Finished product first, of courseCondition when I bought it. Not great but not a basket case, either. First order of business was to see if it functioned. It had a 3 phase motor on it, so I needed to hook it up to a variable frequency drive, but found that the motor leads were cut really short. Not worth chasing down a wiring diagram and splicing on to a 40 year old motor. Replacement Baldor found on eBay for pretty reasonable money.Fully disassembled. Pretty nasty but far from the worst I've done. Everything but the motor belt guard, platen, and that toothed rack is cast aluminum. Light and strong. I didn't want to spend the time scrubbing off the crud and then 3 cans of paint remover and all that mess, so I paid a blasting shop to bead blast everything.Much improved. Cleared of paint and filth, some damaged was revealed.Inattentive users over the decades let the belt grind into the machine. Since these are castings, welding will be a challenge.Doesn't look pretty, but they worked out fine and machined off cleanly. No biggie.Going through all of this effort I'm not going to reuse old nasty hardware. I separated all the fasteners by size in these plastic organizers, then at my hardware supplier I picked out what I needed, and dumped the old stuff into a bag as I went. Kept me organized and made sure I got what I needed.Reassembled to finally test it out. New motor wired up to the VFD, and aligned the wheels, etc. But there's a problem with the power. I bought the VFD with the original 1 horsepower motor in mind, but my eBay replacement was 1-1/2 hp. Time to buy a bigger VFD. Not the end of the world- I can use the smaller one on another machine.I wasn't satisfied with the original tool rest, so I decided to machine a new one. Much bigger, and if it gets worn, I can just machine it square again.This little bracket holds a catch that mates with a catch on the door to keep the door closed. As you might be able to tell, it's broken (should have two 'fingers'). The replacement I was able to find was too wide for the bracket, so I welded it up to make it wider, but didn't like how it was coming out.I decided to make one from scratch, so I milled out three pieces, drilled and tapped them, assembled and decided I could definitely do better. So I started over with a single piece of aluminum. Very pleased with version 3 of this little bracket.The machine originally had a starter mounted to the stand with this unistrut. I could use it to mount the VFD to my machine, but again, I'm going to all this effort, may as well improve it. I ended up using 3/8\" cold rolled steel flat bar, drilled and tapped for mounting holes and assembly. For the horizontal piece I milled out a pocket to accept the riser/strut, and milled the underside to fit snugly over the motor base. Then milled slots to allow motor belt adjustment over time. Much better than a clamped-on solution.Next up was improving the stand. I don't like the design of it (4 points of contact are inherently unstable (you don't see office chairs with 4 casters anymore), but it will do until I find something better. The open foot design allowed metal chips and dropped parts getting into the stand with all the grime, so I welded on 1/4\" flat bar and dressed the welds for a finished appearance. Added swivel leveling feet to help with stability.Everything ready to paint. I plugged threaded holes with aluminum foil to keep from getting clogged with paint, and wiped everything down with pre paint solvent.Ready for final assembly. I painted the stand with Rustoleum hammered black and the rest of it in hammered dark green.Adding some pop to the paint- looks kinda sloppy up close, but standing in front of the machine it looks good.Looks pretty nice in front of a seamless paper backdrop and a couple of flashes.Flaws abound, but nothing I can't live with. It's 100x better than when I bought it.I'll probably fork over the $150 for a new contact wheel but for now the original should work. I machined a new crown on it, and machined the other two flat. I can always turn a crown in them later if I want.My fat, lazy calico keeping me company in the garage. She's a happy girl but her face is always sad-looking. via /r/DIY http://bit.ly/2APEwiu
