Hello Everyone,
In this update, I grouped together 4 projects of mine that my Dad was around to help me with this past spring. He helped me get started with all of them, but he was only around long enough to finish up with one of them. The other three projects took more time than his visit allowed (before he and Mom left to return home to WI). Mostly, I had a lot of rebuilt parts to paint with multiple coats, and that ran the clock out on us. Here's the list of the projects we started and worked on together:
1. EAA Chapter's Helo Simulator Trailer;
2. Bridgeport 2J Mill Head Rebuild;
3. Shop Shade Frame;
4. LeBlonde Regal 13 Lathe Rebuild;
You know, I get asked a lot: "How do you know how to do all this stuff?" I have to say, in a large part, it is because of all the time I spent as a kid watching my dad! One of the most important things I learned from him was this: if something isn't the way you want it to be, or need it to be - then, change it! Make it be the way you need it to be, or want it to be. That may sound obvious, but if you are not exposed to this way of thinking, it may not be intuitive.
During the course of making things the way that you need them to be, you do a lot of: taking things apart; modifying things you take apart; fabricating things from scratch; putting things back together that you made or modified; and, in general, you just figure out a way to "fix stuff."
I think the experience of helping dad do all that kind of stuff combined with years of being his "Go'fer" (Go 'fer this & Go 'fer that) laid a solid foundation of practical knowledge with hand tools and the process of accomplishing projects. Later, I (sometimes voluntarily) added a bunch of "book smarts" with education that included engineering degrees and Navy Nuclear Power School (you learn a lot in that place!). Toss in a bunch of ground school classes that teach you tons of aircraft systems, and you wake up one day and think you can rebuild an experimental aircraft company!!!
The point of all this is that I owe a lot of what I have accomplished in my days to my father! He was the first to teach me how to use my hands, to fix stuff, to build stuff and figure out how to manage large projects and see them through to completion. Thanks, Pop!! I enjoyed our time in the shop together this past year!
1. EAA Chapter's Helo Simulator Trailer - You may recall that many years ago I spent a bunch of time putting together a mobile simulator for our local EAA chapter [
More Info Here - See Item #5 ] and [
More Info Here - See Item #7]. Recently, the EAA Chapter had someone donate an old Robinson R22 fuselage.
One of the chapter's members took the lead and started a project to build another mobile simulator with this helo fuselage. He managed to get a trailer donated and some steel decking donated - and I volunteered to put it all together. I forgot to break out the camera before we had already gotten a bunch of the work done - but here is dad on the left, and my neighbor on the right, sitting on the trailer that we had just finished welding a bunch of diamond decking to:
Prior to this, we had stripped the trailer down to the frame and then wire-wheeled and painted the frame. Then, we cut the sections of steel deck and welded them to the frame. We also cut the pieces and fabricated the wheel wells over the tires.
Here's the trailer after a adding a post for a TV monitor and a coat of primer. (The tool box is just sitting in position and was not permanently mounted until we got done with the final coat of black paint):
This was fabricating an aft bumper with the tail light holes we needed to be able use some new LED boat trailer lights that someone had donated:
From another angle:
Here it is with black paint:
Tail lights look good! All of the wiring is run under the decking inside EMT conduit:
It's ready to go - minus the helo tub:
This is the finished product. We positioned the helo fuselage and secured it to the trailer frame:
This was all the work that the project manager wanted from us. He has other volunteers that will be finishing and fitting out the fuselage. There are other volunteers that are going to set up the computers and controls that will be used for the simulator software. The post in front of the fuselage is to mount the TV monitor. We made a easy on, easy off mount for the TV and welded that to the top of the post.
One more look from the back side to see those awesome, built-in tail lights!
This was a great 2.5 day project for dad to be the foreman on and any project that involves welding is always perfect for a retired Ironworker!
2. Bridgeport 2J Mill Head Rebuild - For the days when the weather wasn't good for being outside, I had this project. I purchased an old Bridgeport manual mill many years ago. It's a awesome machine and I cannot be without one.
Over the years I have noticed my mill head making more and more gear noise - especially in low gear. I have been planning to rebuild the head but, if I tear it down then the mill will be out of commission until I get it all back together. I cannot always start a project and work on it until it is done and what if I need the mill during this time? Then, I remembered, a local machine shop gave me an old mill head that they had cannibalized parts off of. It was stored at the hangar.
