New here....with a rust problem.

[cadillacman]

Hello everyone. I've new here and happy to be here. Ever since I was a young kid I've been almost obsessed with miniature engines. I'm currently 19 and taking a machine tool certificate program at the local JC. I intend to stay around and learn as much as I can and contribute when I have some experience in the subject!

First off, I apologize if this type of post isn't allowed at all in this forum or if I've put it in the wrong place, but I was wondering if anyone could help me out with a problem I may or may not have soon. I've been looking to purchase a lathe for some time now, but I don't have a whole lot of cash to spend, so that doesn't help :big: . My parents mentioned to one of their friends that I was looking for a small lathe to learn off of and do some projects on. The friend had a brother who unfortunately passed away a couple years back who had a machine. It is currently in the father's possession. He told his father the next day that I was interested in purchasing it. His father told him that I could just have it if I'm willing to come and pick it up. It's a Smithy Midas 1720 CNC that weighs around 500 LBS!

Now, I am aware of the shortcomings of a 3-in-1 machine. Poor mill rigidity, lack of a milling table, lots of extra time taken to switch from lathe to mill, etc. Also, even though it has a “cnc” function, it’s still fully manual and the cnc function evidently doesn’t really work on these machines anyway. That's not the big issue for me (what "issue," is free, right? ). The big problem is that since it's been in the father's possession, it has been stored covered, but outside for at least two years, maybe even three. On top of that, it spent the first few years of its life on a house boat.....which was parked in salt water. As much as I hate to admit it, I’m sure it’s going to have plenty of rust on the ways and on the chuck. I don’t know about the rest of it. As a matter of fact, he called us and mentioned that his father has a sand blaster that we could use to get some of the rust off! To be honest, that scares me.

So, has anyone had any experience with a rusty machine? Is sand blasting a really good idea for precision ways? What should I check for? I know you guys can't see the lathe, so you may not be able to tell me much. I don’t have a whole lot of experience with lathes, but I’m good at mechanical repairs. I’m not too scared of having to take a few things apart. That’s how you learn! To give an idea of any mechanical skills I may or may not have; I’ve been restoring a 1980 Cadillac since I was 13, I’ve been into a couple engines (successfully), I restore antique radios, and I’ve built a few computers. I can usually take something apart and put it back together. Should I try a machine? I would just go ahead and grab it, but being its 500 lbs, I need to really consider if this is right for me. Part of me is excited that I may have the opportunity to take something else apart, but part of me says that this could be a challenge. Of course I’m not necessarily talking about the gears and everything.

I will be looking at this lathe on Sunday. I honestly don’t mind taking the time to make this machine work properly…….I’m just not sure if it’s even possible. Oh yeah, they also said that it works.

Thanks,
Dan

 

[Maryak]

Dan,

First up..............Welcome to our forum. wEc1

By the sound of it the 1st thing to do is strip it down except for now leave the headstock body attached to the bed.

Stay about 100 km away from a sand blaster as far as any of the working surfaces are concerned.

Probably 400 or even 600 grit emery and a light oil such as 3 in 1 AND lots of elbow grease is IMHO the safest way to derust any working surfaces.

I'm sure others with more experience than I will set you straight.

Yes, a free machine to start out with is wonderful and by the time your ready to make chips, you'll be very familiar with it.

Good luck

Best Regards
Bob

 

[cadillacman]

Dan,

Yes, a free machine to start out with is wonderful and by the time your ready to make chips, you'll be very familiar with it.

Good luck

Best Regards
Bob

Hello, Bob. Thank you very much for the reply and help. That's kind of the way I feel about it- repair it, then I'll really know what makes it tick.

 

[dsquire]

cadillacman

Welcome and glad to have you on board HMEM Dan. It looks like you have your work cut out for you cleaning up your new lathe. As Bob has said, sand blasting is not the best way to go about cleaning up machined surfaces. I am posting a link to another board to a post on removing rust through electrolysis.

http://madmodder.net/index.php?topic=1651.0

Read it over and see what you think, it may save a bit of elbow grease. What ever you decide start a thread here and let us all follow along and offer encouragement and opinions or advise. When you do get to see the machine on Sunday, take your camera along and try to get some good closeups. You can post them up here and they might help the members to be able to better help you. Good luck with the restoration. :bow:

Cheers

Don

 

[cadillacman]

cadillacman

Welcome and glad to have you on board HMEM Dan.


