Member postings for CHRISTOPHER MILLS 1

Roger,

I sincerely hope you are not going to snuff it soon, so your wife will not have the problem of disposal.

I can give her a few names to approach, who might drag it out for her!!

Can I be really rude, and ask what went paid for your DSG?

It is really interesting, watching prices of old lathes on eBay.

There are two prices, asking prices of 'dreamers' trying to off-load, and the reality: At what prices do lathes actually change hands.

Then there is the appalling 'scrap value ' price. Ghastly.

My CovMac would have been scrapped without my commitment. Nobody else wanted it.

But knowing what I know now, I would have had it for half the price I paid - its scrap value plus just a little bit. Rather than my romantic price - of an antique I really wanted.

Best.

Chris.

Roger,

Many thanks - is the face plate held on a piece of bar, so that you can rotate it? Would it be possible for us to see some detailing from its reverse side?

Using the eye on mine to mount a crane seems a great idea

Your DSG is a real beauty - how old? It looks in fabulous condition.

It makes the dear, old CovMac seem of positively modest proportions.

Best wishes. Chris.

Thanks Gents - So could it have been that the big face plate might also have been used flat as a working, holding and measuring surface?

Ian, Many thanks for that - I can certainly see two men struggling with this titan.

With the big plate, came what seems to be a crude form of dividing head. This is probably beyond restoration, for it has been used, for many years, as a door stop in the yard, and is very heavily rusted up. It appears, as Bob Minchin pointed out to me, to take a gear wheel, and uses the teeth on the gear wheel to do the dividing. It is screwed to fit into the centre of the big face plate wheel. Beyond that, I do not know too much - it looks a bit home made.

24 Inch CovMac Face Plate - Here is a front face view of the 24 inch face plate, of which I have earlier posted the reverse side.

It does not look as big as it really is, here, but, I promise you all, this thing is truly mighty. It has a bolt jammed in one of the slots, suggesting that it was actually used for a job, once.

When the restoration of the lathe is complete, I would like to mount this plate, once, for a photograph - but I cannot see me ever actually using it. I am really looking forward to cleaning it up. It has some surface rust, but nothing too bad.

CovMac Engineers - Here are Martin Whittle, on the left, and Bob Minchin, CovMac engineers. I need to use a crane when I am working, but they can lift the bed with one finger each. It is all in the training. I would have been a bit lost without these highly trained gentlemen.

Here is the bed before being lifted - just bare bones left, bed and headstock, after all removals. The compound slide came off just after this picture was taken. It was beyond my comprehension how that came off. The visuals do not fully convey just how heavy it all is, and how much extreme care must be taken in shifting very heavy pieces of metal.

Now the 13" Geared head CovMac is under a tarpaulin and awaiting a final lift, tomorrow morning.

I am off buying strong tie-down ratchet straps, for give this CovMac bed an inch, and she will roll over sideways.

The upper little brass plaque on the tailstock end bed is the War Office's ownership label and the lathe's serial number.

Edited By CHRISTOPHER MILLS 1 on 03/12/2014 09:25:26

Edited By CHRISTOPHER MILLS 1 on 03/12/2014 09:30:23

CovMac Final Move Due Tomorrow - Yesterday, we got the lathe bed onto the pallet, and, after it was well lashed down, (even the bed alone is very top heavy - and it still has carriage and apron on) the assembly works well - it moves a little like pushing a large motorcycle. We did not even need plywood boards, once free from the shed; rubber faced wheels coped very well with roughish concrete.

It is now out of the shed, covered by a tarpaulin, waiting to be lifted tomorrow. Incidentally, we raised the main bed on only the 1/2 ton crane setting, for extra jib extension, and it was just fine - there must be a built in margin of safety to it, for I am sure the bed weighs well over that.

Martin Whittle was again a superb help, and with his friend Bob Minchin, I was in very good company of engineers yesterday. Aspects of my pallet design needed improvement. Stability is all important with this kind of weight.

We got the compound slide assembly off, too; that needed occult knowledge, and its tool-post was right in the way.

Told by Brian Wood to take a very good look around the shed for small lathe parts which might have been missed, I found the 24 inch face-plate!

In original dark grey CovMac paint, it is an absolute monster. It takes two men just to lift it, and getting it onto the lathe must have been a real challenge - if it was, indeed, ever used.

I had missed it on earlier visits, because it was lying horizontal, about 18 inches off the ground under a bench, and looked every inch like a coffee table top. It was only yesterday I spotted the key-ways, and hauled it out.

Will get some "big-lift" pictures tomorrow. We did nothing spectacular yesterday, but tomorrow it has to go reasonably high to get it onto the flat-bed truck.

