Restoring a Legacy: My Granddad's Lathe

[grey-array]

My Granddad was a superb crafter and it still saddens me when I realise that I never really got to know him as he died just before my 4th birthday.
He left behind a great deal of tools which sadly were taken and squandered by other family members and many of those tools laid rotting in a shed until a fire took down the shed, with everything inside.

Everyone ready for the happy news!?

Luckily I have another Grandpa and he is the lovely kind of man that is a proficient engineer and never ever chucks out something usefull. My Grandpa saved the best Lathe of my Granddad.
It had been standing in a slightly moist garage for 20 years, and he suddenly remembered that he still had that Lathe in storage. I found a spot in which I could put it, and here I am restoring the best Lathe my Granddad ever had. allong with it a box full of old turnings wee chissels and a spare belt that was a bit to far gone.
Armed with some lubricants and a nice assortment of sandpaper gritts we started taking it apart.

This was the first day after we moved it, and gives you all an insight on how it looked before restoring it.

Now its just a matter of putting the time in it, making everything rust free. I'm going to strip off all the paint and give it a new coat of Hammerite and am still deciding on the colour.
Then gets my self a new belt for the pulley and make a workbench for it to sit on that is nice and sturdy and can be weighed down.

Let me know what your thoughts are and what are your thoughts as far as a colour scheme that will look good on this Lathe.

Yours sincerely
Ruud

 

[crosslandkelly]

It's good you still have something of your grandads, For myself I would keep to the original, good luck with the restoration.

 

[Macaroon]

Great stuff, Ruud, good to see stuff come back into use. It'll be good to see the results of your work. I agree with Colin, I'd keep it original as far as possible.

 

[TallTom]

That will look lovely all painted up I'm sure.
I say go for blue.. match the original.

 

[Tom Gold]

Cant help on the technical side but thanks for sharing the story. I have my grandad's felling axe which still has initials carved on the handle.
Cheers, T

 

[Gary Elson]

Hi
As Mr Ford may or not have said "any colour you want as long as it's blue"
Enjoy the lathe - Happy turning

Gary

 

[grey-array]

Hello everyone,

are you ready for the long awaited update.
I made quite some progress and the project grew quite significantly so bear with me, this thread is starting to scale up a little XD

Let's start where we left off!
After a load of sanding and even more WD40 and other lubricants to undo some very stubborn bolts that kept everything together,
I started to take the entire lathe down piece by piece. I was planning on sanding all of the piece individually, slap them with a new fresh coat of Hammerite and after that bolt everything back together so it could stand the test of time once more.

After stripping down the entire frame, and dismantling all the pieces except for the drive shaft, which will be my next part to overhaul. I collected the pieces in a heavy duty carrier bag and took them to the workshop of my university.
Mind you that it is an hour and a half journey by train for me to actually get there. Might I say it was quite an uncomfortable adventure to get the now 18kg carrier bag towards my Uni ^^.
The workshop I have available at my Uni is far better equipped plus it would save me from some domestic disagreements with the parental panel so to say ^^

So let's get back to some visual stimulants again ^^

And of course the centre

The first thing to do was to get the centre back in working shape. At this point it was heavily rusted, the point was dull, non-centric and pretty much unusable.

so it was time to chuck it into the metal lathe and get the centre back in fighting shape.

I also cleaned out the bearing filled it with some high quality molybdenum disulfide to make sure it would operate smoothly.

After getting that done it was time to meet my maker, and get all the parts cleaned from rust and paint in order to prepare it for a new layer.
And yes I am aware that Hammerite works just fine over rust and paint however it seemed a better idea to just do the proper job and start from scratch.
This could have been a painstaking process grinding and sanding till my arm fell off, trying to get into those impossible to reach corners, but luckily the unsung hero of the metal shop was there.
Some of you paying close attention to detail already guessed it.

The Sandblasting Cabinet!

And it would take only 4 and a half hours, a backache that would make Ghandi swear, and a lot of frustration cleaning the entire thing out due to the incompetence of some of the other students.
But it made.... "relatively" swift work of turning this:

into this!

All nice and cleaned up ready to receive a new goat of paint. And some of you attentive readers might already set some question marks at the impressive 18 kg, plus seeing green parts between the pile of unsuspecting steel right before Sandblasting.
Well you attentive viewers might I say your suspicions are right! There is a Second Lathe that indeed is wearing a different coat of paint ^^.

But I will tease you guys for a couple of days until I reveal that beauty and the story that lead up to the pretty unplanned purchase of this bulky beauty.


Ps I took all of your suggestions to heart and got myself a Hammerite in the colour blue, but it has a slight twist to it.
and with that Cliffhanger I wish you a very good day.
Thanks for reading.

Yours sincerely

Ruud

 

[sandbender]

I'm enjoying this thread.

 

[Laurentius]

I wish I had the ability to make a pole lathe, my dad could have done but he is long gone.

