chuck.
Thanks for sharing.
My dad is more lazy and holds the 4 jaw in his 3 jaw and says come on, i'm building a steam engine, they dont care for tolerances!
Its not the tolerances that are the problem with that setup....
What is? @@smashyrashy
having the 4-jaw come flying out as its only just held in the 3jaw...
im guilty of this too. its a 4jaw! you dial the work in anyway!
but i am wary of the jaws barely engaging. be careful?
hmmmph.
a good steam engine is extremely critical on tolerances.
It's better to hold the 3jaw in a 4jaw so you don't have do do the dialing for every single piece.
It is a small lathe but not a hobby lathe, it is around 240 cm ( 8 foot-ish?) Bedlength and the 4 jaw fits very nice, it is steardy enough,.and the dialing in? Thats normal for the 4-jaw, if you dont want that, dont try to turn square blocks
Great vid as usual. One or two negative comments on here which is a shame.
Definitely needs a magnet on that drain plug. Could you just slap a big old speaker magnet on the side of the gearbox to attract the metal particles? That's not going to help much if some of that is casting sand though.
Good job on the steady rest, I love improving tools and making them my own.
I’ve ordered a magnetic drain plug off eBay. I was going to make my own but I could t find any neodymium magnets small enough. Cheers
@@artisanmakes- the gearbox still has particles of the (non-magnetic) grinding grit inside, which were in there from the first day you used the lathe.
Oil changes might remove some of it that's floated off, but even a few grains will destroy that gearbox over time.
The chuck bolt on method you must find tedious surely? Keen to see your take on it. Also I highly recommend wood down on the ways when changing the chuck over as eventually your luck runs out. Ask me how I know
Nice job. If worse came to worse, you could put an oil treatment in to quiet the gears a bit; until you get ready to tear it down. I know a few guys that have done that.
Hi Have you considered changing the viscosity of the gearbox oil. It is probably a ISO 46 oil at present. Try a ISO68 and see what happens. Alternatively add a gearbox additive like STP. Nulon also make a non-Neutonian oil additive as well. Cheers.
Has similar issues with my Lathe. I found that increasing the viscosity of the oil and installing quality 'matched' drive belts reduced noise considerably.
Good job on that back plate mate! In the future, you can find good cast iron fly wheels on old treadmill motors. They are normally around 6" so it's a good size.
I hope you'll talk a little more about that magnetic drain plug when it arrives. I'm just about to pull the trigger on an AL250G as well and would like to get a magnet in there from day one when I start flushing the crud out of the gearboxes.
The chuck adapter blank I used for my 4-jaw cost more than the chuck itself. I removed about a kilogram of iron fitting it up. I think some of that black "gold" still turns up in the shop occasionally, in the form of smudges and rust spots.
Your tap wrench is certainly an artefact from warehouse 13!
The oil look to be far too thin for a straight cut gearboxi would try some 40w straight hydraulic oil, there s metal in the oil you drained out, which means it is not doing its job! Love the mod on the steady rest!
Phil
Ive got the same spindle and size , planning on getting an 8"chuck aswelll
Hi Mate, next time you need a biggish piece of repeatably good quality cast iron for something like this, consider a discarded flywheel, brake disc, or even a crown gear from a car or truck. Most mechanical workshops, and panel shops, will let you take their scrap for free. They do in Melbourne, anyway.
I don't know for sure why to use cast iron, but it may have something to do with the cast iron absorbing vibrations much more effectively than steel does.
Also, did you balance the chuck adaptor assembly? Always a good idea to do that, it saves your bearings.
I have never used a steady rest I always held wood turnings with my free hand so I really don't know how helpful they are but you did a cracking job of upgrading that one
I hate the springs on chuck keys, theyre infuriating....I know why theyre there but they always annoy me so much I take the springs off.
Great adapter for the four jaw
Nice job
Thanks for sharing
If you want to see why that's an absolutely terrible method, go look up "russian lathe accident" and you'll watch a man turn into flying ground meat in a few seconds. Never ever ever ever hold stuff that's spinning in a lathe
While this lathe won't do that, it will still absolutely break fingers or arms. But in the case of accuracy - a steady rest will keep things concentric far more effectively.
