First, let me apologize up front for the length of this post. A famous man once said "I could write you a short letter but it would take me too much time" and I suffer from the same affliction. If you are having wobble problems with an old Delta or similar lathe what is below might help. I wish I had found similar advice a few years ago.
For several years my Delta 1460, vintage 1950s, 12x36 lathe sat unused because I was unable to figure how to fix the wobble that made faceplate work very frustrating. I had got the machine in a trade about 15 years ago and it had sat in a corner for its first few years because while a long time woodworker I knew nothing about turning and didn't have time to learn more. When I got around to trying it out it I did a couple of spindles but realized that the lowest speed, about 900 rpm, was way too fast for face plate roughing, especially for a beginner teaching himself via books and dvds. So I rigged up a jack shaft and cut the speeds by 2/3s.
I started out mounting on a face plate, having no chuck, but found it incredibly difficult, or better said impossible, to bring the workpiece to round. I thought at first that it must be me and my poor beginners technique, even though I felt reading Rowley and Raffan plus many watchings of Raffan's dvd had taught me something. Then a light bulb lit up over my head and I put on the 6" face plate that had come with the machine without a piece of wood on it. It displayed a very visible wobble when spun by hand.
So I ransacked the internet for what was wrong and how to fix it. I came away thinking that the bearings must be shot or have been damaged by an impact to the spindle causing spindle runout but replacing them changed nothing. I posted my problem on a forum (owm, old woodworking machines) and it was suggested that perhaps the spindle itself was to blame. So I went on ebay and found a headstock up for bid. An added plus was it did have the indexing pin which mine was missing. But besides showing me that the the wrong width bearing was installed on the outboard side of my original headstock it didn't help. It seemed very unlikely to me that both spindles were bent, by titanic forces unknown.
By this point I had turned a few bowls that were out of true but the "80 (and up) grit gouge" allowed me to finish and I was hooked enough on bowl turning to get a new lathe, a Nova DVR, which I have been happy with.
The Delta continued to collect dust. Then a few months ago I bought a used Delta contractor saw on Craigslist. I wanted to set it up with care so having heard that Harbor Freight had a usable dial indicator for about $30 I picked one up for use on that project. When done with that I thought why not see if I could use it to see if I could learn anything more about why the lathe was messed up.
Checking the shaft I found it was very good. So that meant that the bearings must be ok too. Then it hit me: what about the face of the head stock nut? I checked that and found that while it was out "only" a couple of thou' but moving out a few inches just might be magnifying that to the 25 thousandths wobble I found on the edge of the 6" face plate.
Trueing the nut was pretty simple. Using the dial indicator on the edge of the 6" faceplate I found the high point. Next I imagined the the backside of the face plate as if it was the face of a clock with a hand pointing at the high point. I had marked that high point with a sharpie marker and I now marked the nut where that imaginary clock hand woud be attached. Next I removed the face plate and nut.
I have a granite machinists reference block that I purchased many years ago on sale for trueing the bottoms of Stanley planes, japanese waterstones & etc. If you don't have one of these then any smooth true suface, like the ways of the lathe you are working on, would work. I put a piece of 220 grit wet or dry sand paper on the block with it running right up to the edge. Taking the nut with the side that faces away from the headstock face down and the sharpie mark pointing towards the sandpaper covered block I progressively sanded the nut face just a little bit, meaning that the face of the nut closest to the sharpie mark was sanded the most and the opposite side the least but that the last passes were over the whole nut face.
I remounted the nut and faceplate and checked ith the indicator. The 25 thousandths was now 15. A few more tries and it was down to 2. I think I can live with that!
So now I have another lathe. The guy I got it from had told me that the Delta 1460 was the lathe that the legendary Bob Stocksdale had used for all his work. I recently saw a picture of Bob at his 1460 and noticed that he had blocked up the headtock with steel U shaped channel to give him what looked like 18-20" of swing instead of the original 12 and that he had had a tool rest with an extended post made up for his banjo. The rest for the dvr with its longer post would allow 16"for the Delta using that rest or I could get a Robust Comfort rest with an even longer post and take it to close to 20". And then maybe a Leeson variable speed motor from Craft Supplies.....in any case it feels good to have finally made it a useful machine again!