Time for a trip to the hangar! The plan now was to rebuild this head while the Bridgeport mill is in operation. Then, when this head rebuild was done, I could swap the heads and still be ready to work if I needed the mill. After that, I plan to rebuild the original mill head and re-install it on the mill. That would ultimately leave my Bridgeport complete as I had gotten it, and I would end up with another good mill head that I can possibly sell or put onto another mill in the future.
Before dad got to town, I did some online research and found H&W Machine Repair. They have a whole series of videos on how to rebuild these Bridgeport mill heads and a bunch of parts and kits in inventory to fix them. I ordered this rebuild kit for us to use:
They offer a nice rebuild kit with quality parts. And, they are great folks! If you need to do any work to your machines, I highly recommend them. Check them out here:
H&W Machine Repair. They also have a library full of videos on YouTube that you can learn how to do pretty much any repair to many different machines. I watched all the ones related to rebuilding a 2J head and it made the project go much, much easier. I highly recommend them!
Here is one pic from the head tear down. I don't think this head had ever been torn down before - it was all original OEM stuff:
I cleaned up the old motor and gave it a once over:
Here are many of the parts set up outside for painting. I used the tractor and equipment paint from TSC (with a hardener) to paint my parts. I did my own mixing of black and light gray to get a color I liked. Then, I sprayed them using just a cheap HF spray gun:
It is a pretty tedious process to do this work. The cleaning, repairing and taping off takes the most time. It's even longer if you need to use any body filler and work that stuff down. Here is the main body after one of several coats:
While I was often waiting for paint to dry - I taught myself how to polish aluminum:
Once the main body of the mill head was finished, we mounted it in the stand that I fabricated and started the process of rebuilding the head:
Here, the spindle and a few more parts have been added:
Most of the parts are back on in this pic:
It was somewhere in here that Mom & Dad had to leave to head back home. So, I had to finish up a few things on my own after that. Once the rebuilt head was ready to go, I removed the motor from my old machine. Then, I pulled the head off of the turret. The easiest way to do this was to machine a plate with a 3/4" rod welded to it. I fixtured the plate to the mill table and then used a 3/4" R8 collet to grab onto the bracket that I had made. That effectively "attaches" the mill head to the table. Then, you can use the X & Y table movement, as well as the knee up/down motion, to remove the head:
This works great from removing or installing the mill heads on these machines! It is especially handy when you're installing a mill head and you have to line up the bolts and bolt holes. Here's my headless mill:
Here's the new head going back onto my mill:
The new head is now mounted to the machine. All it needs is a motor and some wiring:
Add the motor and then, poof, just like that (6 weeks later) my Bridgeport mill has a new milling head:
When I installed the rebuilt head to the mill I was still waiting for some of the quill clamp parts that I'd ordered to arrive. Once they did, I found out that the old quill lock handle body had a stripped hole and the handle would not stay tight. Here are some of the parts:
Both the threads on the little handle and the threads on the shaft body were stripped. I could not find a new one of these online at (what I thought was) a reasonable price. I decided to make my own handle with threads that were one size larger than original. I found a piece of stock to make a new handle with and put it in the lathe. Here I am using a radius endmill to form the ball on the end of the handle:
Then, I tapped out the old hole with a one size larger tap and I put same threads on the end of the new handle that I'd just made. Here are the old and the new:
And, this is everything installed on the mill:
It turned out great! I did have to work through a few issues with the rebuilt head. But, after some tweaks and adjustments the machine is now running really good. The only thing I did not do during this rebuild was to replace the motor shaft. There is a pulley sleeve in these machines that runs up/down on the end of the motor shaft. If there is significant wear in the motor shaft, the pulley sleeve will "slap" and make noise in operation.
This motor shaft had some wear, but I made the call to continue to use it as is - for now. That's because what I want to do next is rebuild the head that was on my machine originally and then re-install it on my machine. When I remove the 1st rebuilt head, I can work on that motor shaft issue - the motor is pretty easy to remove. For now, the machine is working much, much better than it was with the old head. And, that's good with me, for now.