@@vinland5558 erm yeah nasty that was a big lathe and I could see it starting to happen...loose clothing around a piece turning that must not have been an odd shape
I woulkd never reccomend holding the work but what I was doing was very small stuff and certainly not as high a power lathe as that....nasty indeed... yuck thanks for the share
I had to make the exact same thing last year. Steel like yours seems fine to me but I did use cast iron as I happened to find an old cast pulley that I was able to turn down and it works perfectly. In the process I realised an other source of similar cast metal is gym weights so that might be an option should you ever need any more. By the way turning cast iron is messy as, I prefer free machining steel.
Great video 🤩 especially the original "quality" of that steady Rest was quite appalling. Great to see how relatively easily you could improve it 👍
I'm not sure if you've seen it but, I've seen the channel "We Can Do That Better" use a carbide cutting tool like you used to turn down that adapter plate to effectively cut indicator lines in to some of his hand cranks. Watching you tap alignment dots into that adapter plate made me think of this. If you haven't changed out your four jaw chuck yet you might want to do that to have the perfect alignment instead of the dots which aren't in a perfectly straight line.
It seems like you need a lot more belt tension, normally your "upper" part of the belt (closer to the wall) Should be running without any jumping ect. And your lower (chuck side) belts can jump an wobble a bit (if I've seen the rotation correctly, if not vice versa
Was thinking the same thing. That belt seemed quite loose
That is right but didnt tension the belt here because I had to rip them off immediately after to change the oil.
re the cast iron backplate: several others have addressed other reasons: however, cast iron being softer & more brittle than any other part of the assembly is likely intentional as well: better to damage a simple adapter plate than the spindle or the head:and it would be softer than the bolts.
it also cracks & crumbles rather than shatter, bend or distort: limiting the risk of secondary damage during the failure.
basically, its a designated failure point in a metal that provides ease of use advantages, too.
That gearbox sounds like a real old clanker. I made my own 6 speed box for an old Zyto .With 2 speed belt from the motor I get 12 speeds. My box is quieter made on a home converted clarke pillar drill with Chinese cutters from RDG tools. Not perfect but better than a lot of lathes you hear about. I have also put a 8000rpm variable speed Ac Dc motor on it so I can have high speed for small parts and can reduce the speed and use the low ratios on the box for torque. Rev range 8600 down to 35 rpm
I also wonder it the low price of those cheap lathes is not offset after some time by the amount of time, better replacement parts, and all the headaches in order to get it work as you expect (vs a much more expensive but precise and well built one)
You can just drill the chuck, not an issue on a 4 jaws as there is plenty of material to drill.
The register accuracy doesn't matter on a 4 chuck, since you need to adjust it anyway.
Try adding a bit of Molyslip gearbox additive to the headstock first rather than a thicker oil.
That was a good Tim allen impression.
Try using a heavier weight gear oil in your gearbox. 70-90 weight should work well as a cheap fix. Also, Lucas makes an oil additive which is very thick and clings to the gears and works well to quiet gear noise. Lucas Heavy duty Oil Stabilizer, if it is available in your area.
That my friend was a spot on tim the toolman
18:32 - I'm hoping you got power cross feed because that looks like it was gonna take forever!
I’m not sure what oil they recommend in that gear box, but depending on your environment(I assume it’s warm year around?) you could increase the viscosity. While it does steal horse power, a higher viscosity straight cut gear lubricant may decrease gear noise significantly.
Great upgrades, like the steady a lot, way better.