Here is the custom-built pallet for the CovMac bed - it is upside down here - the two 2x3 inch wooden frames either side are needed below to allow the crane to go in underneath to drop the bed on. Under these two frames will be two stout plywood boards, with four castor wheels each. The castor wheels, about 4 inches in diameter, are rubber faced, and hopefully they will run better than the crane's steel wheels. The pallet is about 85 inches by 28.

The pallet has no lifting duties, it is just for the bed to sit on. The wheels are rated at 600 KG per four - so we are running them only to about 50% weight capacity. I really do not want one collapsing on me.

The pallet is courtesy of British Gypsum, a cut down 8 x 4 plasterboard pallet. I have reinforced it everywhere I think it is needed. I spoilt my neighbours' Sunday by building it.

After sleeping on it all, I have decided I am four-square with Phil - do it - before you get too old to do it.

But, I will do it carefully, and will not actually fire up the EE motor until we have forum consensus.

I will open it up, clean and test it, and post photographs of its innards. Then we can decide how I actually fire it up.

I will also consult with my next door neighbour, the venerable Professor Jayantilal Kotecha, electronics engineer (ret'd) trained in Calcutta, Madras and Nairobi - coming up for his 80th birthday, shortly.

Apparently, there is nothing electrical, and nothing with a motor, that he can't get going!

Today, I am building the super pallet for the CovMac bed.

Phil,

I am absolutely at one with you on keeping the originals.

Aside of that, I began the day thinking I was beginning to understand the motor, but am back well behind square one tonight.

Much more discussion is needed before I fire up the EE. I will take it apart and clean it all out, etc. I will not fire it up, before we have full forum agreement.

I neither wish to spoil this lovely old motor, nor fry myself.

My mind is spinning faster tonight than the motors!!

Architecturally, yours is even more interesting, I feel, than mine. It looks odder, and quirkier.

Perhaps the secret is in the insulation, or as Brian has suggested tonight, in the rubbers!!

Mine's a half, if you must.

I have crawled right back under my stone, to the sheer embarrassment of it all!

Final CovMac Move - I now have a replacement driving licence, and bed, drip-tray and headstock will be moved this week. I hope to get a flatbed 3.5 ton truck, with a tail lift, which will make the job a bit easier. I am building a custom pallet, just over 7 feet long, with two four wheeled dollies. I will need to run it over plywood to get it out to the road - there is some lumpy concrete, and a three inch step to be negotiated. Using the bar through the eye, I am going to bolt it down using twin piles of wood either side. I do not want it tipping over, and it is still quite a top-heavy piece of kit. I will take any advice offered upon shackling the pallet down.

English Electric 3 HP Single Phase Induction Motor

I feel that I now know enough to test run the motor, too - I have carefully taken a lot of advice on this, because I fear electricity, and want no mishaps. The motor is a huge, handsome lump, built concurrently to the lathe (it is original - it has the dark grey CovMac colour underneath a green repaint, and the motor plate has only ever had the one bolted to it.) As a museum project, I am sticking with this motor, even if it needs a re-wind. I will pay if I have to - junking this motor is not an option for an historian. We have our burdens. It runs at 1450 rpm. As previously posted, the weight in this motor is almost unbelievable. I could neither put it in, nor take it out, of my car alone.

I have been advised to thoroughly dry it out, and clean it as far as I can without either dismantling it, or getting it wet. Then I will re-wire it and run it through its Stayrite starting box. Have been advised to run it on a ring main, with a suitable MCB protecting it. I understand now how to apply a mega tester, to check insulation on the case to the motor; by testing each terminal against the case. I quite love the brass English Electric label - let's hope it makes the lathe go like a Lightning!

The Stayrite box looks to be 1960s or 1970s technology - Does anybody know how the motor would have been started and run, originally, in the 1940s?

I imagine this thing might eat electricity? Or, being so big, could it even be economical? Clearly, I will not be putting it to any huge strains. Is there a modern equivalent of "Shell RB"?

Will there be a big fan in the casing?

Both its old pulleys are pretty knackered - presumably I can still buy replacement rubber pulleys? A source of these would be greatly appreciated. I have kept originals for dimensioning.

I will film the first firing up of this motor! We should keep that record.

The starting capacitor is hiding in the box - it is lower right, beneath a shield of its own. Luckily, despite rather thoughtlessly snipping off five red cables, without recording them, when I opened the motor's terminal junction box, the previous owner had written me a wiring diagram which corresponded exactly with markings in the Stayrite box. It was as if he was predicting my naivety. I was grateful, after being rightly called a dummy of the first order for doing the thoughtless snipping.

