Member postings for Richard Kirkman 1

Herman, sorry if I didn't explain clearly, I mean to drill and ream down the shaft before I braze it, So it aligns. So the pin size is important as it will effect the fit

JasonB thank you for fixing the page.

Thanks for the message Mat, nice to hear someone else is here too. I have been on the colchester forum for a while, but only lurking. Your posts are looking very good so far!

Yes, it's gone the same for me, Howard.

Hopefully the next page will go back to normal. No idea why

I've been away in Hull for a little bit, but I'm back home now.

I'll sort the spring tomorrow. Do you have the measurements of your spring Herman?

Also, I need a bit of help.

I want to drill down the column of the leadscrew to help it align and provide some reinforcement, which can also be brazed in. I have a 17/64ths drill bit and a 9/32ths reamer, so I plan to drill down both parts with those.

However, I will then need a rod to go down it, since the lathe is out of action for actual turning, I can't make one fit myself. So the question/help is, what size rod should I buy for a 9/32ths reamed hole? Or perhaps the question is, will a 9/32th silver steel ground rod fit into a 9/32ths reamed hole?

I still have another week and a bit before my friend is free for me to go and braze, but the brazing rods and flux have arrived. So I have a week to drill and ream and fit whatever will go in nicely

Edited By Richard Kirkman 1 on 09/08/2020 20:07:08

So, onto the comments

Donovan, thank you. I would quite enjoy this as a job, but it takes me far too long for it to be profitable. Servicing would be difficult as I can't imagine anyone would post me their lathe. I'd like to see royal mail try to pick it up though, that would definitely break more than a few post officers backs. Either way, I do enjoy it so who knows what the future holds...

Phil, I'll have a look for the screw at the end of the shaft tomorrow. But, I don't want to paint it right now. I don't feel like I have the time to do a proper job. I want to do it once and perfectly. So, I will refrain and take it all to pieces again next summer. It seems much less daunting then since I know how to take it all to pieces and I'll know how the paint is to work with. Especially after these few parts I'm currently doing. Since I will be able to see if the finish is good enough from the spray gun, or if I need to invest in a spray gun and compressor. Parts can always be repainted, even if I take the time to try now. It's not wasted. I really enjoyed last weeks video, my Dad even watched bits over my shoulder since he was interested too, I'll get him hooked!


Herman, more blinging to come. I know my stuff when it comes to blinging, although I'm usually trying to bling hardened 01 tool steel in the shape of a knife... (turns out a lot more difficult to do)

The spring may be broken, but it has performed already and worked fine. Also with the years of abuse, perhaps a much stronger spring has been placed in your lathe when it should be weaker. We will never know. Unless I look at the manual...
I did not check the holes of the worm box for ovalness, but they seemed round to the eye. But I will measure them tomorrow. They seem round enough so I doubt that I will change them, but the measuring is always useful. I'm very happy you appreciate the bling. I will be blinging a few more handles as they look much nicer without the dings in. Mainly the apron handles since they're the most used. The handwheels can stay semi-polished since they are going to be well worn and show some character. Although who knows... I may bling at a later date! I hope the measurements are useful to you

All up to date now. Time for more painting and brazing, then even more reassembly, and finally some turning.

Anyway, back to cleaning. I was happily surprised how easily the whole assembly came to pieces

I started by cleaning a section just to see how easily the dirt came off, and I was happily surprised once again!

This shaft was held in with a set screw, which was easily removed with little effort

Then the next shaft was removed through a set screw that I thought was just an oiling hole for a bushing. Clearly not. This was very gunked up, but all clear now!

Here we have a few of the parts, still missing the handwheel shaft and the broken half nut, but as far as I'm concerned, a very simple apron. Only made less daunting through reading Hermans forum posts. So lots of appreciation there.

Then I popped out one of the tag holder pins and rotated the tag out of the way. This allowed me to go in and clean behind them since they had paint and gunk stuck, which meant they did not lie flat. More of a cosmetic issue. I bent them back flat and they look a little cleaner now, more like they're on the surface rather than having paint go up to them.

Then I removed the level/locking bar that stops the feed and screw cutting lever from being activated at the same time. So the machine does not pull its self to pieces. I have taken many pictures of the sizes below, since Hermans lathe was missing these parts. More to doccument them since Herman had a sketch of one that someone had made. Hopefully this helps someone somewhere someday!

I could almost have done with some of those hand garments too!