Don

Thanks to both of you for the warm welcome! Electrolysis, huh? I saw a bit of information about that, but I wasn't sure. That link you sent me really clears it up (for me mentally and for the metal :big: ). Thanks for the help. I will try my best to determine if the machine is salvageable on Sunday. It's an hour drive, so I'll either be taking it home or leaving it there.

One thing that I'm concerned with is removing the bed. It's a heavy machine and I don't know what will have to be removed to get it away from the headstock. I would like to try to not have to take the gears and spindle setup apart, but if it's needed, I have no problem with doing it. Worse case scenario is if I can't get it back together, I guess I could technically part it out, even though I feel bad making money on something that was given to me to use.

It may not be as bad as I'm picturing it, as the friend is very, very particular about his things and a little rust usually means "rust bucket" to him, even though he didn't call it that at all.

While reading about repairing a rusty lathe, one person mentioned electrolysis or naval jelly. If the electrolysis ends up being out of the question, could this be a last resort option?

I can't imagine that two years of humidity (supposedly no direct water contact) could cause solid metal to not be salvageable.

I also wanted to mention that I have a heavy duty 6-12v power supply from roughly the 50s which I use to power a 6v farm radio. Maybe I could use it for the power source.

 

[SAM in LA]

Dan,

I had to remove/treat rust on my machine and a lot of the accessories when I first got it.

I found a product called Evap-o-Rust. It worked really well. I bought mine from the www.theruststore.com

I recently saw it at the local Harbor-Freight in the USA and it was a little cheaper.

Good luck and have fun with your new toy, I mean tool.

SAM

 

[Tin Falcon]

Dan:
while not a fan of multi machines get the best you can afford and if money is tight Free is affordable especially if you are in learning mode. I think for the most part a light oil penetrating oil or Automatic transmission fluids and fine silicon carbide paper would be the best method for the ways and working surfaces. use a sanding block work evenly and methodical.Also a light coat of dykem or some marker on the surface may help show you how even you sanding job is. Recently Home Shop Machinist published an article on restoring a lathe Iirc it had pretty detailed methods of de rusting parts and what methods to use and not use on various parts.

Do not discount the CNC bit with the background you mention you can rebuild the cnc as well or maybe start from scratch.
Tin

 

[cadillacman]

Dan,

I had to remove/treat rust on my machine and a lot of the accessories when I first got it.

I found a product called Evap-o-Rust. It worked really well. I bought mine from the www.theruststore.com

I recently saw it at the local Harbor-Freight in the USA and it was a little cheaper.

Good luck and have fun with your new toy, I mean tool.

SAM

Sam, thanks for the help. I think I've seen Evap-o-Rust before, but I'm not sure where. I know a local auto paint store who probably carries it, though. I'm almost 100% sure that our Harbor Freight doesn't carry it here, as I use to work there not too long ago. As a matter of fact, they didn't carry much anything else besides WD-40 spray cleaner, and spray penetrant, most likely due to California's strict EPA laws.

Dan:
while not a fan of multi machines get the best you can afford and if money is tight Free is affordable especially if you are in learning mode. I think for the most part a light oil penetrating oil or Automatic transmission fluids and fine silicon carbide paper would be the best method for the ways and working surfaces. use a sanding block work evenly and methodical.Also a light coat of dykem or some marker on the surface may help show you how even you sanding job is. Recently Home Shop Machinist published an article on restoring a lathe Iirc it had pretty detailed methods of de rusting parts and what methods to use and not use on various parts.

Do not discount the CNC bit with the background you mention you can rebuild the cnc as well or maybe start from scratch.
Tin

Tin, that sounds like a gentle way to get some rust off of a precision surface. Thank you for the help. They mentioned that something may be funky with the CNC wiring, but schematics are readily available for this machine so it might be a doable project. I asked my instructor today and he told me to check and see if the circuit board connections are corroded. He says that if they are, the CNC is useless. At least it's a full manual machine as well. If I can make it work, I will, because I'd like to learn about CNC. That's what I'm currently studying in my certificate.

