Thread: Sheraton 4 1/2" revival.

It's been a while to say the least.......
I'm starting to get some time in the shed again so the lathe is back on the agenda.

I have the headstock apart & have hit another snag.
I bought Hercus felts for the lathe & most things are the same however.....
Initially I understood the headstock in the Sheratons had no felts, only a sort of channel in the casting to allow the oil to flow around the spindle. Mine seems to have the channels but it also had felts.
When I removed them, they were no more than a flat round piece of felt supported by a wad of scrap felt underneath.
As you can see from the photos, the Hercus felts fit in the hole but the hole is too wide the the felt can move around laterally.



At this point I'm thinking my options are....
1. fit the spindle without any felts (not keen on this)
2. Fit the old felts & the scrap felt to act as a spring (not keen on this either)
3. Fit the hercus felts & hope the lateral movement doesn't cause a problem
4. Try to source some bigger springs & felts to fit the Sheraton

Any suggestions?
Thanks.

hi

You should find some felt of the correct thickness and punch out a suitable diameter wad of it . You can turn up a punch on a lathe if you have another lathe !

Felt is made from rabbit fur and the army slouch hats are made from it . I have a 1/2" thick sheet of it somewhere , I salvaged it from a tin box , it was the liner inside the box .

Try a search for felt on ebay or google

MIKE

Hi Al,

Good work!

Lubrication:

Spindle:
Make sure you only use a a light oil for the spindle, from memory it should be something like iso-45 "fork oil" (as in motorcycle), if you go to a lubricants supplier and explain that you have a spindle that uses felts, most should be able to point you in the right direction. It needs to be light so that it will wick up the felt.

Slides:
Technically you should use a "slide oil", again a lubricant supplier will be able to point you in the right direction. If you want a cheap option then probably chainsaw bar oil is a good option. It is low quality oil, but it contains "tacifiers" that improves its adhesion to metal surfaces.

Adjustments:
I notice you said you "shimmed up" the cross slide? You should be able to tune up the adjustment using the gib screws? Even if it is worn that slide should adjust up quite well, I have fixed up a number over the years and that particular model seemed to wear very evenly end to end.

Cheers,

Rick

I ended up making a frankenstein felt using the old felts & the replacements.
It's almost usable again.





Al

Nice restoration after all - certainly not just a 'clean up'.
Bob will be impressed

Joe

Thats a great restoration, Good job
Looking forward to a running video of your lovely lathe

Cooper

Thanks guys.
It's certainly not a resto as the bed has some wear & really needs to be reground. I may do it in the future but for the moment it's just about getting it usable & fixing any issues that will shorten its lifespan.
I put the belt tensioner together & had it running briefly today. Almost there!

I've got the gears & brackets in Kero at the moment & hopefully I'll get some time to clean up & paint before the weekend.
I had a crack at polishing the aluminium headstock covers today but what I thought was damage marks has turned out to be casting pits & flaws so polishing is out.
I'll just clean em up with some sandpaper & put them back on.

Hopefully I'll have some more pics by the weekend.

Al