Member postings for Tony Ray

Do have a look at Ivan Laws gear cutting book one of the workshop practise series. In it you will find details of how to make an accurate single point cutting tool. I have used involute and single point cutters and the latte does work very well.

Sounds like you know what you are doing so it's time to say goodbye to the L5. Do bear in mind that a Warco or any of the equivalents is not going to be a patch on it in terms of quality. Why not look for another L5? all of your existing tooling will fit, your taper turning attachment is worth selling on if you don't need it and will help to ease the cost of the replacement. I think you would find any of the non locking mandrel systems very frustrating after the L00. D1-3 or 4 is the more modern alternative.

Fizzy,

Can you identify approx which period your L5 was made ? have a look at L5's on lathes .co.uk. No obvious sight glasses on the images there but perhaps your manual and machine are from different iterartions. I suggest also that you join the Yahoo Harrison forum? My later Harrison has drain plugs so I would expect to find a similar arrangement on yours.

Richard,

If you have room go for the VMC / 626. It is far more rigid than the SX3 ( which I have) and on the Warco you can buy the power feed. For Me R8 is a no brainer if it was good enough for Bridgeport .... As an earlier poster said you can buy an R8 to MT3. anyone ever seen an MT3 to R8....

Charles,

I can tel you that it's left hand twin start. If you are going to replace the screw you would be advised to change the nut as well. You can get these parts from 600 group but may find Robert Pringle based in Harlow are cheaper but still prepared for a shock.

APT is another supplier that sells quality items at fair prices

I bought a set recently, I can now get decent fits whereas I struggled before. Best £14 I have spent recently.

Graeme, Those brown handles may well be bone - a knowledgeable Drummond collector told me and on my 1908 the leadscrew one was.

Graeme,

Not wishing to pour water on your enthusiasm ...

Headstock - this is the bigger challenge - I can't see that reaming is going to work - how are you going to ensure that the two bores are parallel to each other and the headstock. If I were doing this I'd line bore it - clearly you can't do this on your machine - perhaps someone local to you will step in and offer to do it for you. there has been a relatively recent article on line boring in Model Engineers Workshop re putting roller bearings in a Myford.

Spindle - I'd look to get it re-metalled as a first option - try a crankshaft recondtioning service ideally followed by grinding to you desired overall diameter (OD) but as its a relatively small dia. you need to check with them that its not going to distort the shaft. If you wait until the headstock is finished you can then specify your desired OD. Sleeving is a possibility - Loctite (not superglue) etc is incredibly strong if the parts are sized according their recommendations. Sleeving may be tricky if the bearing surfaces are the same dia or smaller once skimmed than the shaft in between.

Making a new spindle on an up-together lathe should be relatively straight forward but will involve screwcutting the spindle thread.

Might be worth seeing if you can pick up a complete replacement headstock - or was that you looking for one the other day ?

As already said don't strip it down you'll regret it in the long run. If you have some distance to move it prior to loading/ unloading it's worth making a couple of dollies. They are basically 2ft or so 3/4" shuttering ply or better each with 4 castors 75mm or greater dia. you can get the on ebay and most sellers state the rated loading. Size the ply to suit the cabinet don't make them too big as this can make using the engine crane more difficult. Once on the dollies the whole thing is infinitely more manouverable than using scaff poles. One issue you may have is getting the engine crane near enough to lift it as the legs forming the V get in the way. One solution is to get the lathe up on blocks so the crane legs can slide underneath, I used a trollley jack to lift one end of the lathe; push the jack as close to the END of the machine as poss. Place a length of 4x2 between the lifting pad of the jack and wedge it under the lip of the coolant tray with great care jack it up. the jack may want to come back towards you but the lathe won't slide at the far end as long as you only jack an inch or so. Place packing ( eg the ply off cut from dolly construction, you want the packing to be consistent) under the raised end and proceed to the other end & repeat. Block paviours make great packing but only use them flat. it sounds long winded but only takes 15 mins.

The key is to plan all stages and do a walk through. Don't take risks. If you need to stop & go & get something, do so. don't leave the load hanging on the crane. Do the lift on a weekday or Saturday so that there is a good chance of getting what you need in a local store.

Some things not mentioned thus far is the need to dress a conventional abrasive wheel frequently and let the wheel cut rather than forcing the tool into it. I find a white wheel far better than the dubious quality grey ones often supplied with low cost bench grinders.

Hi,

I don't have a Bantam but a Harrsion the operation of all geared head lathes is bascally the same.

Lets see if we can break this down into chunks

1. The "apron lever " usually called the third rod switch only lets you run in forward ?

2. The high/low switch now controls spindle direction. ?

3. The leadscrew lever does nothing ?

Issues 1 & 2 are electrical and are related.

Now onto issue 3.

I think 1 & 2 stem from the fact that the lathe was originally 3 phase and has been converted (arguably not that well) to single phase. Reversing 3 phase motors is easy and required less switching than single phase ones.