I did not measure the hole, but instead the shaft that goes through it. So it is always loose, so it is allowed to spin/turn

The thickness of the spacer is the only important feature, I am unsure if Herman knows of a spacer or something, but one is needed to put the bar at the right distance, and its thickness is as measured below. Fine tuning may be required (Pictures only represent half decent measurement, so take as you will)

Then, lucky me, I got to get the big calipers out. A lovely piece of equipment from a very lovely home. The men in Scarborough that I bought some tools from. I regretted not purchasing a few bits from them, so I asked if I could buy a few more and arrange a courier. This is weeks ago now, but I got the big vernier, slip gauge set and the larger depth micrometer. So It really came in handy here!

Overall length may not be critical, but it is good to see a full measurement.

Then, after cleaning all parts, I moved to reassembling everything

I figured out that the spacer that I made was slightly too thick, preventing the circlip from engaging properly. This is why the whole shaft came out when the new(original old) hand wheel got stuck and I gave it a yank. So I really had to take this all to pieces anyway. So, the spacer is now the correct thickness and the circlip fits in the slot very nicely. I also took good care to clean out the spaces where the wormbox fits in. This will provide better registration.

Edited By JasonB on 10/08/2020 10:58:42

Very long post ahead. But with good progress so I'll dive in

Started off by taking the Wormbox(thanks Herman) to pieces. I was a little scared by the spring, but it wasn't as strong as I thought it would be. So good news.

Absolutely filthy

Cleaned up the body

I decided that the lever at the bottom was very dinged up and not very nice to hold. And its about time I did some BLING. Got to show Herman how it's really done...

So I started off using a 600 grit belt on my belt sander, but using the unsupported belt section so it was slack and conformed to the shape. I used this to remove all the dings, then blended lots of surfaces.

Then I went to my standard green compound on a standard buffing kit wheel as a prepolish. This left a buffed surface, but not a nice shiny mirror surface like true bling should be

So I moved onto my proper buffing kit, starting with a Green 439T compound with a white close stitched polishing mop. If anyone wants a good source of polishing and bits, I find The Polishing Shop To be extremely useful for all my abrasive needs

From there I moved to a Blue P164 Compound with a Loose G quality mop

And finally, to finish it off, I went to a P175 compound with a Loose WDR quality mop.

So you tell me Herman. Do I BLING?

It took me possibly 20 mins, so not too bad, and I'm very happy with how it turned out. I may be tempted to do a few more handles.

So I stuck it all back together. I spun the little spun plug 90 degrees so that its using the less worn area now. It's now very clean, and I oiled everything

Then onto the rest, lots more cleaning. I have made more progress, but I'll finish the update later

Result!

After an hour of fiddling, one good pry and it just popped out.

However, I started off by trying the knot method. This worked better than expected and it did hold the shaft, but even with me pulling it, there wasn't enough force to get it out

I did find a small bit of aluminium, but it was only 1-2mm thick, so didn't do much

I spent a while struggling and thinking what to do, pulling on the shaft occasionally, to no avail

Then suddenly I had a fantastic idea that I don't regret in the slightest. Not ideal, but i decided to get a nice screwdriver and stick it in the end collar and give it a gentle pry. And there was a quick pop and it came out. I didn't have to apply much force at all. I was quite surprised. I had tried with a smaller screwdriver but I wasn't applying much force at all as I am aware of the damage they can do. Luckily it worked out this time.

Then I carefully held a bit of leather around the collar as I pulled the shaft out, for one of the balls to still land in the chip tray. I have them both, so no loss yet.

I was interested to see that there isn't just a spring in there. Well there is, but it's not just a spring, looked different. Not quite sure. I don't want to mess with it as it worked before.

Took a bit of effort, but it slid out eventually

And now I have a very bare lathe. I could put it back together and have a lathe without feeds

Whatever this bit is called, is very dirty

In fact the whole thing is dirty. I will be cleaning for a long time

As for the holes, they are not as oval as yours Herman, but they are ovaled by less than 0.5mm, so I think that's good enough for my use. Maybe by the time i'm 50 I'll re do them. But Hopefully this lathe will have an easy life with me.

More gunk under, followed by more gunk

Anyway, time to get on. Apologies for the screwdriver sin, but it couldn't be helped and it got the job done!

It's bling time

I don't have any aluminium bar lying around, so I may try the rolling hitch, to begin with.