Cheers 👍💪✌
I hot-glue a couple of neodymium magnets to housings to hold my chuck keys. Of course, that's on a drill press where chips aren't always flying everywhere🤣
Hey dude, I love this channel, it's amazing to see a local fella make good machinist content. Keep it up :)
With respect to the lathe noise, may I recommend one thing that may help. Try replacing the regular V-belts with a product called "Link Belt" by Fenner Drives (USA). This stuff, at least in Canada is sold by the foot (metre?) and as the name implies is made up of individual links that can easily be added or removed to get the ideal length. Also given this ability, if you have a headstock spindle that is belt driven, you can mount a Link Belt without having to remove the spindle to slip it on. Most importantly I have found my machine is much quieter than when running with regular V belts. Hope that may be of some use.
Paul
I think you should use some higher weight oil. That thin oil looks like it's having issues making it's way to the top gears. Especially since not only the outsides of the gears, but also the gearing shafts need lubrication. I guess that the loose gear in the back right corner rattled pieces of itself and the shaft away. While thicker oil might not have mitigated that, it would have definetly made it last longer.
Feel like you might have watched Clough42 for the chuck conversion.
I just now realized how slow lathe work is on your lathe. When I saw this 21:29 and the small amount of material the tool removed and then this 21:55. I commend you for doing all this. Not to mention this as well 22:41. It is extremely hard to drill the holes even if you have an DRO. Taking an accurate edge messurement from a inner circle is extremely hard. There's a lot of back and forth and even then you can't be sure if it's spot on or not. I have never even seen a metal lathe in real life but I can relate in some way cause of all the videos I've watched. How did you managed to messure the center of the grove you made for the spindle nose anyway?
Home Improvement is just an awesome show :D
Remember that these chineese lathes dont have dedicated oil lines and rely on the lower gears spraying oil to the top gears. But this only hapens on the biggest rpms. So it makes sense to run the lathe on the highest rpms so that everything gets lubricated.
Also pardon my dumb, but why not just drill the three-hole pattern into the chuck? No room past the slots for the jaws?
Lathely you've been featuring this machine a lot.
Great videos , can't complain
:)
Some exercise weights are a great source for large diameter plates of cast iron.
Way oil on the steadyrest pads when in use . And use slower speeds and the pads will last longer
Not sure the weight oil it calls for or if you have ever tried heavier oil, but thats what I did for mine. Different model but basically the same. I put 75-90 syn gear oil and it is way way quieter. The gears rattle way less. Tho they all could use custom made shims for sure. But been running it for 6 years and no issues.
might try some cheap Butyl Car Sound Deadening Mat around the inside of the motor pully area. One side is super sticky just stick it on the inside of the panels, Don't bother with the gear area no way it would stick anywhere in there. it wont silence the motor just help keep the noise vibrations down
I'm no machinist, but I do have a small lathe, perhaps your size and a milling machine. And I couldn't help but wonder after you made the statement when you were making the register that it has to be pretty much spot on. I think I would have machined the o. D on that blank just to help prevent it from vibrating from wobbling a little bit by not being true to the lathe.Make it easier for the centerpiece to be right on before you start cutting it. Do you think that is a valid concern?
You might need to make some bronze bushings for the gearbox! I don't know if the company that made your lathe actually makes those for your lathe.
There was a lot in it this week. Thanks.
Cheers. All in the edit though. I started the filing on this second week of January
again, awesome Mr Makes
Fill the gearbox with oil up to the top gears, but only if this box is tight at all. This means that the gears cannot wobble as easily. To be honest, it's real crap for the money. I converted my speeds and the entire drive to V-belts. Super quiet.
Use thicker oil. It will reduce the noise. I did it on my lathe.
Having a small assortment of carbon steel shim stock and a punch is really, really handy for things like this. "Precision Brand" markets both for a reasonable price. You can get it at any of the usual suspects.
Lots of pucker factor holding that plate in the 3J! My rule of thumb is to never hold anything bigger than the chuck diameter.
Yeah it was at the limit that the chuck is made for. The manufacturer says no larger than 130 and this was right on that
You know, noisy gearboxes are usually fixed with mixing liberal quantities of sawdust with the oil... 😁 Seriously, it will be interesting to se you tackle the problem! Perhaps get a noise meter into the footage, to add some visual suspence to the footage? (Camera recording tries to level soundlevel, just recording will not let you hear improvement all that well.)
