Lucas Horizontal Boring Mill Restoration: Scraping the Table Flat
Вставка
- Опубліковано 9 лют 2025
- Lucas Horizontal Boring Mill Restoration: Scraping the Table Flat
Support VintageMachinery.org on Patreon:
/ vintagemachinery
Make a one time donation to VintageMachinery via PayPal:
www.paypal.me/...
Please Visit: www.vintagemach...
Sponsored by:
American Rotary Phase Converters
www.americanro...
Use checkout code "Vintage10" for a 10% discount on all AD, ADX and AI converters!
Hot Shot Heat Treat Ovens
www.hotshotove...?sca_ref=4747637.UGmffQwafG
Use checkout code "VINTAGE10" for a 10% discount!
I worked at Lucas Machine from 1977 to 1990 as a Machine Tool Builder.
Got a Christmas card from VintageMachinery. That is the ONLY Christmas card I got. Merry Christmas.
I'm a retired machinist of 46+ years knowing these procedures existed but until now had never seen done. Thank you for documenting.
Lol and glad only once was enough.
Exciting to hear a mention of the stoker engine!
We've lost so many old timers over each generation , and taking many hard won skills with them . Enjoy your videos showing how it was done starting long ago and for a very long time . Very valuable .
Knowledge is KING .
@@wesleymonske8103 Love is the THING.
I learned the black art from old Germans and Dutchmen. They would never be caught with a Bix or a carbide tipped scraper in their hands. Myself, I preferred carbide, but always finished out with a carbon steel scraper (usually the last four or five passes when we are splitting the dots). Most guys hated the job, but I loved to scrape and cut surface plates. It took me several years to just learn to read the dots (if done right will really save a lot of time). Those old men would have had a stroke watching me with an electric scraper. My chips were often smoking
Have a Joyous New Year!
The surface turned out extremely well. I have to admit, the scraped pattern has a great look to it. Thanks very much for sharing.
there is a gauge used to judge the quality of a scrape job (assuming that everything is flat and all angles are brought together well). It's really nothing but a piece of .03" or .06" gauge stock that is roughly 2 inch square. The center will have a one square cut out.. You lay it on the surface about count the dots. A machine way should be between 15 to 18 dots, but not all dots count. Your looking for foot ball shaped dots that are about 3/16" x .10". Round ones under .125" don't count, and anything bigger than .25" means you're not done. Holes in the pattern also say you are not done. When you start seeing a majority of small foot ball shaped dots, then it's time to start picking. This is also the time your reading skills jump out at you. You don't cut anything out, but you learn to split the dots and even then not every dot gets cut. That's also when that forged carbon scrapers jumps to the top of the list. Lastly; it's an unwritten rule that you never ever touch a scraped surface with your bare fingers. If someone does this, you'll see it on your next cut.
Keith: Your certainly a one-man show, be safe and good luck.
Wow ! I am impressed with the quality of the grinding on the table.
Thanks Keith hope you had a Happy Christmas
As a retired U.K. Toolmaker I found alcohol to be the best Granite surface plate cleaner. It enables height gauges etc to glide across the surface friction free.
I think I was born too late. Love this.
Good to see you. Hoping your health issues have been resolved and that you had a good Christmas
The little gems that come out in casual talk, Windex by the barrel...
Another informative video, thank you Keith
Happy Holidays , best wishes and more blessings .
Even with a power assisted scraping machine, that took some patience and concentration to achieve - as well as a bit of back-ache shouting it's way into the mix! Just imagine if it had to be hand scraped using the manual tools - back in the day! Nicely done, Keith, hope you and all are having a good Christmas so far!
It makes one wonder if the initial process could be automated in some fashion.
@@tsmartin Exactly my thoughts, with laser scanning to identify the high spots and report back a map of the surface irregularities? 🤔 I guess such a system MUST exist nowadays?
there some tricks to scraping with a power scraper. First of all keep adjusting the hight till you get comfortable. Then measure that hight and write it down. Another guy will be different. The bad ones are the ones you have reach way out there, or scrape from an odd angle. Usually vertical. Dove tails can be a pain, and you always get busted knuckles. Forget the power scraper as it's too hard to control at angles. Gibs are easy once you figure out how to hold it in place.