I cannot remove the end collar right now since the grub screw is ruined. I will try again if all else fails.

The apron is all going to receive a thorough clean once it is off. I had given it a clean before, but never with full access. Yes, completely it definitely has snapped under rotation, but I did get the full movement of the handle before, just bad engagement and disengagement due to the shaft not being long enough to run in the slot vertically.

I'll check for oval, but even if it is there I don't think I have the time to deal with it right now. But I do want this lathe to last me a life time, so perhaps one day I'll do it.

Thanks for the tips

My friend says he has some goggles so hopefully he will be able to find them for next week or whenever it is.

A little bit of progress today, although now I'm stuck

Getting the leadscrew out proved a bit more difficult. There's a step that Herman missed in his post so I didn't think to undo a screw and it left me just scratching my head for a while. Until I'd had a cup of tea and thought about it properly

So the first step was to undo the collars. They came off quite easily, although I will clean the thread out and make sure they fit better when they go back on, as they were stiff in certain places and slacker in others.

Then my inner collar had a set screw instead of having slots like Hermans. I put a bolt in and used that to turn it a bit. The marks were already on the collar, so someone must have been in here before me. That's not to say I didn't leave some more...

Nothing I can't clean up before reassembly

At that point I went to the end and looked at the set screws down there. Thinking about this further, the grub screw only holds in the bushing, so shouldn't effect the leadscrews removal.

While I was down there I also removed the grub screws from the collars on the feed shaft. But, the outer one's set screw is stuck and the Allen key just spins. No good, but at least its the outside one rather than the inside one. The inside one came loose very easily

At that point I thought the leadscrew should have been free to move along a bit, but it would not move far. So I took a look at the shaft and thought that it was a bit dirty so I cleaned all the muck off. I plan to sand down the leadscrew for 370 hours to remove all the imperfections and then polish it until I can hang it in the bathroom and use it as a very small cylindrical mirror, as that's how all functional lathe parts should look! Bling must make it work better!

Anyway, joking aside, then I sat around for a while and had a break. I came back with a fresh perspective and tried to remove the screw in this gear first, resulting in the leadscrew coming out a bit, then i could unscrew the collar some more, then get the leadscrew out further and so on until the leadscrew was free!

Having the leadscrew out allowed the half nut to drop out, since the shaft is shorter and broken. The feed shaft needs to come out to allow it to be reinstalled once fixed. The break lines up perfectly when its aligned

Definitely worthwhile taking it out, especially for a clean. Probably 2mm thick gunk at the bottom. Not good

Anyway so now I'm stuck. I cannot get the feed shaft out. It should just slide out. It will move about 2mm and then it just stops. It definitely feels spring-loaded like Hermans should have been, but I gave it a very good tug and I can't get it to budge. Any ideas? I've checked for pins and things like the later models have, but I haven't found anything.

However, I did find something coincidental. At the back of the gearbox, since the gears have been removed, I can now see that it says 5 AUG. Which may refer to the 5th of august, which happens to be my birthday. It probably doesn't mean that really, I can't imagine they'd date all their parts like that. In which case, what does the 5 AUG mean?

Edited By Richard Kirkman 1 on 03/08/2020 20:18:04

My friend has no experience brazing, he's a bit of a brutish butcher, but he has his uses.

I will order some 2.4mm as you suggest, I'll make sure to chamfer heavily.

I've watched quite a few videos about brazing in the past, but doing it yourself is a very different thing.

What about safety? Do I need to be wearing any eye protection?(darkening stuff I mean, clear safety glasses go without saying)

It probably will be a while before I can actually go to his and braze, so I have a bit to learn as much as I can. I have an old wood lathe faceplate that snapped which I can use for a practice piece too!

Just been through your posts, seems to be a good description, so thank you, Herman. I'll see how it goes tomorrow

I know what 2mm is! England is supposedly metric. Although it would work out to be about 80 Thousandths(possibly closer to 79). I must say that since the lathe is imperial, I have been talking about these silly fractions and thousandths more and more...

Skimming it in the lathe may be difficult due to it being attached to the half nut, but I'm sure there's a way around that. The break created a very clear place for the shafts to realign, so hopefully, I'll chamfer enough that they still register together, then I can always chamfer some more once the pieces are together a little.

At this point I wouldn't want to bling my lathe, I can't have it look like I'm copying you! I'll continue to do an inferior job as to make you lathe look even better!

