Author Topic: cannon/mortar making equipment major maintenance (Read 1322 times)

Powder keg · « **on:** November 10, 2005, 04:32:38 PM »

Hi, If interested I can post a few pictures of me fixing the broken teeth on my old lathe. Should only take me a day or two. A couple of the bearings are going to be replaced also. Any takers?

john pike · « **Reply #1 on:** November 10, 2005, 05:21:50 PM »

Quote from: Powder keg

Hi, If interested I can post a few pictures of me fixing the broken teeth on my old lathe. Should only take me a day or two. A couple of the bearings are going to be replaced also. Any takers?

WOW, i thought you was doing your own teeth for a second,
gotall dizzy,
i HATE Dentists, there all natzies,,

GGaskill · « **Reply #2 on:** November 10, 2005, 05:27:45 PM »

Sure; there are broken teeth on my old lathes too.

Powder keg · « **Reply #3 on:** November 10, 2005, 06:15:11 PM »

I'll post some pictures tomarrow. I got the gears out today. The gears were broke when I bought the lathe. What I think happened is someone tried to use low gear for resistance when trying to unscrew the chuck. It was on so tight when I got it I had to remove the chuck from the backplate and machine it off the spindle nose. I know that seams drastic but that sucker wouldn't move! A friend and I tried everything! I needed to remove it so I could mount my 4 jaw for a job I was doing. Later,

Cat Whisperer · « **Reply #4 on:** November 11, 2005, 12:31:57 AM »

Change the topic to cannon/mortar making equipment major maintenance and it's ON TOPIC!

I watched my boss braze two teeth (filled in where there was no metal) in a rack and carefully filed them into form. When he was done you couldn't even feel a hesitation. That was back in the early '60's. Lathe had an 8' bed.

irishman · « **Reply #5 on:** November 11, 2005, 04:49:22 AM »

I'd sure like to see how you fix your broken teeth. That has been my recurring nightmare. Will you use a silver alloy to braze?

Michael

Powder keg · « **Reply #6 on:** November 11, 2005, 04:53:38 PM »

Hello, Its been a looong day. But here are some pictures. The first problem was getting the drive pully off. It took a while. Here is why. This shaft was made long ago. The shaft is OK, just the key was milled wrong.

I re-milled the key on the other side of the shaft, seen here.

I opened up the headstock.

And found these lying at the bottom :shock:

Here is where they used to be.

Nothing wrong here, I'll just reinstall as is :shock:

I'm going to use brass to build up my gears. To give them a stronger hold. I ground what was left of the old ones away and under cut the gear about 1/8" or so.

Here are the gears after Brazing. I just used some brass rod, with the flux on the outside, from the hardware store. I've done this before and those gears are still going strong. The red/brown looking stuff is the flux. Also notice the gear's on top. There were some chips on the corners. I'll just clean them up with a file.

I set the gears up in my little Southbend and machined the outside profile of the gear.

To be continued........

Cat Whisperer · « **Reply #7 on:** November 12, 2005, 01:24:17 AM »

Thanks for posting the pix. I'll bet there was a lot of work in getting the gears out of the box too.

I've got two identical 13x38 lathes - one that's been crashed so's the feed doesn't turn. That gearbox is underneath the headstock and opens to the front. It's a tough choice (one of motivation) to get out the tools to open it up to look inside.

Powder keg · « **Reply #8 on:** November 12, 2005, 05:18:56 AM »

It's easy to take things apart. You just take out all the bolts and shake it, it'll fall apart :-D The hard part will be reassembly. But I don't see any problems accept this little lock nut that I took of. You could see it, But there was no way to get my fat little hands in there to touch it let alone turn anything. I will probably have to make a special holder for my nut :-D

Later,

Powder keg · « **Reply #9 on:** November 15, 2005, 02:36:40 PM »

Made some progress. I set the gear up in my mill in a dividing head and ground a tool that matched the ones that were there. I then started flycutting new teeth :grin: Out of the four bearings that I ordered 3 showed up (insert smily pulling out hair here) Here is a picture

Powder keg · « **Reply #10 on:** November 21, 2005, 03:12:29 PM »

Got every thing back togather. It runs pretty good now. There is a mild clikety, click, when it runs in the two gears that were repaired. I think they will get quieter after it's ran a bit. Tonight I drilled a 1.750" hole in 303 stainless with no troubles. Sorry no pictures. Later, Wes

Powder keg · « **Reply #11 on:** January 31, 2006, 03:09:46 PM »

Everything worked great, until it didn't

I was drilling a 1 11/16" hole, for some 1/2 scale "pack Parrotts", and the bit hung up. One on my nice new teeth unattached itself from the gear

I have a machinist friend that is going to build me new gears.

I think the problem was the big twist drill I was using was getting wore out. The bit measures a bit smaller at the business end than up by the shank. It kind of wedged itself in the barrel and that was all she wrote. I ordered some spade bits and I'll build a holder to finish the rest of the barrles.

Later, Wes

kappullen · « **Reply #12 on:** February 03, 2006, 01:39:26 AM »

pK,

Check the Practical Machinist thread on similar repairs.
You can search the antique machinery section as well.

http://www.practicalmachinist.com/cgi-bin/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=11;t=001277

I did this repair but loctited the "teeth" in years ago.

Kap

Powder keg · « **Reply #13 on:** February 05, 2006, 09:11:42 AM »

Thanks for the link Kap! There is some usefull stuff over there. Thats a neat way to fix a problem.

My friend was woried about his flycutter wearing out before all the gears teeth were finished being cut out so we sent the gear off to have a custom gear cutter made. He wanted to make sure that the first gear cut was the same as the last.

I'll be sure to post picts of my new gears before we install them.

Thanks again Kap!