Most good men don't use a power scraper, and will not work with somebody using one. I can do either, but always finish with a hand scraper. The thing about a power scraper is you must learn to control the way you scrape first. You cut in a small circular pattern keeping the blade moving in one direction. I go right to left while reaching further out all the time. I practiced on an old 12" x 18" cast iron plate till I got the knack. Once you got it the rest is easy
Merry Christmas.
Thanks for the videos, Keith. They are calm and relaxing and they remind of years ago watching Bob Vila with my dad. You and others inspired me to get my own machines. Not much, but a Clausing 8520 and a 14x42 Logan. I wouldn’t have been able to work with them hadn’t not been for your videos.
Outstanding! I would look like a smurf for sure with all that ink around.
Merry Christmas,
Wow, the grinder did an amazing job on the table. That sucker is flat! I hope I don't offend, but I'd like to offer a bit of rigging safety advice. I really wish that you would stop the practice of passing the webbing of your endless slings through the shackle/hook on your chain fall. I know it's quick and convenient, but there is nothing there to prevent a shift in the COG of the load from causing the webbing to simply slide through the shackle/hook and upend the load in an instant. Best practice is have an eye at both ends of the lifting sling, so they are permanently trapped in the shackle so your load can't flip, no matter what. I know it's picking nits, and I know you've gotten away with it for years, but it's a really bad practice, and especially so if you are alone in the shop. I've been working with overhead loads all my life, and it just makes me cringe every time I see such things on youtube. That said, I really enjoy your channel, and hope this is received in the spirit it was given.
Nice smart comment . Well done .
That sir is sound advice and not nit picking in the least. If that table goes south, east or west it's gonna hurt big time!
I value this comment too. I have rigged part time for 40 years and seldom considered your concern. I intend to heed your advice. I have a 3T gantry with chain fall set up very similar to Keith's in my hobby shop. I work mostly alone. The chain fall operator chain is prone to catch on the loads unlike a hoist that stores its surplus chain in a bag. I didn't expect that issue when I set up my hobby shop. That chain grab can happen suddenly. Doing his demonstrated operation could easily prompt the load shift that you warn about. Retired tradesman are still inexperienced enough to need additional training.
I had a seemingly endless supply of one time use straps. A vendor shipped precut stock with a new strap on every piece delivery. The lathe operator collected them. I cleared out his matched inventory giving dozens of them to my boys. I assumed that I would stock up for myself, but suddenly decided to retire. I have a large inventory of mismatched straps and slings. I regret giving away those straps to the boys. Now I will have to buy my own!
Hi Keith Hope you all had a Happy Christmas and you escaped the storm. Can I mention a tip for cleaning surfaces. I have used towelling, cotton rag, paper towels etc and they all leave residue however slight. I use freshly home laundered MicroFibre cloths (a clean one for each job - wash and come again). The surface wiped is microscopically clear of debris or residue. The slight charge induced by wiping and rubbing attracts atmospheric dust to the microfibre and leaves surfaces pristine. Happy New Year - Bill B - from a dust free UK!!
Bill, where do you buy your microfibre from in the U.K?
@@iantaylor5579 Hi Ian. Amazon have a good selection here. Bill B
I’d hate to have that monster fall on me. Stay safe, and I hope you had a great Christmas!
Watching you stone the table, all I could think of was "Wax on, Wax off." Merry Christmas 🎅
Yaaaay Jimmy back in the house!! Well soon; not sure why I'm so attached to that bandsaw!! lol best of health to ya!!
I wondered what happened with the Jimmy Diresta band saw. Now I know that it is waiting it's turn to get finished. Thanks for sharing.
choosing flat is a rabbit hole
I know it had to be done, but my heart sank when you made the first pass.
Hiya Keith
What a massive job!!
Thanks for sharing. Beautiful work! Trust but verify.
Wow, that turned out nicely. One of your Christmas presents to yourself.... 🙂
Just a little suggestion. You could have turned your aframe 90° to the way you used it and only relied on your beam trolly to move plate to table. Less moving parts and easier to control. The eyebolts you used we are not allowed to use at that angle I would suggest swivel eyeballs. Safer and takes much steeper lifting angles without the possibility of shearing the shank at that angle. Love your videos.