As far as the silicon bronze brazing rod goes, does it matter what thickness I buy? My options are 1.6, 2.4, and 3.2mm(see, Metric!). And then just general flux?

I'll attempt repair before I look at turning a new shaft...

I have a small piece of angle iron, so that will be perfect, a fantastic tip. Thank you Herman.

Good news, followed by catastrophic news.

I finally got some paint on the parts, They aren't perfect, but a good start

Bad news after pictures. It might ruin your day. Hopefully the smiley paint face will soften the blow

Painting will need sanding down and spraying at some point, but I may as well get good coverage with a brush then worry about the finish on the last coat

Now onto the bad news. As I said in the last post, i seemed to have messed up the threading lever when I took it off to polish it.

The lever has always been tricky, hard to engage and even harder to disengage. I finally know why.

It looks like at some point there has been a collision. Resulting in the shaft that the half nut traverses up and down with being sheared off. This is not good news.

I have been in here before messing around, but I never tried to take anything to pieces. And there is absolutely no way that in my use of the lathe that I have done this. I'd have heard it go.

Anyway, so now I really need some assistance. I would extremely appreciate any input

Firstly, I need to remove the apron fully. Is there a way to do that without taking the threading change gearbox to pieces? As I don't want to remove all of that.

As far as fixing it, my first thought would be to drill a locating pin through the center of each part, then brazing back together. Or whatever fixing method is best for cast iron.

If only I could have got Traci's half nut. I don't think colchester spares will be cheap, so I think fixing is the only option

Edit-My friend has an oxy-acetylene torch so I could try my hand at brazing. However, advice very much appreciated 

Edited By Richard Kirkman 1 on 02/08/2020 14:13:56

Not again...

Not all of our lathes can be as perfect as yours. The first scratch hurts the most!

I'll do it properly next summer. Meanwhile, I need to do some turning! I may even fill up the coolant tank!

Little progress, but something. I got the splash guard cleaned up, or at least as much as I'm cleaning it up for now

Just wire brushed it and oiled it up so it hopefully won't rust any more before I paint it

Then I polished up and cleaned the new tap, since its an original one and my old one didn't seem very good. I like the new one more

I'm trying to get the other covers painted asap so I can reassemble fully and get the light mounts sorted. But I also need to take the apron to pieces to fit the new hand wheel and do some tinkering, since I seem to have messed up the threading lever when I took it off to polish it. Not good. I may have to fully disassemble it. We shall see tomorrow.

All sorted now, I just decided that It needed to fit, so I've made it fit. I'm not a fan of modifying parts, but there was no other option here. Apart from get a different one from Colchester spares

And very luckily the bolt I said I might have fitted perfectly

Simple, I just laid out my hole spacing, drilled and countersunk. Then I cut the bolt down to the right size

I think It looks very acceptable. Not out of the ordinary too much. Only someone who knows these machines would ever notice

Then I have a plan for mounting the light mount very easily. I plan to drill down a 3/8ths bolt and tap it M6, then I can secure it on from the back flush, and it can look nice with the hex head. There should be plenty of space for it. But I need a lathe to do it accurately. So onto more assembling

I've messaged a friend about potentially tig braze filling the broken out bit of casting, but meanwhile I am just using one of the longer bolts and a washer that I made fit. This holds the gasket so it wont move, so presumably It should seal alright. Only time will tell

Then comes the question of gearing. The gear that fits on that lower shaft has 2 teeth that are partially damaged. The spare one has all its teeth intact. But, the teeth look a little bit bigger. Is this just wear and will I be okay to use it? Or should I swap all the gears on the end of the lathe to make sure they're all the same.

It's not a big difference and they seem to mesh okay

The reverse forward switch needs a mount onto the splash guard too, otherwise the whole thing is too wobbly. Not too sure how I'll do that yet as I don't want to put a hole into the splash guard and just put a bolt and nut on the other side like it was. Perhaps welding a little bit on for a mount would be good

Then, a quick question. What is this little hook/tag for?

Apart from that, I think things are shaping up. Especially once I get the other parts painted (finally) and reassembled

The ON/OFF lever feels so much more satisfying to use. I'm very happy, it was well worth the wait. Actually feels like a proper machine instead of wiggling a stick about. Imagine if your gearstick in your car was loose and moved 3 cm before it actually went anywhere. Not a good feeling

Very happy with my progress today

Good Idea Herman

Although my pictures didn't quite show it very well, the back splash splash back whatever its called does go up to the hole in the headstock. So I don't need to build up any material.

