The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area The Tool Chest Seeking Material needed to build My Tools

A few years back there was a T&V show that a few of you may remember called “Connections” Well this is about connections. In case you don’t know it, I’m here digging for the truth, because I’m attempting to restore a 1950, 3604. My way is not all ways the best way, or the only way or the way you might approach the task, but it is, after all, my way!
I have complained more than my share of the time as to the quality of parts that I’ve gotten from vendors. I’ve heard it said, “If you don’t like the way I did it, then why don’t you do it your self”! So being the bull headed Irishman I am, I do! I do as much as I can myself, and this often requires more than the average hand tools. Over the years I have managed to scrounge a pretty good assortment of machine tools for fabricating what I needed.
One of my recent projects called for bending a flat weather strip for the door. If you have ever tried to bend a flat strip the wide way your aware that it will kink up pretty badly. The solution is to restrain it on the flat side while using a bending die to form it. So I had to make a bending fixture to form the part. 75% of it could be done in the mill and 6” lathe but I needed a larger radius than the lathe could swing. So out to the 16” lathe that has been sitting in the corner waiting for a reason to get it running. It’s needed the headstock to be taken on and off to fit it up and I needed to design a drive train. It was driven by a spur gear off of a counter shaft and the counter shaft driven by a belt. Since the lathe is a 1913 model engine lathe there is now documentation on what the drive train looked like. It could have been driven by an overhead pulley system or maybe stood alone with a big old motor mounted on top of the headstock, no matter, my drive was to be a 5hp 1750 motor that uses dual V-belts. After getting the counter shaft mounted up I turned to the motor, which weighed in at about 150lbs. Since I couldn’t get to my Enterpack engine lifter and once again couldn’t find anyone healthy enough to help lift the weight, I looked into a small Jib crane that would go behind the lathe. I would need it eventually to change the 200lb chuck and 16” faceplate and to load any large pieces of work. A commercial Jib would run into the thousands of dollars by the time I got everything together and since I’m retired that was out. I came up with a design that would only require a few bucks for parts and maybe a hundred or so for material. That is the problem now, finding the material. Since my family and I got out of the fabricating business years ago I don’t have any contacts nor do I buy in large enough quantities to buy from the large steel houses. I spent most of yesterday searching the web for metal suppliers to get an order together for rectangular tubing and came up empty handed. This seems insane since I live just outside of one of the largest manufacturing centers in the US, i.e. Chicago, IL. I’m open for suggestions for metal suppliers online or in the Chicago suburbs if anyone knows of any.
Now back to the “connections”! Needed the mill to make the parts to make the crane to mount the motor to power the lathe to make the dies to bend the parts. And maybe some day after all of this, I’ll be able to use the truck to get the material to turn in the lathe and machine in the mill, for the next project.
Denny Graham
Sandwich, IL

Denny,

I don't know what the salvage yards are like in your neck of the woods, but down in Austin we have a place called Commercial metals. They recycle all types of metal, from scrap cars to left over construction material.
They have a resale section that you can find just about anything you could want. best part is you can buy however much or little you want.

I don't know if they are up your way, if not is would seem logical that somebody is doing something similar. Might try the yellow pages under recyclers.

Best of luck

Have a place in mich that deals in good steel from shop's excess. Padnos, they have about 6 locations don't know about Ill. If you tell me exactly what you need I could check them locally.

I don't think there are any recyclers loke that round here Gary, all of the guys that I know that fabricate their own stuff kind of have find a shop that will let them pick through their scrap. We had a family owned shop many years ago but all my contacts are long gone.
Thks gazim, I'm looking for something local that is with in an hour or so driving distance. I called a few small of the Metal suppliers within reach today and got the same thing from all of them, we do not sell to the general public, only to legitamate businesses.

Have been through the same thing and found a local dealer in to used machinery. They carry used mills lathes and the like and also have drops from custom fab and machine shops. On the subject of the crane to change those 200lb chucks with, a friend of mine uses a modified nursing home invalid lift that he bought for $30, also works good for moving heavy items on the mill. I'm also in the middle of restoring 1916 South Bend 16X72 lathe to add to my collection of antique tools.

I see your an earlie bird also Todd.
I assume you have discovered this by now; http://groups.yahoo.com/group/southbendlathe/?yguid=38655850
My guess would be that your SB is a cone drive? We had an old cone drive 14” in the basement when I was growing up and that drive was easy to build, all we needed was a matching three cone countershaft and a 2hp motor was plenty of power.
I have what Lodge & Shipley called the “Selective Head”, one of the early geared heads. It has a clutch the was driven by a spur gear. Like I said before, that complicates the drive design a bit but I have her all figured out now.
I also got lucky and found a steel supplier that sold me the rectangular tubing I wanted for the 5 foot Jib crane I’m going to mount behind the lathe. That should make moving the chucks, face plates, work, motor, tailstock, etc., up onto the bed a breeze.
I think my DL800 boat winch will serve the task just fine, and it only takes up about 8” below the trolley when all the cable is wound on the spool. The trolley that I designed to traverse the rectangular tube is almost flush with the bottom, only hangs down about a ½” below. The winch is rated to handle a 1600lb boat pulling it up a ramp onto a trailer.
I’ll look into the invalid lifts also, good idea.
Denny Graham
Sandwich, IL

Denny, I have a Lodge and Shirley lathe at the farm ( in the process of selling). it was my grandpa's so I'd say its all of 50 years old, it use to run on the line shaft system, but my dad put a 3 speed car tranny on it and ran it on a 2 horse motor. I think he put in 1st gearand its still runs good. Around here we have Wausau steel they take everything and will sell whatever you need.

Wish they were a little closer, getting the comercial suppliers to see to an individual is a hit or miss situation round here.
I've seen other old lathes that guys have used car transmissions to gear them down, seems to work out pretty good.
Denny G

Denny, if we could time things out, I ordered a hood from a place in Naperville for my el camino I would get what you need for steel,you could pick up my hood and we could meet have way Madison or so. I'm not sure where Napperville is to you or what the timming would be. Just a thought.

Sorry Dan, thanks for the offer but I found a supplier Friday that would sell me what I needed, must have caught him in a generous mood. I have to drive 100 miles RT but prices were fair. I thought I had posted a reply to that effect but it must have gotten lost.
Naperville is 30mi East of me.
Denny Graham
Sandwich, IL

Denny,

Try finding a steel fabricator in your area. They always have short lengths of misc. tube steel and angles and bars. I see about 15 miles east of you, in the Aurora area, there are several businesses you might try.

I use All Metals @ www.allmetalsinc.com in Adrian Michigan.Phone # is 1-888-638-2517.They have a good stock and fair prices.