Thanksgiving Camping Trip

It is better late than never to post some pictures of our Thanksgiving camping adventure! Grandpa Mark came with us, and we headed to Mt Tamalpais State Park, where we had our pick of campsites thanks to the cooler weather and holiday weekend. 

We went for a hike from the campsite and got to this beautiful lookout, with the big city far in the distance. 

A view of our campsite...

And Ross posing with some firewood.

Madeleine loved finding lichens, mosses, and ferns and talked about how much Grammie Jean would love them.  We spent two nights camping, and the second night it poured rain.  It was still lots of fun though and the rain made our return home and Grammie's homemade cinnamon buns even sweeter.

Later on in Grammie and Grandpa's visit, Madeleine asked Grammie to show her how to knit, and she got the hang of it quite quickly!

Grammie and Grandpa were here for a few weeks, from just before Thanksgiving until just before our visit to Ontario (which, coincidentally, will be the topic of my next post).

Benchmaster Milling Machine

Hi all, Steve here again.  As promised, here’s a writeup on my other major restoration project:  a small “Benchmaster" milling machine. Many people ask me what a milling machine is used for:  while a lathe is used to make round or cylindrical parts, a milling machine is used to make square parts. 

Like the lathe, owning a “mill” has been a dream since high school, and shortly after the lathe was finished I started looking for one.   The Benchmasters caught my eye as being just the right size for my garage.  After seeing only two overpriced ones on the local Craigslist site in about 6 months, I starting checking a site that can search all of the Craigslists within 1000 miles.  Within a few months a Benchmaster popped up in Eugene, Oregon.  My wonderful wife, knowing how long I had been looking, suggested I call about it, and then immediately started thinking of ways for us to pick it up in Eugene (an 8 hour drive each way!)  I was the first caller on the sale, but we hit a snag when our availability wasn't lining up with the seller's.  That's when my fantastic in-laws, hearing of this predicament, offered to drive down to California for a visit, and pick up the mill up on the way!  Thanks again, Mark and Jean!

Here’s the mill in the garage the night it arrived:

It wasn’t rusty, but rather covered in dried up oil and gunk. According to the guy I bought it from, it hadn't been used much in the last 20+ years.

I immediately set to work taking it apart.  Sometimes I had to get creative, such as this Rube Goldberg contraption of scrap metal, wood, and C-clamps to press out the main spindle (it worked quite well, by the way!)

After a few weeks of careful disassembly, I had this collection of about 130 parts:  each one having been degreased, de-rusted, rinsed, dried, and sprayed with a protective coat of WD-40.

Here's a good example of a part before and after cleaning (the indexing collars from two of the hand wheels).

Unlike my lathe, there are no serial number cards available to date these Benchmaster mills.  I had read that original spindle bearings were engraved with the date of installation, and I was very happy to see that my mill’s bearings were a) original, b) still in great shape, and c) installed on November 11th, 1952!

Here are the larger parts collected on the garage floor after disassembly:

In the picture above I'd already cleaned the baseplate at left.  While it cleaned up better than expected, removing the dirt exposed a rather poor paint job done by some previous owner.  At this point I decided to dive into painting the mill as well.  Below is an example of what that involved.  Here is the mill's "saddle", with the old paint stripped off and the part prepped for a new coat of paint.  The tape covers the precision surfaces, and the various bolts are to keep paint from getting into the threaded holes.  Each of the parts in the above picture got the same treatment.

I tried to pick a paint color that matched the original color, and I think I got quite close.  Below is a freshly-painted part lying on top of the central part of the baseplate, which still had the original paint on it.

The kids helped out on this project as well.  Here's Madeleine putting a coat of paint on the baseplate.  Ross helped soon afterward to paint the column sitting behind me in the picture.

And here's Ross helping with the final cleaning of the motor pulley.

As the parts were repainted, the mill started to come together.  Here are the baseplate and column:

Now with the "knee" installed:

And finally, the mill was complete again!

Another view (as part of the project I made the table it sits on as well).

And one with me in it, for scale. 

A final picture below shows the mill in action, where I used it to cut a square hole in the top of an electronics box.  The advantage of a mill is that the three handwheels let you accurately control the cut in three perpendicular directions, so your parts end up nice and square.

The whole process took about 7 months.  That was a bit faster than the lathe, thanks to lessons learned (and tools collected) during that project.  I'm extremely happy with how it all turned out.  

