Chambering through headstock on Hardinge HLVH?

M

Matt in Va

Guest
Gentlemen,
I'm in the final process of buying my first lathe. This has been a 5 year plus evolution that carried me through the Colorado School of Trades. The only thing I learned there was that better lathes are available than what we were issued. In short I am about 95% sure on going with a HAAS TL-1.

That said I have a love affair with the Hardinge HLVH that I've had the pleasure to use on a few occasions. That said my usage was not barreling. The main issue is the lathe appears to have a 1.250" spindle bore. .050" seems out of the question for room to work over a 1.200" barrel shank. Any thoughts?

Best Regards, Matt Garrett.
757-581-6270
 
Its too small.
Sooner or later you'll want to work on bigger stuff through the headstock, but you can't.
 
Build a catshead using a 4 degree taper backplate, available thru MSC, and remove the collet pullbar and build a spider for that end. If you use tapered barrels, the catshead will hold the larger diameter, and the 5C taper in the spindle will allow the barrel taper to have room before it hits the alignment pin for the collets. I do barrels on mine all the time.
 
MilGunsmith,
Thank you for the suggestion. Do you have any pictures of your HLV setup as described? I would be greatly appreciative...

Regards, Matt Garrett
Chesapeake, Virginia
757-581-6270
 
Matt in Va said:
Gentlemen,
I'm in the final process of buying my first lathe. This has been a 5 year plus evolution that carried me through the Colorado School of Trades. The only thing I learned there was that better lathes are available than what we were issued. In short I am about 95% sure on going with a HAAS TL-1.

That said I have a love affair with the Hardinge HLVH that I've had the pleasure to use on a few occasions. That said my usage was not barreling. The main issue is the lathe appears to have a 1.250" spindle bore. .050" seems out of the question for room to work over a 1.200" barrel shank. Any thoughts?



Best Regards, Matt Garrett.
757-581-6270
Click to expand...

I've rebuilt the slides on a couple of them in the past, and they can be a pain in the rear for no more than they are. It's just about the most accurate hand lathe I've ever seen, and you really need a good set of scales to take advantage of the accuracey. Spindle bearing are over built. The lathe will hold up under hard turning operations when a typical jap lathe will be sold for scrap. The only thing close to it is a Monarch "EE"". The Hardingh is probably one of the very best thread cutting machines I've ever seen!
I was thinking the spindle bore was 1.281", but have not messed with one in about five years. The lathe is prone to wiper and scraper problems, so you can plan of pulling the apron about once a year for a really good cleaning and a light stoneing of the burrs the chips make.Original lathes used a multi piece wiper system in the apron, but there is an excellent one piece one out there from an after market supplier (don't remember who). Half nuts are prone to wear when hard turning, and I used to change them every 30 months or so, so you probably are looking at six or seven years. The lathe wants a top of the line chuck as it is that accurate. Less than .0004" positioning is the norm if the lathe is strait
By the way I've never seen one painted that color! Every one I've ever seen was grey or a light ivory color
gary
 
Hardinge Lathe

Chad Dixon posted some time ago about his experience using one at the old Nesika shop. Even with the limitations, they can do most any barrel with a tapered contour using a cathead as milgunsmith describes. I need to be able to fit unlimited barrels with a straight diameter of 1.400, but if I could have 2 lathes, I would want one of these.

Scott

You can probably reach Chad at his website:
www.longriflesinc.com
 
squeakie said:
. The lathe will hold up under hard turning operations when a typical jap lathe will be sold for scrap. The only thing close to it is a Monarch "EE"". The Hardinge is probably one of the very best thread cutting machines I've ever seen!
gary
Click to expand...

First,show me a bad "jap" lathe. You must be thinking of the cheap Chi-Com lathes coming into this country since we gave it away.

Second, I'll agree that a set of super quality bearings like the HLVH or the EE work very well. They will even be precise at 5000 rpm where cheap bearings fail, but, sleeve bearings like the old South Bends will do an even better job at stability and chatter suppression.

Show me a medium to large capacity cylindrical grinder that does not have sleeve bearings on the wheelhead.