Hi Keith, I'm one of your followers and fans,
You are alone at your shop! I can be your help, if you want ;)
Thanks for you great videos
And merry Christmas
Excellent video Keith, keep'um coming..
A great result! My only suggestion is: Hire a gorilla to move the table over the surface plate. Save your back.
Good job Keith! Hope your holidays are great!
Another video teaching me about something I didn't know a thing about. Thanks, Keith!
And thanks for talking about using you hands for both cleaning and sensing how clean things are. Our bare hands are fantastic tools for both, and they clean up pretty easily, too! We can feel differences as small as 10 BILLIONTHS of a meter with our fingers! We don't usually need that kind of sensitivity, but what better place than with something like this?
Merry Christmas and a happy new year to you and your family Keith. Thank you for a great entertaining and informative 2022. All the best for 2023 from New Zealand
Always get the impression that scraping is done just because people like to do it and not because it's necessary in many cases.
I have been watching yours and others videos related to machining and repairing machining equipment for some time now. I have a need for a lathe and mill but my budget says I’m gonna be buying machines that need a lot of work. Granted I don’t need such a large mill but still this looks very intimidating trying to overhaul old precision machines. This coming from a guy that takes abandoned atv’s sometimes from swamps and puts them back into service. It still scares the hell out of me spending a couple thousand on a machine knowing I might ruin it with my inexperience.
Wishing you and yours a Happy New Year and speedy recovery,thanks for your efforts🤗😎🤗😎
Great job!
Merry Christmas!👍✌️
Love that windex story. I know of a few companies that do similar. Chicago Pneumatic used to take Marvel Mystery oil and repack it as air tool oil for themselves as well as the companies they made tools for, like Sears and Snap-On. When the plant in Utica was shutting down they were tossing out inventory like crazy. I got a full set of air tools and a few cases of oil in Sears tins.
GET WELL SOON, GREAT JOB, GREAT VIDEO...
Happy holidays from New Zealand 👍👍👍👍👍👍
Scraping produces such pretty surfaces.
Merry Christmas Keith, Nice job .
Thank you! Merry Christmas to you and yours!!!
Merry Christmas
Happy new year Keith love the videos
Looks great and I would buy it.well done.
Joyeuses fêtes de fin d'année à toi!!!!
You need a powered hoist for your gantry to get that chain out of the way.
Great video
well done keith great job that plate was sure heavy!
Super!
Keep I hope you had a Merry Christmas and I know you were saying you going to have surgery so I hope you get well soon and have some great videos this was a good one as always all right this is Bob from Vero Beach Florida God bless and have a great day
As a widow cleaner windex is my last choice
But for you , move your towel only one way
Doing a circle motion picks up debris but the dumps it out on the back stroke. Glass plus is a better choice for windows
Hope you had Marry Christmas also that your New Year be better
did you check the tabletop to be parallel with the bottom ways after scraping? I know it was ground, but was the table checked to the bottom way after grinding?? It is critical that the top of the saddle is parallel to the bottom saddle ways and the same with the table, ways and table top must be parallel, if that was accomplished in grinding, no worries, great video, lots and lots of work!!!
One can imagine that with such a large surface and being flat it was floating on top of the ink. What showed up was inconsistencies in the thickness of the ink layer.
Good to see you up and about, cant wait for the next project. will you leave the lead on and try to get some orders? that isnt the only orphan out there needing gears
You seem to get a similar binding effect between the two surfaces as you do with precision gage blocks.
Enjoyable as ever.
Had you thought to check with blue before all that scraping?
I think the blue would make the table stick to the surface plate pretty good. I've done that with a little ground fitter's rule that was 18x4 and it stuck to the plate badly enough that it had to be slid sideways off the plate. When things are flat you can feel the air between surfaces until it squeezes out.
I think he trusted that the grinding service did their job. Likely they have validation equipment of much higher precision than what Keith has, and likely they certified their work. And as mentioned, it would be very difficult to move or get the pieces apart due to stiction or 'wringing'.
@@kindabluejazz I agree.There was no need at al, to scrape that table.
@@JaapGrootveld His reasons for scraping had nothing to do with making it flat - he explains why he did it in the video. You of course are free to do whatever you prefer for your own equipment.
