This 82yr old Axelson 14X30 geared head engine lathe has no problems working a 30 pound lump of cast iron, here turning it to a D1-6 chuck mount, another use for these cast pieces in part 2.
I know a guy who had an employee forget to remove the hoist chains from the work before starting the lathe, which ripped its anchor bolts from the concrete floor and climbed up the hoist chains, it was a 1 ton hoist and the lathe and workpiece was about 10 ton so they scrapped the hoist afterwards.
Dee I look at machining cast iron same as eating an Ice Cream cone with sand in it. I usually try to cover the ways and the cross slide on the lathe and the vice on the mill with Kitchen foil. Even though many will argue with me I use oil from a brush to keep the fine particles of cast iron from going everywhere. I love the properties of cast iron and how easy it is to machine but hate abusing my machines with it. At the end of the job, I throw the foil in the trash and use a vacuum to clean up what the foil doesn't catch.
The Axelson company was an iron foundry from the early 1900s making those huge rocking oilfield pumps. Their lathes are designed to machine cast iron without damage by the carriage top being covered including the taper attachment, the saddle wings are 26" long placing them more out of harms way, some lathes like this have spring loaded metal way scrapers along with felt wipers that are very effective at pushing off the fine particles also the leadscrew and feed rod is more tucked in under the front ways I will show those features. Many lathes are hard to clean for sure the Axelson is the best design I have seen in that regard I have seen, thanks!
Wow sure like how quiet your Axelson is! My American has a noisy quadrant geartrain.. something of a weakness of the design operators neglect oiling it so over time the gears end up rattling at higher rpms. Probably time to look into that, I might could replace a few and make the machine quieter.
These Axelson lathes have really wide gears all on ball or needle bearings, they seem not to have gear problems but it makes everything harder to shift. This lathe is getting better for noise the more I run it. The American lathes are usually really smooth
@@deedeeindustrialsuperprecision Mine an older design with quadrant gears running on bushings. They're set up with nice oiling passages which folks dont pay attention to 🤣 . headstock internals are pump oiled and quiet.
I really like machining cast iron but don't like the mess it makes of the machine. Don do you wipe down the ways to get as much of the oil off before you start? Thanks
