Sheldon 11-inch lathe progress - Part I: Reversing Tumbler, T-bolt

Here are the specs on my new/old lathe:
11 inch swing
44 inch bed length, 24 inches between centers
Mounted on a cast iron pedestal base with chip tray
Power carriage and cross slide
2-1/4 x 8 TPI spindle thread
MT5 spindle taper

Serial number KBU1764
  K - early 11 inch lathe
  B - ball bearing headstock (apparently very rare, most were either plain bearing or roller bearing)
  U - under drive motor system
  1764 - sequential serial number, dates to late '40 or early '41 (the company started in 1935)

The "under drive" motor system has a transmission of sorts with two levers that poke out the front of the pedestal door. Each lever has two positions, which gives the lathe 4 speeds in direct drive plus 4 more in back gear drive, giving spindle speeds of 45 RPM to 1200 RPM. Most lathes of this vintage required the operator to move belts between pulleys to get different spindle speeds, so this was quite an improvement at the time, and still is even today. The below photo shows the two levers poking out from the lower left door for selecting gears.

I think most all Sheldon lathes of this vintage came with the quick change gear box, which is one feature I was looking for when I was perusing Craigslist for a fixer-upper. The newer Sheldons had a twin tumbler quick change gear box but the older ones like mine had one tumbler, plus a separate A-B-C lever and an up/down lever. The twin tumbler box made it simpler to change lead screw speeds, but there is something kind of neat about the way the older gearboxes worked too. I guess I'm just old fashioned.

The lathe came with both a 3-jaw and 4-jaw 6-inch chuck (3-jaw is a newer Bison, 4-jaw Cushman appears to be original to the lathe), plus a small faceplate. It was unfortunately missing the tool post so I just *had* to order a nice quick change tool post on eBay last week.

The first major project on the new lathe was to fix the broken reversing lever. It had been broken at one point and brazed, but the repair had broken again. So a couple days ago I cleaned off the old braze material and wire-wheeled it to get the grunge off. Then off to the garage to do some brazing:

The braze job doesn't look much different than the previous photo I showed of the broken piece, but trust me, the gears are all lined up and meshing as they should now. At this point I was able to try the gears out and much to my surprise, the lead screw worked as it should and the carriage and cross slide moved all on their own when I engaged the power shaft clutch.

Then last night I used the other lathe to whittle out a new compound rest bolt to replace the broken one. The new one is on the right, with an original bolt on the left and the poor mangled one on the bottom of the photo:

My new quick change tool post arrived day before yesterday also, so I got that mounted on the compound rest last night. Nothing could stop me now from making chips:

I still have to figure out what's going on with the half nut lever and the tailstock threads, but at least now I know I have a very cool 76-year-old lathe that still has life in it.