Very cool
Keith definitely likes scraping flats. I heard him say he needs the boring mill for the Diresta Band Saw restoration. I was thinking he might use it to spin the wheels for truing them up but now, with all this scraping, I'm not sure anymore. Oh well. I'll just exercise my patience. It could use a workout anyway.
That spray mechanism is suffering..😂 Happy holidays!
I think this is the first confirmation that the Diresta saw is still a work in progress. I was concerned that it was deemed unfixable or Jimmy took in back.
Most excellent.
also a Merry Christmas to you. It does seem counterintuitive to scrape a ground surface. How do you know the scraped surface remains parallel to the other side?
Not Keith but 2 things help to keep the parallelism. First, you're scraping equally across the table, so the high points should remain to describe a plane parallel to the opposite surface. Secondly, scraping might remove .0001 in a pass so a single pass isn't going to change things a lot. You'd have to take a bunch of passes to change things across a table that size.
@@russkepler Thank you, so the changes are negligible.
I have learned a lot about scraping from you. Is there a "working" time for the blueing compound, and how do clean off the blueing?
Go up to his name above the 224K number and click on this to go to his channel index. There look for the videos about scraping or any other subject of interest. This is the best way I can tell you how to find them.
My boss using hand sanitizer for surface plate cleaner boy I was surprised how good it works
Wow! Excellent video Keith. Did I miss how much it weighed? Curious to know. Thanks for sharing your extensive knowledge❤
0.255 lbs per cubic inch, I am going to guess 800 to 1000 pounds.
Very cool!
Hello Keith, I love all your scraping Content . Where can I find a small hand scraper?
Fantastic!
When are you going to start your new shop that place is looking kind of crowded 😂
SEASON’S GREETINGS TO ALL! crj.
I was gonna ask what happened to the bandsaw restoration :D
yes that is a good illustration of the benefits of a scraped surface for purpose of a flat (bearing) surface
Please mount your MIC higher at the top of your apron to minimize brushing against it. Ron W4BIN
yes not good for headphone user
he lowered the volume on purpose, because the scraper is loud
Precision is as precision does... 🙂
Nice!!!
Man that was a lot on the one eye bolt when you were flipping it over. There are clinch marks on my couch cushion.
I scraped for over thirty years, and that table top is something I've done many times. There are tricks that will takes hours and hours out of the job. The Bix is a good scraper (I've burnt up two), and must be learned (King's ideas are dead wrong). The best I ever saw with one was a guy from Monarch. The down fall of the Bix is that it really doesn't "pick" well. There are a couple others that will do that better with a speed reducer added to them.
I see your using eye bolts to pick the table up. This creates as many issues as it is an aid. Try cold rolled steel bars inside the T slots. This spreads the stress. I learned this trick from the Devlieg Machine folks, and it does make a difference.
I cut most all the surface plates and parallels in our shop to Federal lab grade specs. Granite plates were lapped with diamond dust, and shot with an auto collumator. Best cleaners I found were from Rhan (paste) and GoJo hand soap. They sell (commercially) wipes that are lint free, and are by far the best I ever found. Even after cleaning the plate nothing cleans the dust off it better than your bare hands. I might toss in here that a surface plate used for a master must lapped (or scrapped) differently than the standard surface plate, and must be better that the surface being scraped. The end product may not meet the lab grade spec, as it's the contour your after.
have fun
Would be interesting to hear about your ideas on scraping and such like you mentioned in your first paragraph. Really hard to find this dying knowledge (i.e. tricks and techniques you or people at a place like Monarch used).
@@JFirn86Q Like I said I learned from old German and Dutchmen, and they got me going. They were extremely picky about the pattern quality, and often picked my work apart. They rarely used red or orange lead, and used nothing but High Spot Blue (the kind that wouldn't wash off). The one thing I really didn't learn much from them was scraping bearings. They were good at it, and I wasn't! I had to learn that one on my own, and still wouldn't call it great. Yet good enough to get by with.
