Member postings for old mart

I had a problem recently with a bore being slightly tapered when using the quill of the round column mill. It has 5" of movement and very little wear, but still the taper was a nuisance. The Tom Senior light vertical has only 2 1/2" of quill travel, but also has a knee which makes up for that. I posted a thread on the subject earlier this year. You can use either depending on the hole depth, but if using the quill, have the clamp slightly done up to tighten up the movement somewhat.

I believe that my radio controlled clocks get their signals from Germany.

With a clock that size, you could use a quartz movement powered by a larger cell than an AA type, and it would run for several years.

It's a good thing for our locality, as in Weston Super Mare, there are thousands of new homes being built but no jobs locally for the prospective buyers. Millions already have been spent on a new roundabout near the entrance to the defunct munitions factory which was built during the second world war, and it would have been a complete waste of taxpayers money if the factory were built elsewhere. There is already a rail link directly to the site and the M5 junction is only about a mile from the factory site.

I would certainly reccommend making the hole as near as possible to the finished size first. A drill could be used to get to 1/2" if you have one, or smaller end mills. Several stages would work fine, but as already mentioned, the hole might be bigger than the 9/16" expected by a small ammount depending on how sharp the last cutter is. Precision holes are normally produced by reaming or boring the last bit.

The start bore should read 0.591", not 0.491" I have threaded the nut, but have yet to match the leadscrew to it. Removing the job from the lathe part way through may seem a bad idea when threading, but as long as backlash in the drive chain is taken out first, it is easy to pick up the thread. The nut was threaded using a left hand tool with the spindle in reverse.

Your spindle seems to be plain bearing at the front and roller/ball bearing at the back, which has a bit of both of the spindles in Lathes UK website. The manuals do not normally give directions for dismantling, I bought the Model A manual and parts list with drawings, but had to find out the hard way how to take the lathe apart. After a couple of mods to make things easier, and some dedicated tools, I can strip out the spindle in 15 minutes.

What size is the spindle nose, hopefully 1 3/4" x 8W, unless yours is only for collets?

It seems that you have a variation to the design of the two spindles illustrated in the Lathes UK website. Not surprising with this model lathe.

 I used to be a member of a Smart & Brown group, but Yahoo killed all the groups off a few years ago.

Edited By old mart on 14/07/2023 18:21:47

The atlas cross slide has been replaced with a better design and now has 0.001" backlash. However, the top slide is not great and I cannot use the unused part of the 1/2 X 10 ACME leadscrew because it is LH and top slides use RH. Making a 1/2 x 10 ACME nut would cost at least £42 for the tap, so I will be making a replaccement leadscrew and nut tomorrow on the Smart & Brown model A. There is a problem with the thread size, namely the core diameter of the nut which would have to be 0.3" for a 10 tpi thread. That means that to singlepoint, the tooling would have to be very slender, even if an insert was silver soldered into a Densimet (tungsten sintered alloy) shaft. After checking the clearances for leadscrew and nut, I decided on an easier option. When making thread on a lathe, they can be any size you want, the threads only have to fit together. I decided on an 0.7" leadscrew which would make tooling much easier to make. There was a glitch when I found that the S & B was turning a taper between the chuck and the tailstock live centre. My new Indian test bar between centres was needed to re align the tailstock to 0.0005" in 12". And there is no change over the full tailstock stroke. There is zero dti movement when the bar is rotated between centres at either end and in the middle, I'm very pleased with it. After correcting the lathe, I ended up with a shaft of 0.691" which will do fine. The core diameter will be about 0.491" which is much easier to thread.

The oil and filter should be changed every year, or 10000 miles whichever comes first. The engine has only one weakness, the camchain, and there is no way to tell how much travel there is left in the automatic adjuster. That engine was fitted to Vauxhalls and Suzuki cars as well as Fiat. The original 70hp engine is the easiest to work on, you can change the glow plugs without any bother, the two higher power engines needed the turbo removed first.

I have looked at the illustration of the plain bearing spindle and would think that the rings either side of each main bearing should be left alone like the model A. They are for adjusting the bronze bush to spindle clearance. The spindle should be stepped in diameter and can only be withdrawn to the right. There are two thin locking rings just to the right of the pulley which look like they are for adjusting the end float of the spindle to zero against the thrust ball race at the right end. They will probably have to be unscrewed to the left. It is not clear just how the pulley drives the spindle, so you might have to remove the screws which hold the keys. There is a mention of the drive from the pulley to the spindle being through a peg.

Edited By old mart on 13/07/2023 17:19:31

You may find some clues on the Lathes UK website, there are some diagrams of the Model L spindle assembly. They sell a data pack with lots of info on the series.

**LINK**

Edited By old mart on 12/07/2023 19:21:26

To get you going for now, the material could be glued and a right angle reinforcing strap fixed to the corner with screws. The part would be easy to make in aluminium with a bush for the shaft, so a drawing should be made while it is off the lathe.

It has potential, but the difficulty will be with the emmissions.

I bought a box of 1/16" parallels in about ten widths, probably made in India which are good, but have only rarely needed to use them in the five years since they were bought. They seem to be made from blued spring steel.

Edited By old mart on 10/07/2023 20:16:48

Some lathes had herringbone gears in the gear head, a very expensive way to get smooth running. Common in ships to do away with end forces while getting the smoothest drives.

Welcome to the forum, Nick, I have looked in vain for the Super mill 10, but from the average of the Elliots, the table should take up to 50 kilos easily.

It might be easier to make that part as a complete disc on a lathe and then cut out the part needed.

If you don't already have a Super 7 manual, it would be worth while getting one from either Myford or Lathes UK.

Funny coincedence that this subject should come up at this exact time. I had a job up on the rotary table and after milling out the recesses at 180 degrees from one another, I decided to increase part of the existing bore using a milling cutter and the RT rather than sticking it on the lathe. The increased part was from 1.6" diameter to 1.7" diameter and about 1/2" deep. I used a 12mm endmill and simply took a small cut into the diameter and rotated the work one full turn. This was repeated about 3 times to arrive at the finished size and the finish in aircraft aluminium was excellent. Aircraft aluminium, I hear you say, well it was part of a Wessex gearbox that I was butchering to make part of an oleo leg support. We support oleo legs at the museum rather than relying on the nitrogen pressure used when flying. This dates back to an accident years ago when somebody blew the bottom off a leg and also because any leaks will result in an exibit leaning over. The supports will be hidden under the leg gaiters. The helicopter in question is the Queens Flight Whirlwind at the Helicopter Museum, currently being worked on. The Queen was not allowed to fly in it as it only has one engine, but I believe that both Prince Phillip and Prince Charles both piloted it.

Edited By old mart on 09/07/2023 19:37:55

Edited By old mart on 09/07/2023 19:38:18