When you switch your high / low switch does the third rod switch then allow you to run in the opposite direction ?

If so apart from the slightly unconventional set-up you can achieve both direction or rotation.

Originall your lathe had a two speed 3 phase motor - the high & low switch controlled which of the motor speeds was being used. This is was made redundant when they fitted the single speed motor so they used it to change spindle direction.

Your third rod issue can be fixed but it sounds like you don't have much electrical experience and need an electrician - be warned your standard domestic sparky may not be able to help you. You really need someone familliar with motor switching controls, its not difficult but someone doing this all the time will have it sorted out quickly.

The lathe has two gearboxes - one to control spindle speed the upper one, and anothet - the lower one to control the leadscrew speed and therfore feeds for surfacing and screw cutting. As you are getting nothing it sounds like there is no input power to the lower box. If you take the end cover off you will see a gear train and I suspect that the input shaft to the screwcutting box is not connected to the rest.

If you can post some images of your machine that will give everyone a better idea of the model - and take one of the geartrain inside the end cover.

Don't despair nothing sounds too serious to me

Tony

3 is mechanical

Hi,

You are getting good advice here but do you know about the Southbend user group on Practical Machinist ?

**LINK**

What they don't know about SB's is probably not worth knowing.

Theres probably a tried an tested way of doing this on your machine and those guys will be able to tell you what it is.

Tony

Brian,

Not directly, I have this version that shows x & Y on the same display

**LINK**.

When it works its OK but I have a lot of trouble with either axis freezing which requires power cycling and sometimes changing of batteries in the scales. Having paid ~£100 for the whole system I wish I had saved up for a 'real' system such as available for <£300 from e.g. Goodwin Technology or M-DRO. These systems have addtional features like PCD and are pretty much coolant proof whereas I had to fabricate my own protective guards from scratch.

Don't get me wrong I have no complaints about Arc Euro, it is well documented that the Chinese digital scales can have issues.

It will be interesting to see how others have got on with theirs.

Tony

Chris,

If it's going to be used repeatedly I would stick with steel, it would be a shame to put the work into something that could wear quickly. Another option would be to have it CNC spark eroded.

Max,

If you want a new machine there is a lot of choice, if you go for used it may take a little longer to find one. A well equipped metric Boxford AUD is in your budget range but not from the most well known dealers. Do bear in mind that there is a vast difference in the rigidity and weight and size of a hobby machine vs a Colchester. Remember too that you could fit a DRO which will work in the units of your choice. For me one of the most important points is whether you will want to cut imperial threads and how easy it is to set up the machine to do so - the change wheels for some machines are very hard to obtain and expensive. Actually thinking about it one of the newer Boxfords ( still in production) sts280 eg could do you nicely they were sold to schools usually metric and the come up in very good condition on Fleabay. If Buying secondhand do try to get someone experienced to help you. Your budget is good but by spending a little more on a more desirable machine your investment will be more protected if you need to sell it again.

I have an SX3 and use. A K4 but having seen the DH1 and it's versatility I think it offers better value for money in the long run. I do have a clamping kit but use the vice more frequently, I would also suggest that you need some parallels.

Tony

Ed,

Sorry, I was emailing a Matt a few minutes earlier.

Tony

Matt,

I'm not going to answer your question directly but why not try both idlers for yourself ? One of the things you should have in your screw cutting arsenal is a pitch gauge so that when you do your first pass you can check that you have set up the gear train correctly. This will enable you to see the effects of the idler change if any. Screw cutting takes practise there are a lot of factoris that have to come together. I thoroughly recommend Martin Cleaves Workshop Practise 'Screwcutting in the Lathe' it contains a wealth of information on all of those critical factors. Whilst I encourage anyone who asks about carbide inserted tooling to learn how to use HSS, there is some advantage in using threading inserts. I often use the partial profile ones ( they are not pitch specific) . It means you can concentrate all of your attention on the threading. Some will say that you need high speeds for these , I use 52 and 120 rpm without issues and the threads are lovely in s/s , EN1a .

Regards

Tony

Bob,

FWIW this is my experience. My workshop is 5.5 X 4.5M so not dissimilar to yours in area. I had my builder lay expanded polystyrene under the slab and a DPM - you'll have to look up the exact details you'll need. I have no issues with a cold floor and I suffer with cold feet. Nor do I have any problems with cracking or floor loading. Were you joking about mixing the concrete ? I ask as the ready mixed stuff is so much more consistent and reliable and you'll need a lot of it.

Finally I finished it off with water based epoxy. With all floor paint it is important to get a good bond with the substrate so I etched mine with phosphoric acid as per Bradite instructions. Neutralisation and waiting for the slab to fully dry out before and after etching and after application are important. Having worked in the food industry and seen a lot of floor paint I can't subscribe to the view that polyurethane is more hard wearing. For me epoxy is the paint of choice - you can buy a solvent based version that's a bit cheaper . Good floor paint is not cheap but do it well and do it once