Lifting a 1930's Delta lathe

Lee Thomas

Member
Messages
39
Location
Northeast Connecticut
Thought I would add this in here too seeing as I posted up about my "lift" plans. The blocks have 1.5" real height at the bed ways. I had a 2" thick block billed to 1.70 so I would be left with an honest 1.5 between the lathe and the bed . The lift will kick the little 11" lathe into the 14" range. I am running a 12" banjo already, but I will have to get some 1" CRS cut into 4.5" lengths and build all new tool rests.

I am two days into it now and I have the work done on the headstock with all holes done and lined up. All that is left is to round the corners of the block and sand & paing the whole headstock assy.

Now on the tailstock, I had an issue with following the cad drawings at the local Voc. School that did the mill work. The shorted me .465 on the block! They milled the 2 blocks at the same time and then cut them to length and I gave them a 2" x 4" x 12" block so there should be about 2" left over. If so, I can easily have them cut a slice off the left over and I can then weld it to the block and once ground down you will never know it was cut wrong. All that is left after that slice is back on is to drill & tap the holes in the lift block itself to bolt the original cast plate solid to the new block and to hand make a new u-bolt for the cam lock.

A full photo aray can be found here: www.yankeetoys.org/lee/lathe-lift.htm

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Lee, that is SO COOL!!

I envy your access to the mill work etc, hard for me to find here, even at any price:(

Are you going to hook up a VFD drive as well?

Nice job!
 
Yea, a VFD is in the plans someday, I just need to start to get the parts to do it.

I had problems getting the mill work done too which is how I ended up at the Voc School. I have a friend who is a teacher there so this was really "his project" as I am out of state. The school only milled the blocks to size well, almost to size.. :rofl: From there I needed to fine tune the fit to the lathe and transfer all the holes and everything. The last step will be rounding the blocks so they appear to be part of the lathe and I "may" use some JB weld to fill around the tab on the top of the block so that once painted you can't see the gaps from the original casting not being fully square.
 
Just a little progress bump..

Once I get the missing 1/2" from the Voc. school next week I can weld that back on and finish sanding the block. I will need some JB weld and putty here and there to make it fully seamless when it's painted. I will paint the 2 blocks apart so there will not be a bridged paint line, but when bolted uo, they should be razor edge tight.

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