Many thanks for everything so far, gentlemen. I know you will be wishing me luck this week. I promise you a picture of the main lathe bed in the air. 

Edited By CHRISTOPHER MILLS 1 on 29/11/2014 17:53:58

Edited By CHRISTOPHER MILLS 1 on 29/11/2014 17:55:49

Edited By CHRISTOPHER MILLS 1 on 29/11/2014 17:59:32

Edited By CHRISTOPHER MILLS 1 on 29/11/2014 18:00:38

Neil's guess on my shackle is correct - they are of 1/2 inch bar - so this increases the range and versatility of the crane exponentially. I have three of these - two are virtually unused.

Brian is right in that they won't go through the bolt hole on the hoist, but I can use them in conjunction with the hook, and I think a shorter length of chain.

I will have the confidence to use them now, and I had't before today - I had cleaned them up, ready for something.

Here is a small selection of the goodies which came with the CovMac - Much of this looks a bit rusted, but it is all cleaning up splendidly. It included five chucks and three big face plates, a big centre steady, a six inch Record engineers' vice, and enough cutting tools to last me a lifetime. Altogether, I filled three car loads with stuff. The spoked wheel in the picture is the metric change wheel, of 127 teeth - it has cleaned up wonderfully. That one begins my metric change wheel set - there were about 24 metric change wheels offered originally. On the left in the background can be seen a lapping plate. In the toolbox in the foreground is one of the big shackles, which I would use if I knew its weight rating, but it looks pretty hefty. 

Edited By CHRISTOPHER MILLS 1 on 29/11/2014 08:14:14

CovMac Update - The final lift, of bed, headstock and drip tray is due for some time this next week - I am just awaiting a replacement driving licence, and will hire a flat bed 3.5 ton truck, to move the headstock, bed and drip tray.

Here is what remains in the shed at Totton. All I can say, with this first phase, the move, almost complete, is that there is an awful lot to a big lathe, and it is all tremendously heavy stuff - even individual pieces, the smaller items, like tailstock and back guard, need real effort and concentration to lift and shift about. There are twin items, which can only be moved about by two men together - the motor and the headstock plinth with motor plate. The motor alone, it is hard to accurately estimate these things, must be over 220 lbs in weight. The tailstock is likely over 120 lbs. In a way, I will miss this old shed at Totton - it has been fun, taking into ownership CovMac Serial Number 1097G. A War Office owned machine, she likely spend the first 6 years of her life assisting in the war effort against Hitler's Germany, making munitions, perhaps in one of the Royal Ordnance factories. As Phil Whitley said, I am lucky enough to be in the position of preserving a piece of our engineering heritage - That this wonderful machine very nearly went to the scrapyard, but did not. We still have it for the future.

Above shows the headstock end of the bed, and the little red oxide painted cavern where the screw-cutting gearbox sat. You can see locating dowels which helped support the case. The 'eye' hole which CovMac designers thoughtfully put through the bed, and its lifting bar, was worth its weight in gold when raising the bed. This is what we have left, and which I will move, hopefully, this coming week, or so. She will be home for Christmas - none of the wars were over for Christmas, but this move, at long last, will be:

Edited By CHRISTOPHER MILLS 1 on 29/11/2014 08:07:26

CovMac Screw-Cutting Gearbox - I have decided to remove the screw-cutting box, early, for three reasons:

1) To give me a winter project, and for the gearbox to act as a pilot for the whole job of restoration.

2) Cautions were expressed about lifting and transit, as to protecting lead-screw and power feed bar, and we thought it better to attempt their removal. (Wisdom from Phil Whitley and Brian Wood).

3) A very generous offer of help on the day from Martin Whittle, who only lives 8 miles or so from Totton, where the bulk of the lathe still lives.

This third was very fortuitous, for I would not have managed gearbox removal alone - Martin was the star of the day, and he even managed to christen his 3/4 inch socket set. I learned so much from him, hands-on, to add to the distance learning I have received from other members of this forum. We safely removed screw-cutting box, lead-screw and power bar.

The gearbox is relatively simple - an input shaft, tumbler gear shaft, with seven tumbler wheels, and an output shaft with an A & B speed setting. Altogether it gives 14 changes of thread pitch without change wheels. Although this was relatively restricted, even by standards of the 1940s, particularly American lathes, a full set of change wheels boosted this to 42, in imperial, and another set was offered to make a metric transition. As a museum project, I might aim to restore all change-wheels, in time - when I own a milling machine - medium term future. Gears are slected using chunky cylindrical knobs, with powerful springs within, and a pin is retracted and replaced into the casing on each change. They have a positive feel to the. The A B lever was jammed when I got the lathe, but freed off reasonably easily, using emery cloth to grip, and water-pump pliers.

