Member postings for Malcolm Wright

Hi, thanks for the reply to a recent post. The Tom Senior with all its bits is now all set up in the new workshop. The verticle "S" head all clocked as is the milling vice, so ready for work. As my respondant wrote" the column is the heavy bit", must be 3- 4 cwt. The base was inscribed inside "if you are reading this the worst is behind you!"

My new problem is the Alexander engraving machine (again I have the manual) It seems impossible to remove the working table. Although what I am seeing means there was no way to assemble it - both ends of the feedscrew have turned shoulders on the outside of the feedscrew bearing plates. The feedscrew handle is reversible end for end. On the inside of the bearing at one end are two C spanner nuts for adjusting the backlash of the screw. It is a real puzzle how it was put onto the machine, and obviously how to get it off. The problem iis one of mass. THis is too heavy to move on the industrial sack truck. I have tried and I think it will be a trip to A and E! Does anybody know how to get the table off an Alexander engraving machine????

Hi, writing the above was a good idea, after tea I popped across to the workshop and I remembered. Just like the knee, you have to take off the cross slide gib strip. Then it is easy, out pops the table drive shaft as you lift the slide to clear the cross slide nut sitting in its pocket within the knee. Job done - once tea fuelled the old grey cells work eventually! Thanks to anybody who was considering a reply.

Hi, 30 years after moving the Senior Mill into the workshop it now has to move into a new one. I am having trouble. With the years passing the need to minimise the weight of lifts has increased. I have got the motor and the the vertical head off. I have got the table off and I do remember how to take the knee and column off. However I cannot remember how I managed to detach the cross slide from the flexible shaft to the column mounted gearbox. The slide with its feedscrew removed slides back and forth but stops just short of pulling off. It is retained by the keyed sliding part of the feed drive not coming out of its socketed shaft from the gearbox. All the visible pins in the construction are immovable even after having been heated. There is only so hard I am will to hit these pins with a pin drift and they have been all tried that hard. Why won't the keyed shaft pull right out of its socket? I do have the original manual and have studied the cut away drawings and parts list. What am I not seeing, where am I being an idiot?

Hi, well I found that Mr Oh Chuff's Emcomat 17 and mine were brothers in a Welsh Technical College years ago. The interesting technical point that has become clear that my two days spent getting the very crooked tailstock co-axial with the lathe centre line were not wasted and having achieved alignment without the parts manual were pure fluke. Can you believe it but Emco offer two tailstocks for this type of lathe? One is a conventional set over tailstock with the front and rear set bolts and a clamping bolt for the set over on the face of the tailstock casting. The other looks identical It has the set screws front and rear, no clamp bolt on the face and on the back face of the tailstock two other setscrews. This tailstock cannot be set over, alas in the past somebody thought it could be and had never reset the misaligned barrel. I found by chance, having given up on what I thought were the adjustment set screws that it was the rear face pair of screws the caused the barrel to swing on the sliding part of the tailstock. It took a lot of time to get it right with the test bar. Why would a lathe not have a set over tailstock as standard? Is it to force the owner to buy a taper turning accessory? I would post the two parts diagrams for the tailstocks but I fear it would be a copyright breach. Are there other lathes with alternative tailstocks one that can be set over the other being adjustable (by mistake) in a totally useless way?

Hi, yesterday I found on this site that "OH CHUFF!" has owned one of these lathes since 2013. I became the owner of a 17S at the end of 2014 and recently having sourced a rotary converter for it and a prexisting Lathe in the workshop finally got the cable supply to workshop uprated in the late Summer. I am hoping that Oh Chuff will be in contact and any others out there that have one of this series of Lathes 14, 17 and 20 S and D. I would be interested to hear their experience of using this machine. As yet having little time I have only been able to check it works and start to adjust the jibs and feedscrews to get it something like I feel it should be. It came well tooled and subsequently I have got a copy of the EMCO manual for the lathe that has allowed most of the problems to be ironed out. Specalist Machine Tools near Peterborough have be very good giving me photocopies of some pages of the Service Manual. THis has been a great help in finding out how it is assembled. Next time I will post a photo, if I can and say a bit about why I got it. All the best!

Hi, does anybody know who might supply an unfinished backplate for a Myford lever operated collet chuck? Regards, Malcolm