3. Shop Shade Frame - I do a lot of work out front of my shop - especially in the summer time. Here is an example from many years ago:
My welder is just inside the garage door (right side of the orange press) and I try to do all my welding and grinding out there on that steel work table so that I can keep the smoke and grinding dust outside (away from my machines inside). Problem with that is.....the sun! I get full, direct sunlight all morning and early afternoon. After about 2pm, there is some shade in spots from the trees, or the shop roof eventually. But, I needed to improve the shade situation.
You can't see it in the pics above, but for years now I have had sun shades strung up from the fascia board on the eaves up to nearby trees, etc. These are the 3 or 4 sided things you can by from Costco or Amazon that are woven and make good shade. While this worked OK, the shade sails would whip around in the wind a lot and it was kinda "janky" looking. I decided that I finally wanted to have a nice, one piece shade sail on a good looking frame.
The first step was finding a way to get one edge close to the building (gutter). I also wanted it tall enough that anything that would go into the garage door would also do under the frame. I didn't want to have too many feet or legs to get in the way of everything. I designed something that would attach to the side of the shop on one side and have just one leg on each end of the shade frame. Here is what Dad and I welded up and installed:
Dad helped me get the legs fabricated and installed before he had to leave. Later, with some help from a young fella that I hire to work with me, we fabricated a 10' x 20' flat steel frame that would sit on top of legs that dad and I put up above. Here is the big frame:
Here's a pic of both the frame and the legs:
Then, we got the frame up and mounted into position:
Painting was next:
I found that the span was pretty long and it caused the frame to "bounce" a lot. So, on the inside leg I made a bracket and mounted it right to the under side of the eave. On the driveway side, I welded up a "strongback" or "stiff back". That made the whole assembly much more rigid:
I ordered a shade sail and few weeks later I put it up:
I really like this. It looks good, and it makes great shade, right where I need it. Happy to have that set up and I have enjoyed working in the shade many times, already!
4. LeBlonde Regal 13 Lathe Rebuild - I saved the biggest for last! This is a whopper project! For years now, I have been using this old Craftsman 12"x 36" lathe for all my work:
It has served me well. I have made a lot of chips and and a lot of parts with this machine! However, I have known for a while that is a little small and it's not a super rigid machine. I was discussing this over breakfast with Jack (and old-timer and fellow EAA chapter member). He asked if I ever saw the lathe out in his barn. I have been out to his ranch and been through his barns, but I didn't recall seeing a lathe. Before I knew it, he said - "Well, you come look at it. If you want it, you can have it!" Nice! A few days later I drove out to Jack's ranch. This is what I found:
Oh, boy! I really did not want or need a new project. I'm already up to my armpits in projects. Certainly, the outward appearance was not flattering! However, this was intriguing! This is what intrigued me the most:
See that anchor!?!? That indicates US Navy! Huh! I did a little internet research and soon found out that this lathe was a LeBlonde Regal 13 metal lathe. It was built for US Navy in 1941! This lathe is 83 years old!! They don't make machines like this anymore! I went back to look at it again to see if I could determine how much wear was on this machine.
There is really no way to easily determine bed wear on a machine that is not leveled and not under power. This machine was sitting on a pallet and not powered. So, I just gave it a good looking over, and reasoned that while it did have bumps and bruises, it was in really good condition for an 83 year old tool (really have to ignore the dirt, grime and paint). I suspect that the Navy probably only used this lathe (intermittently, not in production) for 20-25 years. After that, it was probably sold at auction and bounced around several personal shops for the remaining 30-40 years. If it has significant bed wear, I'll deal with it once I get it cleaned up and set up in my shop. I wanted it!
Here is the first load of stuff that I was able to quickly and easily take off of the machine and put in the back of the truck:
Since I was going to break this machine completely down to rebuild it anyway, I might as well just take the machine apart into "bite sized" pieces and take them out in the bed of my pickup - instead of trying to get a trailer and a forklift out to his ranch just to take it out all at once.