 

[richardhomer]

Looks like you have been really busy!
I'm enjoying this thread and look forward to the next update.

 

[Mesquite]

I wish I had the ability to make a pole lathe, my dad could have done but he is long gone.

Don't do yourself down, you'd be surprised at what you're able to do if you take time and research what you want to make.

If you look on the internet there's lots of plans for simple easy to make plans for pole lathes that require minimal skills and tools

 

[Draven]

Awesome thread - great to see life breathed back into that lathe

 

[crosslandkelly]

That looks like it's coming along nicely Ruud.

 

[grey-array]

Okay Ladies and Gents,

Are you all ready to get the full scoop on my still semi uncovered side project, or projects to be specific XD
Very well then here we go.

So while working on the restoration of my grandfathers Lathe, and seeing only tiny chisels that would do the job of turning but not in a proper fashion I hit a site very similar to your ebay.
So browsing for a week or so on this so called " Marktplaats" which means literally translated Marketplace, I found a fellar about 80 miles away from me who was indeed selling some nice chisels.
They weren't in the best shape but the price was right. I was looking for a set of chisels however this dear man was selling a lathe, with chisels, but seeing the man only wanted about 28 quid ( doing the conversion for you guys ^^) I couldn't refuse.

I called the dear man, arranged a big enough car that would fit the lathe and drove towards the southern part of the so called Netherlands ^^.
I met the man had a nice chat with him in a great workshop that was sadly abandoned as the man that once used to run it was no longer physically able to do so and we took a look at the lathe.
It wasn't in the best shape and it would surely need a new belt. The man then told me that he wanted 36 quid for it, on which I replied I'm not going to give you 36.
He was surprised at my abrupt answer which I shortly followed by "I'm giving you 70 euro's/50 quid because it is just worth more than 36" The man smiled, the lady that accompanied me shook her head with a smile.
giving me the "You are to good for the world, and a giant sucker for being unnecessary generous without having the room in your budget" look XD. Lets just say I will never be a businessman
and we loaded our new Green Beast in the back with a shoddy board with a couple of files handled with PVC pipes and a set of 6 slightly rusty marples chisels.

My apologies beforehand for the terrible unrestored picture as I did make one but forgot to take a proper one.
That is before my hands started tingling and moving towards their restoration, but I don't have to tell you guys that, cause when you got the bug you just have the bug ^^

The thing that hurt me the most aside from the rust was that the handles from the marples chisels were all marred up.
This was because they were held onto the board by some cheap pvc pipe clamps which still had the burrs on the edges, even after all those years.

First to help me clean everything up I made myself a wee little doohickey ( god I love that word) this would help me sand the ferules of the chisels.
And after going through the grits I could also polish them with it. I still had the Brass plumb lying about, as it was the first metal that I turned, and i just spun some tape around it until it made a friction fit with the ferules.

And presto! I went from right to left in under 4 minutes

After that I took all the varnish of the handles and sanded out the marred sections that got torn up by the pipe clamps while trying to keep most of the marples logo intact.
And then I removed all rust from the chisels with some fine grit papers and I oiled them with a nice linseed/beeswax mix I made a while back.

So just a final sharpening that will happen if I get all my stones in the water again, and these are ready for business.

Thanks for reading, will see you at the next update.

Yours sincerely
Ruud

 

[dewi]

Its like some sort of tool porn... really enjoying this and can't wait to see what you're going to do next!

 

[grey-array]

Hahaha Thanks Dewi, well I already have most of my footage uploaded to my photobucket, and will be continuing shortly.
until then if you guys cant resist a sneak peak you could just rummage around my photobucket ^^

Thanks for the enthusiasm its great and quite frankly infectious ^^

Yours sincerely
Ruud

 

[dewi]

My great great-grandfather, great-grandfather and grandfather were basket weavers... unfortunately they died before I was born and due to circumstances their craft died with them (as far as our family was concerned at least)

Your post is a poignant reminder... just because its old and rusty doesn't mean it can't be brought back to life and given a new purpose. Metal and knowledge can be reborn given a good effort.

Side note, if I knew how I'd be sneak peaking away with a smile on my face, but I shall have to wait for the next installment here... I'm sat with fingers crossed for a sea of blue

 

[laro13]

Nice Job Ruud!

I think you will love this book too:

http://www.marktplaats.nl/a/boeken/...3msoYXdkvsbj7SFq_-F7QX0aaIpvx0v8dkfcwg8K-nkdw

I really enjoyed it.

cheers,
Jasper

 

[grey-array]

Hey Thanks Jasper,

and just the look of that shop on the cover is enough to win me over XD
I'll have a look around cause I bet its a great read!

And Thanks Dewi,

Yeah I have seen many super pieces of engineering being chucked in the skip as if they were pieces of garbage.
Sadly my grandfather died when I was still so young but I always had the feeling that the creator that lived in him lives on in me, and I wouldnt want it to be any other way!


Thanks guys
Yours sincerely
Ruud