I guess it's a bit too early to truly determine how to eliminate the rust, but once I see it, I'll know. Any more comments are welcomed and I'll be sure to keep everyone posted on the machine. If anyone is interested, I'm considering doing a write up on the restoration, as long as it's as extensive as I'm picturing.

Also, I've been wondering something. This lathe comes with a 5" three jaw chuck. I'm sure no one has any way of knowing this, as machines are different, but I wonder if a normal 5" 4-jaw independent chuck will fit?

 

[Tin Falcon]

Dan ; Read this post when you get a chance. http://www.homemodelenginemachinist.com/index.php?topic=9787.0
What I am saying is even if the CNC components are toast or otherwise unusable. Those parts can be replaced at reasonable cost with off the shelf or shop built components .
As far as what chuck will fit ? go to the smithy web site find the spindle nose specification and use that data to look for replacement chucks face plates etc. You may have to machine a back plate and fit a chuck to it.
Tin

 

[doubletop]

This link may be useful to you

http://www.home-machine-shop.com/Smithy-Support-Files/

Pete

 

[gunboatbay]

Cadillacman
If the machine does in fact have a lot of rust, you should continue to explore the electrolytic rust removal process. There's nothing that does such a good job of removing rust in nooks and crannies without any damage to the base metal. On the internet there's an example of a fellow that derusted an entire boat trailer with that method and it sucessfully removed the rust from even the inside of the square tubing framework. One note though, you don't want to use a high current device, such as the heavy-duty power supply you mentioned; it won't damage the base metal but it'll cause the solution to 'boil' and foam excessively. This method will not remove the pits in the metal caused by serious rusting, just clean the rust from the pits. Once you've derusted the article, you mut protect the metal right away because it's now bare naked metal and susceptible to immediate 're-rusting.

 

[cadillacman]

Tin, thanks again for the advice. I checked out your topic and it's made me feel much more comfortable about fixing the CNC portion of the machine. I'm pretty determined to make sure that I have the CNC working at some point. I'd like to experiment with it and hone my CNC skills. I will book mark that link. Thanks a ton!

Pete, that's an awesome link for me. It was really fun to see what has been made with Smithy 3-in-1 machines. It's encouraging! They seem to be ok machines, as long as you can get past the 3-in-1's downfalls.

Gunboatbay, I certainly will not discount the electrolytic rust removal route. To me, it's all going to depend on how the rest of the machine is. I mean, I'm planning using the electrolytic process for some of the parts, but I'm not sure about the bed. It will all depend on if the bed is rusty all over, or if it's just rusty on the ways. That's interesting how someone used it on a boat trailer. Someone in my class told me that you can take a wet towel, wrap the part in it, and connect the positive to the part and the negative to the towel and it will take the rust right off. I don't know if that's completely correct, but it's good to know. My dad's a painter, so I have access to plenty of buckets for the normal method.


Thank you for all the help. I'm quite anxious for Sunday. It's going to have to be a real mess for me to not bring it home.

 

[GOOFY063]

Eastwood makes a rust called fast etch that works very well it changes ironoxide and leaves a zinc phosphate coating. i used it on parts of a 68 Camaro i painted for a lady i had very good results. here's the link http://www.eastwood.com/eastwood-s-fast-etch.html

 

[cadillacman]

Hello, everyone. Sorry I haven't responded in a couple days. I got the machine! It was fun dangling it from a cherry picker to get her into the garage, but it all worked out. It actually just has minimal rust on it. I've been working on it daily. It does need quite a bit or rewiring, and it doesn't seem to have any cnc stuff, but it still looks like a good machine. I'll try and post some pictures of it soon.

 

[shred]

I 2nd Evap-o-rust as the first thing to try (maybe a little WD-40 and a light steel-wool for super-light rust). If it doesn't work out, you can go to the electrolytic method.