DIY lathe repair

In detail: do-it-yourself repair of lathes from a real master for the site my.housecope.com.

During the overhaul of the lathe, the accuracy of the bed guides is restored. When choosing a restoration method, they are guided by the degree of their wear. When the error does not exceed 0.15 mm over a length of 1000 mm, then they are restored by scraping. With greater wear, they resort to mechanical processing: grinding or planing. When the guides are hardened, the main repair method is grinding.

Scraping of guides or scraping with subsequent lapping is still the most effective way to restore their geometric, technical accuracy. And now this method is often used, for many decades, demonstrating an excellent result of the repair of the bed. First of all, it is necessary to inspect the condition of the guides, to determine the degree of their wear. The place where the wear is minimal is taken as the base level, and the measurement data are entered into the table, on the basis of which the repair will be carried out. In a lathe, the location of the tailstock is most often taken as the base surface, which practically does not wear out during the operation of the equipment. The method includes the following steps:

  1. installation of the machine bed on a rigid base (repair stand), the longitudinal and transverse position of the bed should be set exactly in the horizontal plane with wedges, shoes or using jacks;
  2. after the completion of the preparatory work, a rough (preliminary) scraping is performed with a scraper working width of 20-25 mm, while the length of the strokes on the surface of more than 10 mm is maintained and 4-6 spots are achieved when testing for paint in squares of 25 × 25 mm. This achieves a breakdown of large spots into smaller ones;
  3. semi-finishing scraping is performed with a 12-16 mm scraper, strokes 5-10 mm long until 8-15 spots per square are reached;
  4. finishing (finishing) scraping is performed with a scraper 5-10 mm wide and 3-5 mm strokes long to achieve 20-25 spots in a square.
Video (click to play).

Image - DIY lathe repair

Image - DIY lathe repair

Image - DIY lathe repair

Image - DIY lathe repair

Since the guides of the lathe bed are quite long, processing is carried out according to beacons with a breakdown of the total length into sections. The first beacon is always the place of maximum production. At a distance less than the length of the straightedge, the second beacon, located in the same plane with the first, is scraped from the first beacon. Then the entire surface between the beacons is scrubbed, followed by a transition to an adjacent area. A ruler with paint should be applied periodically to assess the condition of the guides and the quality of work.

Watch the video of rough scraping

The unhardened parts of the lathe guides are subjected to such processing, the method guarantees the achievement of a high surface accuracy (0.002 mm per 1000 mm length). Formed after scraping, the smallest holes are able to hold well and evenly distribute the lubricant. The quality of scraping depends entirely on the professionalism of the worker.

It is not always possible to use continuous planing or longitudinal milling machines for repairs due to the large length of the lathe bed. In this case, the bed guides are restored using a portable device with a grinding head, which is installed directly on the equipment bed.