For several years my Delta 1460, vintage 1950s, 12x36 lathe sat unused because I was unable to figure how to fix the wobble that made faceplate work very frustrating. I had got the machine in a trade about 15 years ago and it had sat in a corner for its first few years because while a long time woodworker I knew nothing about turning and didn't have time to learn more. When I got around to trying it out it I did a couple of spindles but realized that the lowest speed, about 900 rpm, was way too fast for face plate roughing, especially for a beginner teaching himself via books and dvds. So I rigged up a jack shaft and cut the speeds by 2/3s.
I started out mounting on a face plate, having no chuck, but found it incredibly difficult, or better said impossible, to bring the workpiece to round. I thought at first that it must be me and my poor beginners technique, even though I felt reading Rowley and Raffan plus many watchings of Raffan's dvd had taught me something. Then a light bulb lit up over my head and I put on the 6" face plate that had come with the machine without a piece of wood on it. It displayed a very visible wobble when spun by hand.
So I ransacked the internet for what was wrong and how to fix it. I came away thinking that the bearings must be shot or have been damaged by an impact to the spindle causing spindle runout but replacing them changed nothing. I posted my problem on a forum (owm, old woodworking machines) and it was suggested that perhaps the spindle itself was to blame. So I went on ebay and found a headstock up for bid. An added plus was it did have the indexing pin which mine was missing. But besides showing me that the the wrong width bearing was installed on the outboard side of my original headstock it didn't help. It seemed very unlikely to me that both spindles were bent, by titanic forces unknown.
By this point I had turned a few bowls that were out of true but the "80 (and up) grit gouge" allowed me to finish and I was hooked enough on bowl turning to get a new lathe, a Nova DVR, which I have been happy with.
The Delta continued to collect dust. Then a few months ago I bought a used Delta contractor saw on Craigslist. I wanted to set it up with care so having heard that Harbor Freight had a usable dial indicator for about $30 I picked one up for use on that project. When done with that I thought why not see if I could use it to see if I could learn anything more about why the lathe was messed up.
Checking the shaft I found it was very good. So that meant that the bearings must be ok too. Then it hit me: what about the face of the head stock nut? I checked that and found that while it was out "only" a couple of thou' but moving out a few inches just might be magnifying that to the 25 thousandths wobble I found on the edge of the 6" face plate.
Trueing the nut was pretty simple. Using the dial indicator on the edge of the 6" faceplate I found the high point. Next I imagined the the backside of the face plate as if it was the face of a clock with a hand pointing at the high point. I had marked that high point with a sharpie marker and I now marked the nut where that imaginary clock hand woud be attached. Next I removed the face plate and nut.
I have a granite machinists reference block that I purchased many years ago on sale for trueing the bottoms of Stanley planes, japanese waterstones & etc. If you don't have one of these then any smooth true suface, like the ways of the lathe you are working on, would work. I put a piece of 220 grit wet or dry sand paper on the block with it running right up to the edge. Taking the nut with the side that faces away from the headstock face down and the sharpie mark pointing towards the sandpaper covered block I progressively sanded the nut face just a little bit, meaning that the face of the nut closest to the sharpie mark was sanded the most and the opposite side the least but that the last passes were over the whole nut face.
I remounted the nut and faceplate and checked ith the indicator. The 25 thousandths was now 15. A few more tries and it was down to 2. I think I can live with that!
So now I have another lathe. The guy I got it from had told me that the Delta 1460 was the lathe that the legendary Bob Stocksdale had used for all his work. I recently saw a picture of Bob at his 1460 and noticed that he had blocked up the headtock with steel U shaped channel to give him what looked like 18-20" of swing instead of the original 12 and that he had had a tool rest with an extended post made up for his banjo. The rest for the dvr with its longer post would allow 16"for the Delta using that rest or I could get a Robust Comfort rest with an even longer post and take it to close to 20". And then maybe a Leeson variable speed motor from Craft Supplies.....in any case it feels good to have finally made it a useful machine again!