Besides hobbyists are not going to afford a new lathe with HLVH or EE quality spindle bearings.
 
JerrySharrett said:
First,show me a bad "jap" lathe. You must be thinking of the cheap Chi-Com lathes coming into this country since we gave it away.

Second, I'll agree that a set of super quality bearings like the HLVH or the EE work very well. They will even be precise at 5000 rpm where cheap bearings fail, but, sleeve bearings like the old South Bends will do an even better job at stability and chatter suppression.

Show me a medium to large capacity cylindrical grinder that does not have sleeve bearings on the wheelhead.

Besides hobbyists are not going to afford a new lathe with HLVH or EE quality spindle bearings.
Click to expand...

where do we start?
* I did a lot of hard turning, and also cut a lot of Thompson Rod with one. Thompson Rod seperates the men from the boys really fast. I didn't think the Hardingh would hold up under this treatment, and was really quite surprised at how well it did. We only had a half dozen or so Jap lathes at one time or another, and they just didn't run with the Monarchs or Hardingh. Specially cutting grooves and threading stuff like S5 and S7 or even some of the exotic stainless alloys (17PH-4 and 15ph-5). I've never taken the headstock down on a Southbend, so I can't comment on their bearing packs.
* good grinders don't use sleeve bearings, but some do use silver alloy bearing segments that are hand scraped to fit the diameter they mate to. After that you run them in for a few days and adjust them for a 140 degree temp. If you can't get that temp, you get to scrape them again. Studers use ABEC nine bearing packs that are setup similar to a Red Head in the head stock. Brown and Sharpes might be different as I can't remember what they used (only done a couple of their gauge grinders). A Landis might use a Bronze sleeve setup on a taper that is pulled in to tighten it (last one I rebuilt was in 1973)

face it for the price of the Hardingh, you can buy a solid state Monarch EE used, and rebuild it. Send the bed and apron to Viking Machine for a complete regrind, and then either scrape the cross slide or Moglice it. The tail stock is going to take some work, but still isn't all that bad to do. Replace the lead screw and cross slide screw with new stuff, and your good to go for another twenty years. Funny thing is that I've yet to ever see the spindle bearings go bad on a Double E lathe
gary
 
squeakie said:
where do we start?

* headstock down on a Southbend, so I can't comment on their bearing packs.

* good grinders don't use sleeve bearings, but some do use silver alloy bearing segments that are hand scraped to fit the diameter they mate to.

). A Landis might use a Bronze sleeve setup on a taper that is pulled in to tighten it (last one I rebuilt was in 1973)

face it for the price of the Hardingh, you can buy a solid state Monarch EE used, and rebuild it. Send the bed and apron to Viking Machine for a complete regrind, and then either scrape the cross slide or Moglice it. The tail stock is going to take some work, but still isn't all that bad to do. Replace the lead screw and cross slide screw with new stuff, and your good to go for another twenty years. Funny thing is that I've yet to ever see the spindle bearings go bad on a Double E lathe
gary
Click to expand...

I don't know what a Thompson Rod is. I worked for a large chemical plant Our shop was 24/7 machining 300 series stainless, 17-4, Hastaloy, Inconel and such. That is pretty demanding. Run your little EE 24/7 for a few years and the bearings will go!!

I agree on getting good US iron and rebuilding it. Too bad about us letting the EPA run the foundries out.

BTW, the last 2 EE's I sent to Monarch/Sidney the rebuilds cost $68K each including $18K to rebuild the spindles.

Those little EE's are nice but not worth much for rifle barrel work. Headstock hole is too small for through the spindle work and the center distance is too short to fit barrels in a steadyrest. Guess they might be fine for making firing pins but benchrest shooters don't run through a lot of firing pins...


The Cincinnati-Milacron, Landis and Thompson grinders we had all has sleeve bearings on the wheelheads.
 
It doesn't appear to me - -

that a person needs a very exotic lathe to do barrel work. I am thinking it is pretty tough to beat a SB 10L for that purpose. I know there are other good lathes that will work as well or perhaps better but the SB's are very good, IMHO.
 
Tim,
Yes, and I know it is a big number for a 20 year old lathe...

Regards, Matt.
 
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