South Bend Lathe

Hi all, Steve here.  I thought I’d put together a post about one of my major garage projects - the restoration of a South Bend 9A "Workshop" metal lathe.  (A lathe like this is used to make circular or cylindrical parts out of metal).  Owning my own lathe has been a dream of mine since I took Grade 9 shop class in high school.  After we moved here I started to look for one, and it took about 6 months of watching Craigslist and eBay until the ideal lathe popped up.  Here are a few pictures showing what it looked like just after I brought it home.

The previous owner had cleaned it and partially re-assembled it.  However, a few things lead me to not fully trust the re-assembly.  Some parts were re-assembled backwards.  I also noticed that several of the felt wicks that supply oil to moving parts were tar-like and unusable.  Also, I wanted to fully understand how it worked!  So, I decided to completely disassemble, clean, and re-assemble the lathe before I even turned it on.  That whole process took me about a year. 

I took each sub-section of the lathe apart separately.  Each one was completely disassembled down to the last nut and bolt, then each part degreased and cleaned.  For example, here are the various parts for the “apron” and “reversing tumbler”, after disassembly and cleaning:

And here they are re-assembled and ready to go:

Below are the parts from the "quick change gear box" and "change gears".  (These transfer the rotation of the lathe spindle to the lead screw, to drive the carriage back and forth).  This assembly also lets you cut threads on the lathe.

The gear box casting, with the above parts removed:

Here's the gear box re-assembled:

One of the fun parts of the restoration was finding all of the clever ways that the designers used to distribute oil to the moving parts thought the lathe. The gear box above is a good example, where a series of channels throughout the casting distribute oil to several shafts from a single oil reservoir.

While the "South Bend Lathe Works" is no longer around, the company that now uses the name (Grizzly Tools) has the original company's filing cabinets.  For a small fee you can send them your lathe's serial number, and they'll send you a scan of the original serial number card.  After a few months of owning the lathe, curiosity got the best of me and I sent for the card - turns out my lathe was manufactured on April 3rd, 1939!  As far as I can tell, the motor is the only part of the lathe that isn't original.

The kids helped as well with parts of the restoration.  Here's Ross helping me clean up a surplus bench I found at work (which turned out to be the perfect size for the lathe): 

And here’s Madeleine helping to clean the lathe bed.

The motor that came with the lathe was not the correct speed.  After much searching around for a correct replacement, it turns out a family member had the perfect motor sitting in their garage! I flew back to California with it in my carry-on luggage - which raised some eyebrows at security, but I got through with a gentle recommendation to not do it again. The motor was a bit rusty, so I took it apart, cleaned it and repainted it. Here it is before, during a test-mount on the lathe drive unit:

During painting:

And after:

I finished the rebuild about a year ago, and I've had a lot of fun using it since.  I've let Madeleine help with setting up the tailstock (but then set her well back before I turn it on).  Here we are just after making a part together:

People often ask what I use the lathe for.  Lots of things!  Making telescope parts, bike tools, electromagnets, fixing toys and other things around the house.  It was also very useful during my latest restoration project, which I am pictured with below: a small milling machine (to be covered in my next post).

A visit from family!

At the end of August we had a wonderful visit from Julie and John and their boys, Caleb and Brody. The last time they were here, we had only lived here a couple of months and had not yet discovered some of our favourite places. Like the little Steam Train at Tilden Park...

All the kids (and Dad's!) had fun playing hall hockey.

Aunt Julie playing cards with the kids.

Uncle Steve, the famous scientist, showing the kids some magnets and knobs and dials.

We drove to Monterey Bay for a night, and visited the Dennis the Menace park there, as well as the Aquarium.

Out for frozen yogurt...

At the Food Trucks near us, which have local vendors selling out of trucks every Wednesday night.

At Fisherman's Wharf for a day...

Some silly kids waiting to watch one of the performers on stage at Fisherman's Wharf...

And of course a visit to the Golden Gate Bridge - at sunset!

An early birthday celebration for Caleb, who was soon to turn six!

Lots of stories on the couch with Ross in "the bleachers".

A visit to Muir Woods, while Madeleine was at school.

We loved having them here, and the kids all had so much playing together. We can't wait to see them all again at Christmas, when we will head to Ontario.