Took a chance today.....

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PTownSubbie

PTownSubbie

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Chesapeake, VA
Well, I saw a post on CL selling a 7"x10" Central Machinery Metal Lathe for $225. This is less than half the cost of it originally so I thought I would go take a look. 30 mins before I got there, he called me saying that he wanted to save me a trip because the auto-feed feature was not working. I went and looked anyway.

The machine has a lot of surface rust from sitting. The auto-feed was not working due to a stripped nylon gear. I could see they were broken. It had a lot of work to be done on it but has potential to do and make what I am wanting to do.

I offered him $30 since it wasn't fully operational. He took it. I took a $30 chance today. If it doesn't work out, I am not out a bunch of money!!

Now I have lots of questions......
1. Is there a group for these 7"x10" Lathes anywhere?
2. Can you get metal gears for this lathe?
3. I need a good rust remover. Anyone recommend one?
3. What type of steel is being used for pen parts? And where do you get it?

Thanks for the help on this!

I know.......No pictures......Didn't happen!!! I will post pictures tomorrow......
 
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Good fine Fred... 30 bucks is a steal for the little bit of sweat equity you'll put it.

as for the steel gear. you can go to a bearing. gear supply house and get a replacement gear.I'm lucky I have two in town to go to. if you take the old one is they can figure out the pitch of the gear and size. some gears are really cheap to buy. you wont know till you look into it further. if you can figure out the size of the gear on your own you might be able to buy it on line even cheaper.

on the rust removal... NO SAND PAPER... you'll screw up the bed ways. you should be able to get most of the job done with steel wool and some elbow grease.

Erik


PTownSubbie said:
Well, I saw a post on CL selling a 7"x10" Central Machinery Metal Lathe for $225. This is less than half the cost of it originally so I thought I would go take a look. 30 mins before I got there, he called me saying that he wanted to save me a trip because the auto-feed feature was not working. I went and looked anyway.

The machine has a lot of surface rust from sitting. The auto-feed was not working due to a stripped nylon gear. I could see they were broken. It had a lot of work to be done on it but has potential to do and make what I am wanting to do.

I offered him $30 since it wasn't fully operational. He took it. I took a $30 chance today. If it doesn't work out, I am not out a bunch of money!!

Now I have lots of questions......
1. Is there a group for these 7"x10" Lathes anywhere?
2. Can you get metal gears for this lathe?
3. I need a good rust remover. Anyone recommend one?
3. What type of steel is being used for pen parts? And where do you get it?

Thanks for the help on this!

I know.......No pictures......Didn't happen!!! I will post pictures tomorrow......
Click to expand...
 
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Fred:
Nice find! The best rust remover and preventative I have found is from Michigan. It was originally made for Boeing. It is called Boeshield and the local machinist supply shops and HVAC parts houses stock it here. One of the big box wood stores did stock it as well.
 
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Fred,

Check out the following link. I believe they have the metal gears you mentioned. There are also multiple forums for the 7x10 lathe users. I have the 7x12 but it's the same thing, only four inches longer (I know the math says 2 inches but apparently some marketing folks came up with the 10 in 7x10).

http://littlemachineshop.com/

I've used mine for turning down corian blanks (that I got from you!) and turning delrin bushings.

John
 
you can find groups on yahoo groups for the 7x10 minilathe. You can get replacement parts from Little Machine Shop. They even sell a whole kit to replace the plastic gears with metal. Boeshield is really a preventative and lubricant, but it may loosen light rust. Woodcraft sells it, and I think Rockler does too. You can also get Naval Jelly at most hardware stores. It does contain an acid, so you got to be careful with it. Try putting some on, let it set a while, then scrub the ways with one of the green scruffy pads. If you need to get more agressive, use wet/dry paper wrapped around a piece of hardwood or metal. Use WD-40 for the lubricant.
 
This was a GREAT find. Check with Little Machine Shop, They have everything you will ever need for this little lathe. Quick change tool post, knurling tool, metal gears,
milling attachment and on and on. Little Machine Shop is online. Also there is a site that deals with all the 7x10, 7x12 and 7x14 mini lathes. There several companies that carry these little lathes with their own label. Yours is Harbor Freight. I have a Grizzly and after some tweaking and adjustments it is wonderful for pen making.
 
Some times the manufacture will use a plastic gear so it breaks if there is a crash, stopping the machine from doing more expensive damage to its self, if it is the gear that drives the spindle then you may want to see if you can change it to a belt drive, if it drives the power feed I would replace it with a plastic gear it should only brake again if you crash the lathe.
 
Mike of the North said:
Some times the manufacture will use a plastic gear so it breaks if there is a crash, stopping the machine from doing more expensive damage to its self, if it is the gear that drives the spindle then you may want to see if you can change it to a belt drive, if it drives the power feed I would replace it with a plastic gear it should only brake again if you crash the lathe.
Click to expand...