I'm currently thinking drill a hole and countersink for a bolt to go into the headstock hole and be flush. Then the light mount needs to attach and be flush on the rear side too. I think I'll be able to manage it. It would be easier If I had a lathe running to make some custom fittings! I'll need to measure the size of the hole in the headstock and buy some bolts. I only have metric here. Actually there may be exactly what I'm looking for in the spares box... I'll check before I go out

I've just reassembled the main lathe spindle. Probably the 5th time I've done it by now, so I'm getting much better at it. It still wasn't perfect. I'll have to practice more next summer. It still took me an hour and a bit, so I need to shave another half hour off my time.

Yeah Herman, that sounds like a good idea. But I can't TIG, don't have the facilities or the practice. Plus, If I'm going to be tiging then I may well just fill up the old one and fix that instead of modifying a different one

I've looked at the splash back this morning. Not great news, but problems to be solved!

The mounting hole does not line up conviniently.

I do not particularly want to put any holes into the headstock, and I'd like to put as few holes as possible into the splash back.

I started off by removing the chuck guard which had been added at some point. I do not plan on reinstalling it. It just gets in the way.

This is how the light was mounted. As far as I know, the light was attached to the back of the headstock orignally. But I don't have any holes for that, so i will try to use the splash back's mount. It needs a good clean. Everything does

Obviously not in the right orientation, but the hole size is right at least

Since all that was out of the way, I looked at the mounting of the splashback. The holes don't line up perfectly, so some work is going to need doing

The pictures make it look closer, but it's probably a good half-inch away.

So I began to work on fitting the light mount together in a fashion that would work nicely.

The holes lined up, So I just had to come up with a way to get them mounted together. Luckily the blue bit had some holes for set screws, and I found some set screws the right size in the spare parts!

So I drilled out to 10.2mm then tapped M12. Cut the bolts off and put slots in (with two hacksaw blades. Thanks for the tip Phil, it worked very well)

Fully mounted.

So now I just need to mount the blue bit to the splash back and the splash back to the headstock! If only the parts could have come from an identical lathe!

Edited By Richard Kirkman 1 on 30/07/2020 14:12:37

I didn't end up getting onto the backsplash, the grandparents paid a visit.

However I did get 2 parts back onto the lathe, both the oil seals are definitely in tight with their silicon gasket. I'm praying for no more leaks...

The shaft with the gear on actually went back in a lot easier than it came out! It's got a gasket installed with it now, so that should reduce the chances of leaks even further.

As it turns out, the yellow bearing cover replacement part that I wanted is the wrong size. The last of the 3 mounting holes doesn't line up, so i'll have to fix the old one somehow

Mid day update, More progress.

I tapped the end of the shaft to m10 as there was enough meat there. It was over the drill size however, so I tapped extra deep so there is more engagement so the pressure is more spread out. I also used a bolt that is twice or three times the length. So that will fit nicely now.

I couldn't see on the diagrams in the manual how this was meant to fit as it was a bit complicated as the model was meant to have the forward reverse switch going through this shaft too? Or at least it was in the manual

Then I got onto cleaning up the handle and shaft properly. The little button at the front came off accidentally. But it made cleaning a lot easier. It was quite scored so I put it in the drill press and cleaned it up a bit. Nothing too extreme. I don't see any point making it perfect as it would take a very long time, and then I'd have to get everything perfect

Then I gave the old ball a bit of a polish on a very fine buffing wheel with some very high grade compound. It shined up nicely. Once again, not removing the dents and scratches, but just making it look a little bit better.

Then It's all done, Finally a satisfying click instead of a sloppy handle! I believe the feel of the machine is very important. The better it feels to use, the more I'll want to use it!

Upside down, but still shows the same thing. The mount for my light isn't original, but the holes seem to line up for the mount. So I will probably need to machine something to make it fit nicely. I'm not too sure how it's meant to be done. Does anyone have any pictures of this?

Then I moved back onto the Apron wheel. A little more wire wheeling and it was looking good enough to buff. I can't see myself in it, so it's safe. But it definitely looks the part

Then I stripped all the paint, cleaned it and put a coat of red oxide primer onto it.

Productive morning, time to look at the backsplash

Just for reference, I just received a spare whole cross slide with QCTP attached. Looks like it's just been chopped off and flattened, then a bolt has been used to secure it. However, the actual slide has not been tapped.