Lyman Spartan Refurb

[ndnchf]

I made some good progress today. I got the press stripped down, bead blasted and primed. Here's a photo after it came out of the blast cabinet. My wife found a nice hard wood ball at a craft store. The ball is 1.900" diameter. So I bored it for the 5/8" shaft, and then turned a groove on the end of the shaft. I plan to epoxy the ball onto the shaft and the groove will give the epoxy a mechanical lock the shaft. All the blued pieces cleaned up surprisingly well with 0000 steel wool and oil. I'll just touch up a couple spots and those parts will be good to go.

I'll give the primer a couple days to dry thoroughly, then spray the hammered gray/black.

[flashhole]

Outstanding - you will have to paint or lacquer the wooden ball too. If you leave it raw wood it will get very dirty.

[ndnchf]

Yes, I agree. I've sanded the ball and am applying several coats of Tru-Oil. It's looking nice.

[ndnchf]

I've made more progress. The press was primed over the weekend. Tonight I gave it a coat of hammered gray/black. It looks really nice, but after the rain stops I'll give it another coat. The wood ball handle has been finished with Tru-oil and attached to the handle. The ram and linkage have been all cleaned up and are ready to assemble. It's coming along nicely.

[flashhole]

A scrap book picture would have all the cleaned up parts laid out prior to assembly then an second pic after assembly.

[ndnchf]

I finished the Spartan refurb today. I'm pretty pleased with how it came out. I did not cut a groove for a shell holder spring yet. I figured I'd try it out for a while with the original set screw. If I don't like it, it's easy enough to drop the ram and cut a groove later. The ball handle feels very comfortable and seems to work well. It's ready to go back to work for another 60 years.

[flashhole]

Great job. Enjoy it and thanks for sharing.

[flyingmonkey35]

Very nice job

[DaveInFloweryBranchGA]

You done good, looks fantastic!

[seagiant]

Hi,
VERY nice!

I prefer the set screw over the spring! Go figure!

[troyboy]

Looks good. Rust blue is superior on a firearm but cold blue is less involved and works well for tooling.

[Bullwolf]

Your Lyman Spartan turned out quite nice in the end.

Great refurbish job, and I really enjoyed following the thread.

Now go and enjoy the heck out of that old Spartan press.




- Bullwolf

[ndnchf]

Thanks fellas. I'll be loading some 32-20 on it shortly!

[Green Frog]

Beautiful work on that Spartan ndnchf, congratulations. While we are on the subject of Lyman restoration work, has anyone been able to find a good replacement for that strange red color that Lyman used on a few of their presses about that same time? I've seen it mainly on the All American and Comet models and it's really hard to match... it seems to have a touch of pink or something in it to make it lighter/brighter than most truly red paints.

Froggie

[Alexn20]

Looks Awesome! Thanks for sharing the pics!

[troyboy]

Green Frog, not to hijack the thread. In my opinion the pinkish red is just the age,wear and tear etc. When I restored my All American before selling, the paint used was Rust-Oleum Sunrise Red 7762. The primer used was grey. Turned out really nice

[Green Frog]

I hope ndnchf won't think of this as a hijack, because I think he has a great thread going here. I was just hoping to include a little more about the finishing process (i.e. paint colors) in the same place. If this looked like I was going too far astray with things, please accept my apology!

Froggie

[ndnchf]

Froggie - no probablem, I just didn't want to bore people with some details. But since you asked...

Before bead blasting I masked off the 7/8-14 threads, the bore for the ram and the two pivot pin holes. I ran a junk screw into the unused primer feeder mounting hole at the top. Then I blasted it clean as shown before. Then I shot it with two coats of Rustoleum dark gray automotive "stops rust" primer (that is what the Rustoleum hammered black paint fine print called for). I waited about 3 days, then sprayed the first coat of Rustoleum hammered black, waited 2 more days and shot a second coat. It sat for two more days, then I removed the masking tape, blew out any residual grit, greased and assembled it.

As for the blued parts, I just went over them with 0000 steel wool and oil. That removed 95% of the light rust. That's really all there was to it.

I have noticed that the handle wants to fall down on its own. I suppose the ball adds a little weight causing this. There is a little gap at the handle pivot pin area. I'm going to cut a couple thin rubber washers to fit in the gap to provide enough friction to keep the handle up when not in use. That should be an easy fix. I'd like to rig up some kind of primer catcher too, but for now a trash can below the press catches most of them.

Any other questions, feel free to ask.

[ndnchf]

This afternoon I decided to tackle the two annoying things with the press. The lack of a primer catcher and the handle wanting to fall down on its own.

For the primer catcher I tried a couple things, but settled for this rather inelegant but effective solution. Its just a solo cup cut down and with a offset hole for the Ram. I decapped twenty five .32 Ballard extra long cases and every primer dropped into the cup. The downside is that the primer arm needs to be removed first. But that just requires removing a spring clip and pushing out the pivot pin. It ain't pretty, but it works!

Next was the handle. I tried putting some friction material between the linkage and frame, but that didn't work very well. Then I thought about making a counterweight. I dug out a fairly thin muffin pan ingot. I used the extra handle mounting hole on the bottom of the linkage to attach it. I drilled a 1/2" hole in the ingot, offset as close as possible to the edge. Then bolted it on with the weight towards the rear. Wa-La! The handle now stays up. I will try this for a week or so and if I'm satisfied with it, i'll paint the weight and bolt to match the press.

[Green Frog]

... but it's not a RED SOLO CUP! What would Toby Keith say?

This continues to be a great thread and your work is excellent, ndnchf. Thanks for starting it and sharing such good information that will be useful to many of us, whether we have a Spartan or not. It looks like some good general ideas are coming in as well.

Happy New Year and Good Casting!
Green Frog