Member postings for David Colwill

There are quite a few lathes in the M250 / M300 size that are worth considering I have a Smart and Brown 1024 which is excellent. If you can find any of the quality industrial lathes in good order the I'm sure you will be happy with it. Make sure you get all the equipment with it (chucks, steadies etc) as these things can be hard to find and very expensive. I'm sure you are aware of it but in case you aren't then don't forget the lathes.co.uk website, which will tell you all you need to know about any lathe you may come across.

Good lick.

David

I have a Mitutogo (correct spelling) I paid £9.50 including shipping

David.

I'm not sure that John was referring to reliability although this can be a problem on cheaper drives. Some variable speed machines are badly thought out. The speed control on the older mini lathes spring to mind. The bottom third of the range has very little torque. Industrial machines are often fitted with huge main motors to ensure adequate power at low speeds. The CNC router at work has a 20Kw spindle.

I am a fan of variable speed but it does need to be done right. I think that some people view VFD's as gearboxes when in fact they are the opposite. I would very much like to see a lathe made by someone like Sieg with a VFD and a 6:1 back gear operated by a single lever.

Regards.

David.

My Smart & Brown 1024 is 11" swing 24" between centres and weighs 2600 lb or 1180 Kg.

David.

Crossed over with pgk pgk there

Good to see great minds think alike.

David

If you assume that a general engineering / maintenance workshop lathe is going to start at 5 / 6 inch centre height by 24 inch between centres, then this sort of size is well represented by European manufacturers ( even though they do put most of it out to China ). However in times gone by you had smaller precision lathes like Smart & Brown model A, Cromwell, and others that I can't think of. It seems that these have disappeared along with instrument lathes like Pultra etc and worse disappeared a long time ago. Making good second hand examples very rare. I suppose the good news is that Schaublin are still going but this doesn't really help many of us.

I think that if your friend wanted to dabble he could do worse than buy a really nice Schaublin 102 VM. If he decided he didn't want to carry on with it he would probably not lose that much money on it and have a very nice lathe to play around on.

Just a thought.

David

Harold Hall did a book in the "workshop practice" series which would probably be a good starting place.

Regards.

David.

Thanks for that. I have Castrol Hyspin E5 (far too thin) but might get some E40 in for it.

David.

It might be worth you watching https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZXjUqLMgxM

It is quite long but worth it. They discovered how the designer had use a gear with a slot to plot the elliptical orbit of the Moon (about 38 minutes in).

I must get hold of some drawings of it!

Regards.

David

Hi,

I've just acquired one of these and am not sure what oil to use. It says on the box use Veta light but google has no knowledge of this. Does anyone know what grade this was? Also if anyone has any scanned documentation I would love to have copies. Mine is missing the little collet arrangement for holding mounted points so I might try and make one out of one of the cheap ER 11 parallel shank holders.

Any info would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

David

In the spirit of the forum, would you not consider starting a thread "How to fix Neil"? Members could post ideas for remedies / surgery. You might even find people willing to operate.

Just a thought.

In any case. Get well soon

David.

Thanks for clearing that up Muzzer. I managed to open my account with no difficulty but everyone I have spoken to about fusion reports back with the "its not free" line. I keep saying that it is but was beggining to think they had changed it.

On a related front I have downloaded the beta of Autodesk Memento but haven't had a go with it yet. I'll report back when I have.

Regards.

David.

Whilst I can see some people saying it's a bit expensive, it does look like a very nice machine. Provided that it isn't too badly worn it will make someone very happy. You would be struggling to get that spec with a new Far Eastern machine for the same money.

Perhaps we will hear from its new owner shortly.

Regards.

David.

Cubify design is a great program for the money. I started out using it but have changed to Fusion which is better (and cheaper) for my needs. There is another which was available through RS Components and was free but I can't remember what it was called. I haven't used any others so can't comment on them. I think it would be worth trying to compare features as you will probably spend quite a lot of time learning any package and it would be annoying to find that you had opted for something which turned out to be inadequate. That said I found the change from cubify to fusion fairly easy.

Good luck with whatever you go for and please let us know what you choose and why.

Regards.

David.

Good point!

I don't think you need fear being called a wimp! I wouldn't have gone as deep but then I do have facilities to bandsaw that diameter. If I didn't then..... Let's not think about that!

Regards.

David.

They look fantastic but I fear you will not get the best reaction without something to give a sense of scale. Might I suggest the same photo with a fifty pence piece

Well done for the bronze from me too.

Regards.

David.

I might have some cy .75mm or 1mm in 4 core. How much do you need?

Regards.

David.

Thanks. That is now added to my list of things to read. I do like his books. Anyone who hasn't read them they are well worth reading especially "A brief history of nearly everything"

David.

Rob,

Zither are a good step up from the Chinese chucks and are not too much more money. Arc sell them, so if you are near Leicester you could go and have a look. I've got a couple of them and am very happy with them.

Regards.

David.