Here are four pics of the box - three with it still pretty filthy, inside and out, and a bit cleaner. So far, with painted areas, I am having great success with an initial bath of Nitromors, washed with detergent and hot water, and dried off, then a spray application of Mr. Muscle oven cleaner, again washed and heat dried. The two work very well in tandem. Of the two, the Mr. Muscle is by far the more toxic, and really must not be breathed in. It is not nice. The CovMac, being wartime produced, never had any strong enamel paint, and its two coats of paint (originally a dark grey, over-painted later in a lighter battleship grey) are pretty crumbly, not difficult to see off. Internals, I have bathed with a mix of 95% white spirit, 5% engine oil. That seems to work well enough, and is relatively cheap.

The brass label has full spindle speed, screw-cutting and sliding and facing values. The gearbox is of total loss design, yet with a sump plate and drain bolt. The box has a copious number of little oiler cups, some missing their top caps, which have a patent number on them. Luckily, we can still buy these little oilers, new. I need a good number, as they appear all over the CovMac.

Once clean, it was immediately apparent that there is serious damage to a number of tumbler wheel teeth, and we need a rebuild. At least five out of seven wheels have serious chips, and their gears mesh in pretty bad tempered, graunchy fashion. An engineer as educated and experienced as Brian Wood has no real idea of what might have caused such damage - apart, perhaps, from one of the Union chucks, into which somebody once drove a cutting tool, and tore away 25% of the inner face. It would be interesting if anybody can come up with any other answer. All suggestions will be entertained. I found nothing in the box to prove cause of such damage, just a medium level of swarf. The other five wheels in the box, are in reasonable, general shape. The only other item of note, on first appraisal, was an amount of lateral slop in the output shaft, but its teeth are the best in the box. The blue marks on teeth in the cleaned-up picture are my black felt tipped pen, where I was trying to do a wheel count. It is not easy to count them in situ. All I am sure of, until the full strip-down is completed, is that the biggest tumbler wheel has 44 teeth. I am [pleasantly surprised by the simplicity of this gearbox- this is fortuitous, since, being a beginner, simple is all I need at this stage of my learning curve - it is steep, but, with a bit of help, I am enjoying every minute of it.

Thanks Dave - I have inherited a few heavy duty looking shackles with the lathe, but they are not weight rated, not marked on them, so I have been a little bit reluctant to use them - Can I judge just by their dimensions? They are pretty solid items, with stout screw-pins.

Roger,

Thanks for that - the price of these cranes has since risen to over £145. They are very well made, and nicely finished, too.

Will post some gearbox pictures, shortly. Unfortunately, the screw cutting gearbox needs a rebuild, as it has a lot of damage, chips to the tumbler teeth, but we have that in hand. I have almost finisihed stripping it, just one stubborn pin to drill out, and she is apart.

CovMac Progress - Sorry to have been so long winded with all of this, but the final move of the lathe should take place next week. Here are a few photographs of the raising of the headstock, using a 2 tonne rate engine hoist I bought on eBay for £117. The crane is absolutely fabulous in use, barring its steel wheels, which are terrible over uneven concrete. The power, and the overall balance in the crane is really confidence inspiring. It lifted the head like a piece of angel cake. It is a little limited in its hook capacity - it will only take two lifting sling loops. Apart from those caveats, the crane is highly recommended. It is smooth in action, with its 8 tonne bottle jack, and highly predictable in lowering. We had to pull and drag the hoist quite roughly, to reposition the headstock on its pallet, and never was its

overall balance a worry. I have been on a tight budget for this project, and the cost of this crane, at £117, really saved the day. Since these pictures, Martin Whittle came down with me, and we removed the screw-cutting gearbox. Will post a few pictures of the gearbox, shortly. It was a privilege to work with Martin on the day. I learned a lot. All that remains to be moved is now the bed, headstock and carriage.

Phil,

Thanks.

There is a clear picture of my CovMac's motor on page four of this forum thread. It does have a ventilation grill, and I hope there are no dead mice in it. There will be spiders.

I do not much fancy electrocution, so the motor's integrity is of interest to me.

In terms of bringing it up to modern safety standards, I do not want to have to bolt anything obviously 21st Century to the lathe, to spoil its antique looks, but I will want it 100% + guaranteed safe to use.

I shall save the Startrite box on the wall, but that will just be as a souvenir?

Chris.