The trick with scraping is to learn to read the dots (or pattern) when a good pattern starts to show up. Not all dots are the same, and you can spend a lot of time cutting them out. Later in life i learned to read the dots much better, and only cut about 30% of the dots. A few years later I was introduced to water based stuff, and learned to work with it. A year or two later I learned to leave the water out, and use a very light weight spindle oil with pure mineral spirits. That's when i knew my time had come, and really got serious. Then I was tasked with undoing a couple bad scrape jobs on rotary table tops. (you actually can get by with murder on a table top once you learn) A guy I was learning to read by looking over his shoulder showed me tricks with stones, and pure spirits and a little light oil. The stones were made of used thread grinder wheels (white, orange, and red mostly). You make the stone do the work and break up the pattern with the scraper. (sounded backwards to me, but it works) That was from a guy named Steve, and trust me he was very good! I get caught standing around and inherit all the surface plates in the building (both granite and cast iron). I find I also get two near new Bix scrapers and a small light duty one. Can't make them do anything right, and a friend that scraped for Monarch Lathe Company showed me what I was doing wrong (actually showed Steve and another guy named Norman. Now I'm really going at it with the Bix, and my boss is a nervous wreck! This guy was good. A little practice on a junk plate was all I needed to learn the circular pattern. Then he showed me how to pick. Now I in a different world and then he told me the Bix was OK for picking the pattern, but also too heavy handed. I drag out the little one, and we put a reostat in front of it to adjust the speed. I could now pick with an electric scraper well. The trick was in reading the dots and finding the real hard spots, and then cutting them apart in certain spots.
With that knowledge Norm gets a rebuild job of a Heald Gauge Grinder. Somebody had been in there before Norm, and it wasn't good. I offer Norm a hand at rubbing the Vee & Flats and now I'm scraping with him (our first job together). On down the road it starts to look real good. I checked the pattern with my gauge, and my head is two feet in diameter. But how to you know if the flat is the right hight? I just don't know for sure. I go and ask Steve, and he comes over. Looks at it (we did check it with the Kingway levels), and comes back with a wood box and a set of Jo Blocks. His tool was similar in concept to the Kingway, but used Jo Blocks and a dial indicator. We had been using my Inter-rapid .0001" indicator. Steve checks the ratio of the flat to the center line of the Vee, and sees .00025" error in four feet+, and then goes back and gets a .000050" indicator. All I know is that my readings and Steve's are indentical. Steve looks up at us and says it'll get by! Norm wants to scrape some more while Steve is on the other side of the shop laughing at us!! (Steve later told me got the .000050" indicator just to jack us around) I turn the slide upside down and break the glaze with the Bix. Then a couple days later we have the slide done on the bottom. Now comes the top side and the dove tails. When done we end up with a grinder better than all they have except for a Moore Jig Grinder and that difference was very little.
All of the above was a mistake! Boss figures out that Norm and I can undo most anything (nope!). I'm back on the surface plates, and here he comes to take a ride with him (this was always a bad sign). We go out to a 4360 Devlieg Jig Mill that is torn down to the X axis. Norm's at lunch, and the guy running the machine next to this comes over and says I missed all the excitement. Norm is madder that hell, and has ran everybody off! I get along with Norm very well, so I just laughed. I see right away that the W axis has been Mogliced, and here comes Norm. He says "am I glad to see you!" What's wrong? The W axis is out .009" and he doesn't know where to start. W axis must run parallel to the Z axis (+/- .000050"). I get a felt tipped pen and we plot it, and find it's really almost .010". I tell him we have to do this in layers and then scrape it flat. I drag out the Bix and start cutting it real hard (chips are smoking). Four hours later we are within a thousandth. We need strait edges and seem to be constantly sharpening scraper blades. Moglice just eats up scraper blades. At the end of the next day were almost done. Boss comes by two or three times a day to see if we need anything, and buy coffee. We set the W axis table back on and button it up for a check to see what the table top looks like (it has to be within a tenth), and it's out a couple tenths. I fix that in about three hours with the Bix and a pink stone. I'm done and Norm is happy. Tell Norm he can save my butt on the next job!
