Qualters and Smith Qdm750 Restoration

[Pete.Participant @pete-2]

I then soaked the base table and upper table in an evaporust type solution as the base table had some light corrosion in the root of the where it had been fly cut, I didn't want to remove metal to get it gone, it worked quite well, The picture of the solution is actually the table of the Bradley hand shaper which I'll do a thread on the restoration of after this, the second picture is the de rusted base, I say de-rusted, but the rust you see on the non machined part is flash rust that happens very quickly after washing the solution off, I cleaned the machined part down with solvent then sealed with Ren wax.

Edited By Pete. on 17/11/2021 01:58:07

[Pete.Participant @pete-2]

Had a bit of a problem with the etch primer, I painted 4 of the castings, 2 dried fine, 2 were still tacky 24 hours later, which anyone who has used Paragon etch primer knows it's normally touch dry within an hour, turned out when I did a degrease with some Acetone it soaked into the surface of the cast iron then got trapped when painted over with the etch primer, anyway, that had to be washed off with thinners which was very messy and annoying. got it all clean and left for 48 hours for any solvent to release and painted again, this time fine, so got all the bits etched up now.

[Pete.Participant @pete-2]

Spent an evening cleaning up all the nuts and bolts, before and after.

[Pete.Participant @pete-2]

Then gave them a cold blackening treatment, it doesn't always work to well on old parts with grime worked into the surface over decades, can be a bit and miss, some parts look a bit of a dark bronzy colour, but much better than the rusty look.

[Pete.Participant @pete-2]

An 8" hofmann rotary table came up on ebay at a decent price and in excellent condition so I thought as it has the indexing discs, that'd be good to permanently mount on a small X Y table on the base table, it's much lighter than the 10" version I own and only about 70mm high, really nice bit of kit.

[Oily RagParticipant @oilyrag]

It is all coming along nicely Pete. It'll be so pretty you won't want to despoil it with nasty old swarf! That Hoffman RT is a nice piece of kit and appears also to be in pristine condition. I've got the same model but only use it on my mill preferring to 'mark out' for drilling jobs, done on the surface plate and then optical centre punching before either into a vice or clamping direct to the table.

What de-ruster have you used? Evap Rust by any chance?

Martin

[Pete.Participant @pete-2]

Hi Martin,

Getting there slowly, I did have to drive 100 miles to pick it up, but couldn't stop myself at less money than an import RT costs, the 10" version is a bit heavy for use on smaller machines and doesn't have the indexing setup, I bet the bits from hofmann to convert my other one would cost as much as I paid for the 8" one.

The rust removal solution is call Fedox made by Fertan, the cheapest I found it for was £21 for 1 litre, this is concentrate which is added to 10 litres of water, Evaporust just checking now is £52 for 10 litres which is in a ready to use state so works out quite a bit more expensive.

[AJAXParticipant @ajax]

Posted by Pete. on 17/11/2021 01:40:56:

Had a bit of a problem with the etch primer, I painted 4 of the castings, 2 dried fine, 2 were still tacky 24 hours later, which anyone who has used Paragon etch primer knows it's normally touch dry within an hour, turned out when I did a degrease with some Acetone it soaked into the surface of the cast iron then got trapped when painted over with the etch primer, anyway, that had to be washed off with thinners which was very messy and annoying. got it all clean and left for 48 hours for any solvent to release and painted again, this time fine, so got all the bits etched up now.

Did you use the Paragon etch primer that can be used on non-ferrous metals, or did you use a different one? I wonder if it is a "universal" primer that can be used on most metals. I've used it on aluminium castings before with good success.

[Pete.Participant @pete-2]

Yes it was Paragon etch primer, it wasn't the paint as some parts dried ok.

After washing the primer that wouldn't dry off I wiped it down with panel wipe so no other solvent would touch it before painting, left it 48 hours for any solvent absorbed into the cast iron to evaporate then repainted, no problems dried to a chalky looking colour within an hour.

The problem was the cast iron soaking up solvent then being trapped in when painted over.

[Oily RagParticipant @oilyrag]

Pete,

Reviewing this page I have just had a thought about your table locking problem. Has someone previously inverted the column clamp casting?

It is difficult to see in your pictures but on mine the table column casting has the bottom to table centreline at about 2 1/2" with the top portion measuring about 2". This gives the 'deep' nut retaining flat on the left hand side (looking from the front of the machine ) and the handle side has much less depth when compared to the nut flatting on the left side.

