Member postings for Dave Wootton

I've got a tube of this which I claimed as part of my redundancy package! we used it on the chucks used in very heavy continuous production. It is very expensive and always looked just like the ordinary Moly grease we used for years before someone decided to buy this. Can't say that I noticed any great difference in wear levels on the scroll or jaws after we made the change, and it does still get washed away by coolant. Always impressed how long the chucks lasted and retained reasonable accuracy given the hard life and occasional abuse they sustained. I do use it as it's there but don't think I need to re grease every few months in the home workshop!

Should point out that not all were used on lathes, the ones that really suffered from coolant washout were on indexing tables on the mills and therefore were mounted horizontally.

Edited By Dave Wootton on 02/10/2023 20:37:50

Lovely work Steve, seems a shame to get it all mucky drilling holes with it!

Hi Again Mark

Just realised that you said the motor just buzzes in either direction, which I assume means you have a Dewhurst type or similar reversing switch fitted to the machine. These reverse the connection to the start winding to change the direction of rotation, if the contacts on these are excessively burnt or pitted, which can happen, it could also affect the connection to the start winding and cause your problem. Still worth carrying out the above tests, but it does complicate the electrical fault finding somewhat. Depends if you have and are comfortable with using a multimeter.

Dave

Hi Mark

If yours is a single phase machine it sounds like it could be a fault with the centrifugal switch in the motor or the start capacitor which that switch puts in and out of circuit on starting. As a rough check try taking of the primary belt, from the motor pulley to the clutch and quickly spinning the motor pulley by hand while switching on to see if the motor will run once it has been given a bump start so to speak. Worth checking that the lathe itself is running freely, I know someone who forgot about the spindle lock pin at the rear of the headstock. Give that a try for a start and if you post your findings more help can be given.

The start capacitors are fairly robust but do have a finite life, fortunately a cheap repair, if you do spin the motor up, turn the motor off and listen for a gentle click as it slows down,this will tell if the centrifugal switch is working mechanically, testing electrically will be more involved but fairly simple, see how you get on and report back.

Good Luck!

Edited By Dave Wootton on 23/09/2023 07:47:44

Pretty sure both metric and imperial machines have an 8tpi leadscrew and imperial gearbox, you can cut metric threads using conversion gears and of course imperial threads straight off the gearbox. The changewheel set up will be as in the chart in the changewheel guard. Brian Woods book on scewcutting will have full details ( highly recommended).

Edited By Dave Wootton on 20/09/2023 20:51:26

Hi Bernard

Just checked mine and it is 120907 so not far off yours. I'm not sure when Elliott packed up, there were a number of ex Elliott emloyees that had recently been made redundant in the firm I served my time with in the early 70's, but then again I briefly worked for a firm that imported some Taiwanese mills ( A1-S) in 1980 and badged some as RMT ( sold by themselves) and others as Elliott ( for a dealer) so there must have been some badge engineering going on. I'm intrigued and will have a bit of a search on the company's history. Very interested in the vertical feed as looking in the manual and at some online pictures it looked a fairly straightforward and interesting job. Be great to see some pictures of your conversion.

Dave

Apologies I said I'd post a picture of my newly aquired 10M, life got in the way and I still have not tidied up! looking a lot cleaner than when purchased at first it was not evident it was in a two tone colour scheme, but paraffin and elbow grease have bought it up ok. Ex school it has not had a lot of use, three phase but wired for single using a capacitor it runs fine, had a play with it on some scrap but looking forward to using it in earnest.

There is a Drummond M type on a stand with motor and chucks on the Lathes UK site, it's being sold for charity at £300 or offers, and it's been on there a while. Obviously depending on your location could be worth a phone call over budget but the money goes to a good cause.

Ok Tony I'll tidy up a bit and take some pictures today!!

The NEME articles are available in print to order book form, 535 pages all about shapers, collated by Kay Fisher, I ordered it via his website and it was printed in the UK and shipped quickly. Price was thirty quid or so with post and very pleased with it. You can now read about shapers in bed! I don't think there's anything in the book that's not on the site but I find it better to read than on a screen. I've now finished the rebuild of my Acorntools shaper, but I'm afraid I bought a Elliott 10M as well, was on a local site at a silly price, looked absolutely terrible in the pictures, but after a bit of effort cleaned up a treat.

Thanks Keith, yes it must have been in your Chenery album I saw it, actually says "plugs into lamp socket". Lamp sockets were made of sterner stuff in those days, I have visions of an old fashioned rewireable fuse glowing gently to itself in it's wooden fusebox!

Dave

Somewhere recently I saw a very old ad for either South Bend or Atlas lathes and the machine was plugged into the light fitting using one of these adaptors!

If it's any help in sorting out what you need to do I used to have an almost identical compressor and it was badged as Sherry's of London. Mine had a Danfoss pressure switch that had a small pipe to the compressor to unload the compressor for starting and if memory serves a non return valve between the compressor and tank to allow the compressor to unload. Long gone as I needed something with greater capacity, but it was nice and quiet and would run a small spraygun. Search for Sherry's compressor may turn up some information, there again you may just get a cocktail recipe!

Just tried a google search for Sherry's air compressor and there are a few results, there's one for sale that comes up for a vintage and salvage company identical to mine and similar to yours,the one in red faded as mine was to a fetching pink, that shows the Danfoss switch. Yours may just have had the pressure switch and associated plumbing removed .

Edited By Dave Wootton on 07/09/2023 12:18:55

I remember the late Geoff Wigzell of the Gravesend club trying this method on his Don Young designed class 2, on the advice of Don himself. Geoffs comments on the method would get me banned from here for life, suffice it to say I believe he made new liners, which were ruined by the process, and made fluorosint valves. I know Don used them in the K1/1 he built but I was told by someone who knew him well did very little running so the method was really unproven. Geoff was a good engineer and if he couldn't make the method work it must be difficult to achieve success.

I must warn of the extreme danger of putting metal machine parts in the dishwasher, if the wife comes home and catches you the repercussions are most unpleasant!

I speak from experience........

Dave

Looks like a great idea, I remember an article in a club magazine where one of the members had an ML7 with a permanent twist that the raising blocks would not take out as the rather flimsy cabinet twisted, he did a similar thing putting a large piece of 1" steel platethat ran between the lathe riser blocks and Myford cabinet. Not only did he get the twist out he said the lathe was now extremely quiet when running. Think of all the things you can make with the offcut! Interesting post let us know how it works out.

Dave

Edited By Dave Wootton on 03/09/2023 10:29:39

Deleted as I realised I could answer my own question!!!!!!!!.

Edited By Dave Wootton on 28/08/2023 16:49:02

I would think the Oldak ones if still available would be good if in good condition, they were one of the quality British manufacturers of old. I made the MEW resettabkle dials for my shaper there's pictures in my album. I used a straight knurling wheel from Gloster tooling on Ebay and made a very simple holder from a bit of bar. I think the wheel was under a tenner including post and it worked very well. Probably far eastern but have bought quite a lot of tooling from them and always been pleased with it. The re-settable dials are great by the way, I really enjoyed making them.

Dave

Lovely work Steve, turned that into a very nice, and useful machine, like the novel tensioning arrangement.

Dave

I got rid of all my old M.E's but was there a Joseph Martin in the early sixties? Roughly around the time Boxhill was serialised. I seem to remember one of the editors was very keen on articles about Shakespear and English history. I believe that Mr Garcke was the editor that upset LBSC who left and then had to be brought back by popular demand.

Probably remembered it all wrong, usually do!

Regards

Dave

Edited By Dave Wootton on 25/08/2023 13:35:29