Good point Mike. I never thought of that as a reason. I will have to look into it and see what I want to replace it with.

Everyone else, thanks for the inputs and links as to where to look!
 
PTownSubbie said:
Well, I saw a post on CL selling a 7"x10" Central Machinery Metal Lathe for $225. This is less than half the cost of it originally so I thought I would go take a look. 30 mins before I got there, he called me saying that he wanted to save me a trip because the auto-feed feature was not working. I went and looked anyway.

The machine has a lot of surface rust from sitting. The auto-feed was not working due to a stripped nylon gear. I could see they were broken. It had a lot of work to be done on it but has potential to do and make what I am wanting to do.

I offered him $30 since it wasn't fully operational. He took it. I took a $30 chance today. If it doesn't work out, I am not out a bunch of money!!

Now I have lots of questions......
1. Is there a group for these 7"x10" Lathes anywhere?
2. Can you get metal gears for this lathe?
3. I need a good rust remover. Anyone recommend one?
3. What type of steel is being used for pen parts? And where do you get it?

Thanks for the help on this!

I know.......No pictures......Didn't happen!!! I will post pictures tomorrow......
Click to expand...

I don't know any answers to numbers 1, 2 & 4, but on a good rust remover, get a small jar of naval jelly... most BORG's or hardware stores sell it in 8 or 10 oz jars.... follow the instructions carefully and you'll take all the rust away... your steel MAY be discolored where the rust was, but you can get it slick and smooth. I had a lot of trouble with rust on my wood lathes in Houston because of the high humidity... the NJ worked great and kept most of it off.... also had some problems here in TN when the humidity goes up and I go for a few days without working the lathes... you'll also need a good machine oil after you've cleaned the rust away with the jelly.
 
That's depressing. Been wanting to go there for a long time, never could find the cash. Don't mind me, I'll just be over here in the corner kicking the cat.

Seriously, Fantastic deal. Even if you never turn it on, it's got way more than $30 in parts on it. As for the rust, there are several ways to go about removing it, depending on just how bad it is, where and on what part. The most critical surfaces are the ways, and you DO NOT want to put sandpaper on them. Most other parts are not critical to the operation of the tool and can be sanded, wire brushed, naval jellied, or whatever. Again the best method depends on how deep the rust is. If it is just brownish red powder, and it smudges your finger if you wipe it, but feels smooth if you run your fingernail along it, it's just surface and will probably clean up pretty easily. If it is deeper brown and feels rough, but uniform, it will need to be cleaned to remove any loose particles, and then the surface treated to stop it from starting again, if it's just an external surface, but nothing rides on it. If it is a contact surface that something moves against in operation, you will need to smooth out the freshly derusted surface without changing the geometry. If you need to go there, best contact somebody with detailed info on what, where how much, ect and get specific instructions.
Worst case scenario would be if the rust was deep enough that pieces of it had started to flake off. This will mean that after you remove the active rust, deep pits will be left in the surface, and depending where, may render that part unusable. If it is not on a critical surface, one of the best methods of removing heavy rust is Electrolytically, using a bath of water and caustic soda, a sacrificial steel electrode and a dc power source. If you think you might need to go there, let me know, I've done it for years on all sorts of tools and stuff.

And once you get the rust off, treating the new surface to keep it that way is just as important as cleaning it in the first place. Again, different parts need to be treated different ways, in the long run, but for short term, just about any good oil, grease or rust preventative will keep it from starting to rust again.

Good luck, and keep us posted. Half the fun of a new toy is getting it fixed up and working, so you've got lots to look forward to. Waiting for the pics!
 
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Well, all of you that talked about Naval Jelly....That stuff is amazing!! I brushed it on with one of those acid brushes and let it sit for ~10 minutes and then used steel wool to take it off and it worked like mad!!

I need to find some good lubricant and protectant. Anyone have a good name that can be picked up locally? Until I can put a good protective layer on it, I just used 3 in 1 oil.

I ordered replacement nylon gears and a few other parts from the little machine shop so I have a total of $110 invested and hopefully it will be ready to go with the new gears.

I took some pictures after I cleaned it up today. What do you think?
 

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I finally got the threading gears from The Little Machineshop and put them in to finish testing the lathe. The threading test was a total failure. There was some serious binding in the carriage handwheel assembly. The binding was causing gear slippage.

So, I took the lathe carriage assembly apart and cleaned it with lube until it turned freely. Moisture had gotten into the rotating parts causing them to partially seeze.

The lathe is fully operational and tested!! The good part is, I only have $110 in total cost of the lathe!! ($30 for lathe and $80 for gears).

:biggrin: :biggrin: I am a happy camper tonight!! :biggrin: :biggrin:
 
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