On the first load, I took out the 3 jaw chuck, 4 jaw chuck, misc. tooling, the tail stock, motor and the electrical cabinet. Later, Dad was able to help me with the 2nd and 3rd truck loads of parts and get all of the machine back to the shop. I started off by cleaning up the 3 jaw scroll chuck. You can see the original condition on one of the pics above. Here are the parts during clean-up:
And, it's back together:
This is the 4 jaw chuck, before:
During:
And, after:
Tail stock, before:
After priming:
After Paint:
Installed back on the ways:
This is a great example of something that I have experience with. In the Navy, if there isn't anything else to do, you hand the sailors a paint brush and let them paint. You can see it clearly on this electrical cabinet:
In all, I found not less than 5 coats of paint on most of the parts of this lathe. Here's the electrical cabinet after some body work, welding and primer:
Finished product:
On the second load of parts, we removed: the apron, the cross slide; compound; the quick change gear box; the lead screw and feed rod; and various guards. Here is the apron as I started to restore it:
After taping off and primer:
As I started to take off all the levers and handles, I notice something funny about the 1/2 nut lever. It didn't seem to be right. This is why:
The shaft was broke - half in two. What you see here is that this had already been repaired once:
Not sure what caused the repair to fail, probably an impact of some kind. But, I was going to need to fix this. My 1st thought was to just remake the entire part. However, duplicating this cam plate was going to be a little involved:
I opted to clean up the old repair on the side that had the cam plate:
Then, I found a piece of steel stock and turned down a new outer shaft with a step down that would engage the hole that was in the shaft from the previous repair. Then, I slipped them together:
After that, it went out to the welding table for some brazing:
Back into the lathe to turn down the braze repair:
After cutting the shaft to the right length, this was the new repair job:
Here is the apron all cleaned up, painted, put back together and installed back on the machine:
That worked out great! I tackled the quick change gear box next:
It all came apart:
Every lever, gear and shaft:
After a lot of cleaning, prepping, painting and re-assembly:
Turned out great:
The big problem with this part was the shift info placard. It was no longer legible:
How do you replace one of these? About this same time, just out of sheer coincidence, I was watching one of Keith Rucker's videos (
www.vintagemachinery.org) and he happened to be working on a machine that needed new information plates and that he had gotten them from Thomas Utley at Von Industrial (
www.vonindustrial.com). I emailed Thomas and sent him a photo of a legible plate that I'd found online. To my complete amazement he had previously made this plate for someone else and had the graphics on hand! I ordered one and about two weeks later I got this:
Thomas did a fantastic job. It looked awesome! I highly recommend him if you ever find yourself in need of machinery plates! He provides the plates flat. If you need to, you can shape them. I had to form mine over a piece of 2" pipe to get it to work on my gearbox the same way that the original was installed. It turned out excellent:
Installed back on the machine:
I worked on the carriage next:
The compound base:
After it has been restored and re-installed:
This guard, or cover, was broken into several pieces that I literally dug out of the dirt. I could not find all of the pieces, but we had the biggest ones. Dad took charge here and welded it with some special nickle rod:
For the pieces we couldn't find, we just had to fabricate some steel pieces to fit and weld them in. Here is Dad doing some of the welding:
Here is a test fit with the big belt guard and the gearbox input covers mocked up on the head stock:
After a lot of body filler, sanding, clean up and priming:
At some point, I had a lot of left over black paint, so I used it up on this guard.
This will eventually get painted with the same gray color as the belt guards below. Here are the two halves of the main belt guard all cleaned up:
On the 3rd and final truck load we removed the headstock, took the bed off, took off the legs and pack it all into my truck. Here are the legs before restoration:
Primed:
Painted:
Stripping the bed:
Cleaning up the carriage ways:
Ways are taped off and the bed is primed:
Final painting:
The chip pan after a lot of cleaning, welding, prepping and final paint:
Putting it all back together:
End view:
The machine with the cross slide, compound and tail stock installed:
New motor mount brackets:
Motor in place:
Here the quick change gear box, leadscrew, feed rod and the input gears are re-installed:
This video pretty much the current status of this lathe restoration project. It also shows some of the operation of the lathe:
The last major component that remains to be restored is the headstock. Just in the past week I have welded posts to an old steel cart I have. Then, I welded pieces of angle iron onto the tops of the posts to make small cradles. This allowed me to put a pipe through the headstock and set it up between the posts:
This will make it easier to move and rotate in order to get the old paint stripped off and then tape off and prep the headstock for painting. I have already started stripping the old paint here:
As soon as the weather warms up, I will be focusing on getting this headstock painted and ready to re-install on the machine. I'll have more in a future update.
Whew! That was a lot! Thanks for checking out these projects with me. I hope to have one or two more updates out before the end of the year. Stay tuned!
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