Member postings for Graham Wharton

Why spend more on EP gearbox oils, when cheaper hydraulic oils are much better for your machine, your hands, and much cheaper.

Also why use engine oil with its nasty detergents which is designed to keep contaminants in suspension to be filtered out by the car engine oil filter (which all of your lathes have.... right?), when what you really want in a lathe is contaminants to sink to the bottom.

Lube Finder sell a large range of oils in 1L bottles.

Edited By Graham Wharton on 16/05/2020 11:50:03

Just be aware that some oil additives can corrode brass, bronze and copper. Thats why i would use an oil designed for machines where yellow metals are abundant not one designed for modern engines/gearboxes where yellow metals are no seen as much. I dont understand why people use engine/gearbox oils with all the nasty additives and detergents when slideway oils are readily available and no more expensive.

Graham

Edited By Graham Wharton on 02/06/2019 21:34:12

Hi John, It is common practice at my workplace to use A2 grade bolts with A4 grade nuts. Whilst it didn't eliminate it completely, it reduced the amount of galling experienced when compared to using the same grade of nut and bolt.

Having a large size bolt such as an M10 or an M12 gall on an its nut resulted in an interface that could only be free'd using a hacksaw. Quite often the galling would happen during the loose "winding up" stage as opposed to the "tightening" stage. It would certainly spoil your afternoon if it happened on an assembly job.

Graham

Beware of using any old gearbox oil containing EP additives. Many of them are known to attack and corrode yellow metals such as bronze, brass and copper which are commonly found in lathe gearboxes.

Shell Vitrea, and its replacement Shell Morlina is a plain mineral oil specifically formulated for applications that DO NOT require EP additives and is therefore safe for use on yellow metals.

Graham

And for further info, Here is a picture of the two sizes of oil windows found on the L6.

The one of the left is the DW4064/A which is 7/8" O/D. I believe this is the one that is used on the M250, although the manual seems to misprint the part number for the oil window in the saddle.

The one of the right is the DW4062/A which is 1-1/2" O/D

Hope this helps

Graham

Ive got new oil windows waiting to go into my Harrison L6 but havent got round to doing it yet. As fsr as I am aware they are just push fit. I read an article that suggested if the window is plastic, you can heat up the end of a screwdriver/pry bar and push it through the plastic window from the front at an angle so that the end of the screwdriver just protrudes through one of the oil windows rear openings, wait for the plastic to reharden and then pry them out. Feels like a "point of no return" job, but without access to the rear, there really is no other option other than to "dig" them out. I'm sure if you get the screwdriver at the right angle, and use something like a small wooden block as a fulcrum they should pop out ok (famous last words)

Graham

Hi Tim,

Welcome to the forum. I'm sure you'll find yourself at home here. There is a wealth of knowledge waiting to be tapped into.

I'm in Weymouth by the way, so if you ever need help in person, help shifting something heavy, or need a loan of any tooling etc to get you started then give me a shout. I have a Fobco Star pillar drill, a Union T&C grinder, a round column chineese mill, a Tom Senior Junior Mill, a Harrison L6 Lathe and an Axminster bandsaw.

Graham

And to avoid any further confusion, the correct issue date is printed at the bottom of Page 3...... Doh!!

Graham

Ive used Silent Stainless before without problems, although that was back in 2013.

Their website doesn't have much info, and when I ordered in 2013 you had to fill in a pdf form and send it back and arrange payment manually by cheque or paypal. They had a really good selection of stainless BA fasteners when i ordered (and BSW/F UNC/F) and everything came quickly and was as described.

You can get in touch with the owner at [email protected] if you are struggling elsewhere.

Another company to try is Stig Fasteners. They have online ordering at http://www.a2stainless.co.uk/ and I have used them on multiple occasions without problems.

Graham Wharton

Edited By Graham Wharton on 01/02/2017 10:23:00

Yeah, you can screwcut the internal thread on your lathe, but you will need to grind up a suitable cutting bit to get inside the bore (or commercial internal cutting tools are available).

You can also get taps.

You can calculate the thread pitch. Look at the handwheel and read off the scale how many thou are in one full rotation. On my later L6 it is 100 thou per revolution, which equates to 10TPI. The thread will be a left hand thread. You will have to measure the outside diameter of the screw to get the OD of the thread. Thread form will most likely be ACME.