I come into the shop one day, and across the way from me is this huge Blanchard grinder. They are working their butts of trying to tram it in and get a good pattern. I stay away from this thing. After two weeks they give up (machine was rebuilt by some rebuilding company outside). One morning my boss says to see what's really wrong with it. I hate grinders! I pull the table to see what's really going on. Clean it out only to find they scraped it .0075" out of parallel (as best I could measure). Got nothing big enough to rub it, and by now is pretty nasty. Boss gets a kid to help me, and I give him hell. Where's Norm? Kid is lazy, and doesn't like to get his hands dirty. Boss fires him (he's one of the guys Norm ran off). Brings down two black guys and they work like they are killing snakes!! After about six weeks and two new lube systems plus a real nasty scrape job. I'm done. Machine runs great, and I never want to see it again! Told the boss that somewhere along the way we have to scrape the vertical ways and wheel head, but told him to wait till I retire. Just one machine right after another
@@garytotty3971 Fascinating. I appreciate you writing down what you've learned. Thanks for sharing the stories too. It's becoming a lost art I'm afraid. Not many teaching a new generation these techniques. Machines are all becoming throw-away sheet metal boxes using computers to compensate for error.
I've acquired some old machines (monarch 10ee, jones & shipman 1051 cylindrical grinder, kearney & trecker 2CK mill, moore universal measuring machine, taylor hobson talyrond #2, B&S 1236 micromaster, archdale 38s radial drill, and others) that I want to fully restore to be better than new if able - which is hubris, but gonna try.
@@JFirn86Q I started life as a machine repairman, but when I changed jobs the scope of work really narrowed. Later I went into machine building, and this was where I needed to be from the start. Used to keep note books on the machines I worked on, and also ones that I built. Gave them all away to guys I had for an apprenticeship. Building machines was fun, and for me anyway I looked forward to going into work everyday. I built machine centers for about five years, and I really liked doing that stuff. Learned to work close scraping surface plates and machines, and once you learn to work close it easy. The last ten years of working, I ran this little bench reverse engineering machine parts, and rebuilding them. This was really fun, and no two jobs were the same. There are things I can get by on but wouldn't say I'm great at. Cutting gears was one of my weak points. I can get by, but wasn't great. I hated grinders, but most I could get by on without too much of a problem.
I was pretty good with hydraulics, but have seen better. Lube and air systems was what I was probably the best at. Machine tool alignments was something I was better that 90% at, but you had to be that way. Having had to work on this stuff when it broke down; I learned to make my systems user friendly instead of taking the cheaper and faster route. My lube system would tell you where to start looking before you got a wrench out of your tool box. Some didn't like that, but at $300K and hour they payed for themselves with the first break down. Most machines are not set right from the start, and with this you are constantly fighting with them. Of course some will never be that exact.
I've had scrape jobs that were almost impossible to get to that magic number, and some just fall together. I once had a Browne & Sharpe universal gauge grinder that liked to drove me and Norm insane. Ways were too narrow for a long strait edge, and later we find out that the machine was never plain'd right from the start. I could have stripped it and sent it up to Viking for a good grind job, but I'd still have to scrape it. You never want to have to scrape a ground surface if there is a way not to! Then after we finally got the ways as close as we could; we find other problems that had to be dealt with. Then I find a lube system that was non functional. Like we were on a merry go round. Never been very impressed with anything from Browne & Sharpe. What I felt was going to be two to three weeks ended up being three months!
Someday I'll tell you about my adventures in robotics.
Is that the heaviest blued piece so far?
Keith, The audio quality in this video was lower that the usual quality that you produce. It seems that your microphone was just not picking up much audio volume.
There is a difference between wanting to scrape your table and having to scrape your table.
That has to be task that you want to put off a long as possible.
Hard work!!
your over laying where you just went to many times peak out your scrapping a bit more the two slots in the table cut two hard wod boards to fit tight and flush with the top so your scrPer glides over smoothly. 🧐
Where is Gorbel with a jib crane for this guy?? Really dropping the ball, gorbel.
it would be interesting to look thru microscope for scraping metal in blueing. Looks like a time consuming job, but now you know for sure- its flat. Gonna put a electric wench on gantry??
Use those cast iron shavings with some vinegar to make wood stain.
I was about to call b.s. on the necessity of scraping it until you said it is a matter of personal preference near the end. Looks nice, serves no practical function even as a reference surface, the granite plate isn't scraped before use for bluing.
I'm sure it'd be a specialized piece of equipment, but for spreading that much ink across such a large surface, would a small "paint sprayer" be better than the paint roller? One of those hobby sized air brushes just to spread it thin and faster than a roller.
I couldn't really understand the explanation over the sound of the scraper, what is the purpose of this?