Welcome to My Clausing Page

  Aways under construction when I get to it

Back in July 2007 I purchased a 6903 Clausing lathe.  The machine appeard to be in very good condition other than the hydraulics which is a common problem with these. 
My key concerns were the bed, ways, headstock, leadscrew, and such.  I knew at purchase that there are some issues with the plastic bushings in the varidrive and the green coating.

Here is my honey on it's way home.  We had to butcher the drip pan back to get the straps on.  Seller pointed out putting tailstock inside straps would be a *good idea*.  We had them on
wrong side first.

It came with a 12" 4 jaw and and a real Aloris AXA post.  Wish it was a BXA though.


Lathe on trailer

The trip home was uneventful, not like bringing the bridgeport home in a winter storm but that is a story for another web page editing session.

The first order of the day when getting it home was to rewire it for 230V 3ph.  I couldn't find the change taps.  Eventually I found that some GM Saginaw electrician had burried them in flex.  That isn't to code.

motor leads

Anywho, you can see the slave cylinder looks like it has been leaking.  Motor worked fine on 230.

The machine must have been reworked for osha.  Ever see a lathe with an emergincy stop?

estop control panel


Soon to come is my attempts to fix the varidrive system.  Stay tuned.....  Well, there is an ebay auction I'm waiting to end so might as well put up more.

Well, after pulling it apart I see that the green coating is damaged.

Green Coating


I'd be tempted to just run with it but the other pulley wasn't as good.  I'll stuff in a picture soon.

I found a crack in the driven.  I may have put it there while taking things apart to replace dry sounding bearings.  I want to fix this thing once, use it the rest of my life have something to pass on.

chit a crack

Well my bud tried to fix it with OA and cast iron filler.  Sorry about the cell phone picture taken through a welding hood.

gas welding

So we tried brazing and turning it down.

turning down brazing


I didn't have a great feeling that the braze worked to enter the next idea.... Making a hub.  This may not be current drawing, I'm working my way along on this.


Boring out new hub

Here is the threaded hub that I show in the drawing.  It is made out of 1045 and threaded and screwed into what remains of the
sheave after I turned off the cracked portion.  It is loctited with permanent thread locker and I will drill the hub sheave periphery for a couple dutch
pins to lock it together.

I bored this hole so that I can stick a mandrill in to true up the od of hub so it runs true with the flange.  I don't want wobble in this thing.

Mandrill

driven sheave

driven sheave

I pressed the mandrill in, held one side in a collet and supported the other so I could machine the OD of the new hub.

Then I pressed out the mandrill.  Next operation will be to chuck the hub and drill it with a 1 3/4" followed by boring the 1.998" hole for the bushing.



bushing1

bushing2

bushing4

Once I have the sheave bored out, I'll press this in.  Then I need to deal with recoating the shaft of the hub that runs in this.
So far this has been fun. 

I took an end of a boring bar I cut off for a CNC application and made a boring holder to hold my HSS grooving tool.  I quickly leaned that these
things are hard, at least RC40+.  My HSS end mill started sparking rather quick :( .

A bit of time with an O/A torch had the bar stub glowing red and afterwards it was easy to machine.





After annealing the boring bar stub, I cut a groove and then welded in a piece of key stock.  Tapped for a set screw and slid in a piece of HSS.

I'll be using this again with a piece of HSS properly ground to machine the delrin af bushings.

A picture for reference shamelessly stolen from this link Practical Machinist (General)

Tool Bit

driven front hub

Driven Rear New Hub



I need to rework the fan that fits over the hub to clear my flange.  The shafting is 2.75" that I used so I need a relief to clear the shoulder resting against shive
pictured above.

reworked fan



Still need to put the dutch pins to fix this since loctite red is all that is holding. 
I also have to sharpen a broach since the one I have access to has rounded teeth.  Always another hurdle to jump.

dutch pin





For the next step in the project I'll be roughing up the sheaves with shafts that go into these bushings and recoating with Moglice
http://www.moglice.com/   I'm a bit concerned though since the green coating I'm replacing is only a few thousandths deep and moglice indicates I should
be applying  a 1/16" coating. 

Driven with green coating

Green coating removed

I took the coating off with a coarse feed followed by running a threading tool across to give some biting surface for the Moglice.