You can get 3/8", 1/2", 7/16", 5/8" 10TPI Left Hand ACME taps on ebay for around the £20 mark, although it will be pretty hard going cutting a 5/8" x 10TPI thread in brass in one pass so people would normally rough it out on the lathe using whatever tooling they had first, and then push the tap through as a final pass to finish to size and thread form.

Graham

GandM Tools stock some spares for Harrison lathes. **LINK**

They have a couple of tailstock nuts listed on ebay but they are for the L15 not the L6. It might be worth giving them a call to see if they can get hold of one for you.

The alternative is that the nut and screw are both perfect items for you to make on your new lathe

Cheers

Graham

Nice work James, I'm sure that will get you up and running quickly. Those dual stage units look quite capable.

Graham

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Alan,

Did you include a transformer to step the voltage up to 415, if so do you know of a cheap source. I have a half built rotary phase converter in my workshop and need a transformer for it.

Graham

Also note that both the 3hp static and rotary converters from transwave have a maximum single motor rating of 2hp.

You would need to buy the 4hp one, which supports individual motors up to 3hp with a max total draw of 4hp.

Another thing to be aware of is you would need a 16A supply with a type C MCB fitted to avoid nuisance trips. Neither the 3hp or 4hp converter will run from a 13A socket. The 4hp rotary converter requires a 25A supply.

Graham

Yes, by the looks of it the transwave static converters would do what you need to do (as would the rotary converters). They even support operating multiple motors at the same time, providing you start the largest motor first, then start the smaller motor second.

Static converters also require you to "tune" the output depending on load. The transwave units have a multi position switch on the unit that you can switch in and out additional capacitance to balance out the 3 phases. I have no experience on how much of a pain it is to do.

Both static and rotary phase converters would allow you to just stick a standard three phase plug on the end of the lathe power lead and plug into the transwave box without modifying anything inside the lathe. Both types output 415VAC three phase from a 240VAC single phase input. Motors should be configured for 415VAC i.e no need to convert any to delta 240VAC.

The downside of a static converter is that your lathe will probably be a bit down on power. The static converters will only run your motor at somewhere between 60 and 80% power, whereas a rotary phase converter will generate full power in your motor.

Do some googling on static vs rotary phase converters for a million different opinions of which tyope is best and where.

Graham

OK, I'm not sure what the heck that wiring is inside the suds pump. Is there a wiring diagram stuck to the back of the lid that shows you how to rewire it to 220 Delta?

Transwave or Drives direct are two places that can provide you the inverters/converters.

Give drives direct a call and see what they recommend.

You could get a 5hp (ish) rotary phase converter that takes a single phase 240V input and generates 3 phase 415VAC. These are noisy (they have an idler motor that runs continuously inside the converter to generate the power) and expensive (somewhere between 500 and 1000 notes). These will power any number of 3 phase devices you have simultaneously and you wouldnt need to modify any of your motors or lathe wiring. Just leave them as 415VAC star. This is the closest equivalent of having a three phase supply installed from your electricity supplier.

You could also get digital inverters that generate 415VAC three phase which would mean that you dont need to alter your motors, but these are equally as expensive, a 3hp version costing well over 500 notes and still require direct connection to the lathe motor and bypassing the lathe controls.

I am in no way an expert in this area, best to call drives direct me thinks. They will know all of the options.

Graham

Andy,

Yeah, If you're pockets are deep enough, then a rotary phase converter that can output true 3 phase 415/440VAC from a single phase 220/240VAC input is the best solution all round.

Graham

Yeahh, thats a dual voltage suds pump so you can easily wire it for delta operation. If you pop the 3 screws the lid should come off to expose the terminals. You should see 6 terminals. It will be configured as per the bottom right diagram below with links running across the top 3 terminals. The links need changing to represent the bottom left diagram, hopefully there is a spare link in there as you need 3 links for delta and only 2 for star. L1, L2 and L3 are the three phase inputs coming from your inverter.

You will need to do some more work if you want to run it from single phase 220V instead of inverter 3 phase 220V, which will either be to dury rig some capacitors up to bodge up the remaining phases, or run from an inverter.

For your information, I run both my main lathe motor (star point dug out and converterted to delta) and my suds pump motor (configured for delta) from a single inverter without any issues. The only thing I don't do is turn on/off the suds pump motor while the lathe/inverter is running. i.e I turn the suds pump switch on before I start the lathe/inverter and switch the suds pump switch off after ive stopped the lathe/inverter.

Graham