Emco Compact 5

I don't have that problem with mine although I've never needed to adjust it. It's a V bed with no apparent wear. Are we talking about the way the saddle is pulled down onto the bed?

Mike T

You may find turning the keep plates over end to end so using the new face will improve the action, if that's been done already make some more from plastic material, perhaps Delrin or even Nylon 66 may work.
Worked for me OK.

Emgee

Thank for your ideas.

I find the plastic keep plates will bend under load and the carriage rocks forward. It is quite noticeable on the CNC version when you push down on the stepper motor.

Has anyone tried replacing the plastic keep plates with brass or bronze keep plates

Mike

Mike

The cutting force puts a downward load on the saddle/bed which is in the opposite direction to applying downward force on the X axis stepper.

There have been reports on the Emco Forum of people replacing the gib plates with steel and bronze, seemed to work out OK.

Emgee

Strip of gauge plate would be my choice.

One just come up for sale down the right in classifieds., hope the price is a typo.

That's the solid gold version with the diamond bearings!

Russell

The Gib plates on the Unimat 3/4, Compact 5, Compact 8, rear of Compact 10 and the rear of the Maximat Super 11 are all made from a glass filled plastic. The mounting surface that this Gib sits on is lower than the mating "Way" surface. This provides for a constant force on the Gib and removes play.

The Gib on the rear of my Maximat has been tightened twice since I purchased it in 1986. I have a spare Gib bought at the same time but have never needed to use it. The loading on these Gibs should be hardly anything with a prismatic bedway.

Turning the plates over from end to end would be a good idea, but given the wear resistance characteristics and rigidity properties of the original material I would not substitute them for some other plastic.

Blunt tooling and overloading the machine will give a poor finish. As Jason said earlier you are not going to remove large amounts of material like a larger lathe. It is all a question of rigidity.

Regards

Gray,

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That's certainly true. Nevertheless the current Unimat 3 clone - Sieg C0 - is not materially inferior in quality, and has some real advantages like stepless speed variability and 67% more motor power. 

It also doesn't destroy drive belts at the rate my Unimat 3 used to... 

Edited By Mick B1 on 29/12/2018 13:37:16

A slight inaccuracy in my last post. The Compact 8 only has the plastic Gib at the rear, like it's big brothers.

On the question of costs, my Maximat machine is the same price today second hand as what I paid for it new in 1986. While the Compact 5 has doubled in value from the second hand price paid 15 years ago, even though the lathe had never been taken out of the box.

Regards

Gray,

Gray, Barrie and everyone.

Thanks for the advice regarding the plastic gib plates on the Compact 5 and other Emco machines. It is good to know that design is basically sound and does not need to be 'fixed'.

My machine is the CNC version with the lathe bed bolted to a sheet steel structure, it's not easy to remove the lathe to get access to the gib plates to make adjustments. So I attempted to make the adjustments in situ.I shortened a standard Allen key to fit, and with the aid of spot lights, inspection mirrors an a lot of rude words, I was able to reach up into the lathe bed to adjust the gib plate screws. Getting the Allen key to line up with the screw heads, when everything is upside down, back to front and barely accessible, was an interesting challenge in itself.

The three screws under the rear flat bed way, were already tight and did not need adjustment. The four screws for the forward gib plate, under the 'V' bed way, were a different story. One of the screws was missing completely and a replacement had to be found. The remaining three screws all needed about 3/4 of a turn to tighten the gib plate under the forward bed way.

These gib plate adjustments were difficult to do with the lathe bolted down, but possible; just. A complete transformation was achieved, the lathe and carriage are now correctly adjusted (for the first time in years) with no discernable play, even when I push and pull on the overhanging stepper motor. My Compact 5 CNC lives to fight another day.

Jobs a good 'un.

Thanks again for all the help, advice and encouragement.

Mike

Edited By mike T on 29/12/2018 20:39:06

Glad it's sorted. I always like to ask myself why things are loose when I buy something but it sounds like you've sorted it. I'm very interested to see how you get on with the CNC side and your opinions of lathe.

Well, I never expected there to be so much discussion about this machine. Thanks everyone for all the information and opinion. It all sounds quite encouraging.

An apparently very little-used example, complete with milling head, collet chucks, collet set, 3-jaw, 4-jaw, topslide, steadies, change wheels, dividing unit, and a few other bits and bobs recently sold here (NZ) for about NZ$2,500 (divide by 2 for pounds) - the same as a well-equipped, little-used, Cowells 90ME made. Emco gear is fought for here. Just out of interest, what would these machines go for in UK?

Quick question - it's not uncommon to see Cowells equipment sold in almost new condition: what's going on?

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Chris,

Emco Compact 5 cnc working in this video  https://youtu.be/37HZELzhkDE

shows turning, radius cuts, taper cut and threading.

Many more videos showing the same machine on different jobs at the same channel.

Emgee

Edited By Emgee on 30/12/2018 10:38:27

Edited By Emgee on 30/12/2018 10:43:27

My guess is Cowells appeal chiefly to clockmakers and the like who tend to use theri machines lihtly and take great care of them.

Nweil

The Cowells lathe started life as the Perris lathe, marketed by Brian Perris. Which could be purchased in kit form circa 1973 for the princely sum of £29.00. At that time the machine used the Unimat SL backplate lever scroll chuck with a new backplate. A good accurate machine but limited by the spindle bore.

The Compact 5 was also used as the basis of the slant bed PC Turn 55 lathe. The Compact 8 to was used as the basis of one of the Denford range of CNC lathes, as was one of EMCO's CNC Mills.

Regards

Gray,

.

Picking up on Neil's point : This is worth a look **LINK**

https://watchmaking.weebly.com/cowells-90cw.html

MichaelG.

The Cowells is also substantially smaller than a Compact 5 too despite being beautifully made.