Would have been good to see a noise decibel reader to indicate how much you've reduced the noise in the mechanism.
Thanks for the vid!
I also found the "you need cast iron for a backing plate" mentions when looking on info to make my own. Hard to find any good arguments for it though. Only thing sounding reasonable was "cast iron dampens vibrations". But I'm thinking it's a "cargo cult" thing: nobody really knows, but just copies each other. Maybe in some applications you really need cast iron, but steel works fine in most.
By the way, I would have just drilled a 3- hole pattern in that cheap chuck.
I think it can help not gall the threads on threaded spindles buuuut..... if you oil it before you thread it on there will be no issues AND the backplates for an TOS SV-18 lathe are steel and the spindle is threaded so I guess it's just a thing from 100 years ago that remained engraved in some people's brains and now they pass it on as a requirement
also cast is more rigid than steel but unless you have a large and relatively thin backplate it isn't really worth it imo
Most of my backing plates are 304 or 416
Because it was free from the scrap bin at an old job.
cast iron is much nicer to machine...
its the whole cast iron package that matters, not just vibration dampening. cast iron has better themal properties, wont change size as much with temperature changes (we are talking microns here thou). it is also self lubricating, which matters most for backplates that screw on the spindle (not this case). its better with handling small chips, they will dig into the iron and have a lesser risk of damaging the spindle surface. then again, for this particular case scenario, while cast iron would be better, its not a must. the cast quality is also important, impurities and voids in the casting are a no go. i mean, if you are going for cast iron, do it right. with imports thou, "hope for (good quality) cast iron and may do with what you get" lol. but you are right, there is a "purist" mindset going around on this subject. yes, cast iron is the better option, but an option non the less.
@@tobiasripper4124 all your points are valid, but you definitely want a steel backer/chuck or atleast something not cast if you spin at high RPM alot.
I am not sending any of the pumps or heavy equipment I repair to Mars, so thermal expansion rates aren't much of a concern (for me), and dampening I've really never seen a significant enough difference in a cast iron backer, to justify the extra time/effort of going out of my way to get an Iron backer, when usually I have a chunk of material or can go grab a piece of steel if i have to or weld something together that works.
Most of my chucks are rather large tho, so finding a chunk of cast iron to just make a backer can be time/cost prohibitive for me.
I think if you did some raw in the field comparisons of steel backer vs iron, you'd find yes on paper the iron backer may be better, but in reality the small advantages are so minute it doesn't really give you any felt difference.
Especially if you use the full range of your lathes speed changes. Granted on a mini lathe I don't think that matters nearly as much as it does on larger machines.
almost motivated to fix my steadies...
really should have gotten one of the followers replaced, thread was counterbored so far there was no thread!
yeah... sat on a shelf getting rusty for many years now. dont get used much anyway?
still, do hold off on certain jobs because of it...
Run thicker oil. It will help with sound. Pluses straight cut gears should have thick oil .like a 140w or higher. The gear boxes I work with oil is as thick if not thicker then honey
klimbing oil
Chris, exactly what I was going to mention too! BUT on the cheap chinese stuff doing heavier oil really trashes the motors and they really struggle to keep up. I went with some differential gear lube on mine to meet in the middle. Reduced the buzz down to a purr.
@cjm5002 ok. I'm not familiar with the these machines or any lathe for that matter. But thinking about trying to find one. I can see how the extra resistance from the heavy oil would draw down the small under powered motors. I didn't even think about that effecting the machine. I forget that it is a mini lathe. The camera work makes easy to miss that it is a mini machine
The gearbox was full of grinding grit from the factory. He's never properly cleaned that grit out, so it will continue to destroy that gearbox the longer he leaves it in there.
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The weight of oil won't solve the problem of it literally tearing itself apart every time he uses it.
@johncoops6897 I didn't know it was full of grit . I Figured it was just excess ware from over use. Being that it was a used machine. Heavier oil will not fix any damage but helps quite worn gears
Check the name plate... does it say Hafco or Boeing?