I have the other pulley mounted on a mandrill and just need to prep the surface.  Getting closer

About ready to coat with moglice

4/21/08

I made a coupling on a lathe to connect each sheve to each other.  That worked out fine.  Then I made a coupler on my mill.  Not so good.  Didn't have knee locked while boring one  side so the stack wobbles.  Actually, it was a comedy of errors.  Last year my longest smallest diameter boring bar along with the had fell on the floor and broke the carbide off.  So I didnt have a bar that would alow me to bore the 0.500 dia for motor side and the 1.123" for the sheave side  with out removing the work piece from the mill vise..  The other problem is that I made the coupling holding each sheave together out of 6061 and that closed up when I slit it.  The coupler at the motor is made out of 2xxx series aluminum.  It didn't close up when I slit it.  Of course, I allowed for closing up which made the holes too big.  There are a lot of slits in this to help close up over each shaft.

This will be a good enough setup to spin the part sheaves until the moglice sets up.

5/10/08
It couldn't have been the knee, the machine isn't that whooped.  So I made another coupler using a reamer for the .500 side.  Some how a .506 reamer my uncle told me was .500 made a .521 hole.  So much for that.

5/24/08

Nice day today, shirt sleeve weather.  Made a coupler that didn't wobble like a drunk sailor.  I was told that the moglice will take 4 hrs to cure and I didn't want a wobbly  spring of pieces working loose.

So I tried again.

I bored the big diameter then I found that my smallest telescope gage was .503  Now what.  I don't want to turn the part over to measure with calipers..  Hey, new endmill, bet is is very close to .500 so I used it to bore the 15/32 hole I had drilled.  Problem solved.

Then I needed to take off a bit of material on .500 side to make it easer to squeeze it. 

OutSideBoring


This string of stuff spins truer.  I'll support the end with a wood block with a vee cut in it.

Spins_truer


Someone asked for dimensions of the hose hanger since was missing on his lathe.

Hosemount1


Hosemount2


Dewitt seems to have the US market cornered on selling Moglice.

Cans_of_moglice

Well today was a nice day, no work or family obligations to deal with.  So I mixed up the Moglice.  Don't worry, I'm not married so I won't get
grief for ruining a dish.  The resin has a strong odor of ammonia when I opened it.

Before_mixing



So I rigged up the sheaves. Plugged the keyways with balsa wood.  I compressed the wood in a vise so it would spring back and grip the slots.
Waxed set screws are in the
I was pressing it in, uncle would turn on the drive to index the shaft so I could rub in more.  Stuff likes to slump.

Rubbing it in


I turned the speed up a bit and the coating started to level itself out.

Spinning_it


Video of sheaves spinning 3.2 MB

I'm going to let this stuff cure for a few days before turning it down to 1.750".

The Day I turn the sheaves. 7/4/2008

The first thing I notice is that my feed dials don't have lock screws.  A proper SHCS doesn't lock the shaft so I end up determing a brass plug is needed.

Lathe has a part chucked, better use the bridgeport.

Brass Plug


Well that works out okay.  Back to the work at hand.

Here is my Uncle dialing in the first sheave.  I would have got it but he has done this way more times than me.



He is holding a double ended chuck key.  My 3 jaw has a different sized square hole..

This  is what I made to drive the spindle since the varidrive system is being repaired.  Automotive soft plug, aluminum guide
outside bored on my bp.

Spindle Driver

My Handsom uncle

The Engine  behind the machine.

The view of what is driving it.

Imrovised spindle drive

Turning the Moglice coated shaft

Machining Moglice

Machining Moglice

Boring the delrin af bushings.

Noway

At the far end if you count a ding 0.0015, closer to a thou if you average it out.  Hard to believe. 


Finally, I'm putting it back together.



This is a key in the driven varidrive.  I was told that this is the old style and was replaced.






This is how that part goes together.




If you have one of these you see what the mods were.  Longer key, notch in spring retainer and clearance for retaining clip.




Wondered what this piece was.  After a year, you forget.



Hope this helps someone.



Here is another piece installed.



Just another picture.



I am getting so close....

Slave cylinder pictures.

















The saga continues....  If you like old iron, you better like restoring it.