I can also see that it may have been inverted if a previous owner needed the table clamp on the left side. In fact it does give more throat between spindle and table if inverted – but not much more than just using the base plate table.

Did you find a scribe line for table 'zero' position? I see in the Operators Manual it says to clock the table for level so guess they didn't mark them for that reason.

Thanks for the heads up on the de-ruster. I found 25litres of Evaporust for £100 on 'Tinterweb which I was considering (next restoration project is a [very rusty] Bridgeport! ). But it looks like I'll need probably 50 litres or more to immerse the knee into, using a big agricultural chemicals 200 litre barrel.

You'll have to have a sacrificial plate for the top of the Hoffman – don't want to see any drill holes in that nice table!

Martin

[Pete.Participant @pete-2]

After a closer look at the table to pillar casting it definitely has the handle on the left hand side while the longer part faces downwards as it is supposed to, possible that it was a mistake or ordered with this? Who knows but I'll leave it alone and just live with it left handed.

There is also no zero mark for the table, they probably assumed real alignment would need testing with more accurate means so left it off possibly.

The deruster solution seems to have worked well in my opinion Martin, I have never used evaporust so can't offer comparison.

The one I bought is made by decent company with a history in rust products, and it definitely works out cheaper.

[Pete.Participant @pete-2]

Had a few hold ups with the progress on this, the spray gun I was going to use had a broken lid, I haven't used it for so long I completely forgot this happened last time it was used, it's an American Graco brand and a replacement cup is more expensive than I think it should be, so I bought a budget Italian midi gun with 1.2mm fluid tip after the Chinese touch up gun I use for rough work failed to work properly.

£28 including tax from spray guns direct, it seems to work very well for the price just had a little go with it this evening.

[Pete.Participant @pete-2]

This is what I just painted this evening, I'll just touch on paragon paints advice to thin 15% for spraying advice, I found this to be too little I tried with 20% and this also seems to go on a bit dry, by the time I got it spraying satisfactorily I'd estimate it was nearer 25% .

[Pete.Participant @pete-2]

I have painted the main castings, I used the Chinese touch up gun, which wasn't working properly, and the paint not thinned down enough to spray properly despite paragon's instructions, there's some dry matte areas not really visible from the photo but I'm going to give them a quick key up with a fine mirka pad a dust over with some suitably thinned paint out my new gun.

[Pete.Participant @pete-2]

I've got a couple of projects on the go currently so progress hasn't been very fast, but the painting is finished and has been left long enough to reassemble, got the main castings back together, the ID plate riveted back on.

[Pete.Participant @pete-2]

The inverter enclosure painted and back on.

[Pete.Participant @pete-2]

Got the motor painted to match, the lid finished also.

[Pete.Participant @pete-2]

The switches put back for the last time hopefully.

[Pete.Participant @pete-2]

Pressed the spindle bearings out, the grease had turned semi solid so it did need taking apart, I will source some good quality bearings to replace all of them from a supplier recommended my Martin, I did wonder whether it's necessary but if it's done it's done.

[Pete.Participant @pete-2]

Progress has continued slowly, very slowly but surely, I just uploaded the latest photos and this saga and it has hit 100 photos hopefully the end is within sight.

The spindle assembly was cleaned meticulously and reassembled with some good quality bearings, acquiring this odd mix of imperial and metric over the Christmas period postponed things a little.

The bearings in tbe spindles are open, so I stretched some of the plastic wrapping over to prevent debris falling in, a little ocd but they weren't cheap.

[Pete.Participant @pete-2]

The upper thrust bearing pressed in.

[Pete.Participant @pete-2]

All the back gear assembly given its final clean, and spindle assembly fully assembled with dust covers and circlips in place.

[Pete.Participant @pete-2]

Before I reassemble this lot, just for those interested in possibly owning one of these old machines, possibly due to this one not having much use it's still being visible, the quill bore has been honed to fit, which explains why the fit is what you'd expect from a good quality milling machine quill.

Quite possibly no interest to 99.99999% of human kind, maybe even less.

[Pete.Participant @pete-2]

The spindle, quill lock, and pinion arbor refitted.

[Pete.Participant @pete-2]

The backgear and front pulley assembly fitted, as suggested by Martin in a previous thread, make sure the quill is moving freely up and down before knocking down the 2 locating dowels and tightening down.

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