Alexander master toolmaker

I have added a couple of pics to my collection. The first shows that the key is firmly in place in the vertical power feed shaft and bevel gear. The second pic shows that I have got the horizontral drive unit rocking having removed the gib strip, and the leadscrew bracket at the back, but it still feels like some way from coming off?

As to the basic problem of the jammed drive - I think I have one option remaining to me. If I understand correctly, the only thing that stops the carriage sliding up and off the machine is the nut in the bottom bracket at the front of the machine? There are two capscrews into the side of this bottom bracket which I suspect hold the nut in place? If that is the case I could release those capscrews and the carriage would slide up, complete with nut - if it wasn't for the motor feed bevel gear that would get in the way? So I would first need to figure out a way of removing this motor drive gear, which I suspect was never intended with the shafts still in place.?

I appreciate that this may sound rather radical , but unless I can get the carriage off - then it can't be repaired - and the machine simply becomes a source of spare parts!

Desperate times!

Have you removed the bracket at the back of the horizontal drive unit ,then the horizontal head should slide off after removing the Y leadscrew.

So you cant just raise the vertical saddle until it disengages from the nut allowing you to lift the saddle off the top of the column?

Are you absolutely certain that the long keyway in the feed shaft has not been damaged or bent and causing the key in the spiral bevel gear to jam part way along.

Or has the vertical leadscrew thread been damaged causing it to bind in the nut.

If everything else is loose on the saddle slides, it has to be one of those two things preventing travel.

Phil

There are not many clues to this problem but the biggest and most significant is that when the carriage stops it does so with an abrupt and very solid clunk. You can feel this clunk primarily through the vertical handwheel, the drive select lever and the automatic feed cancel lever at the opposite side of the machine. To free it off when it was completely jammed involved working the feed cancel lever back and forth and same with the select lever whilst simultaneuosly turning the handwheel back and forth. Finally it released and the carriage could be lowered back onto its stop.

So I think it is definitley to do with the mechanism that lives within the carriage and turns the vertical leadscrew. I have actually tried turning the vertical leadscrew by gripping the leadscrew itself, but that makes no difference - it still stops with a clunk at the same point. So I am unable to turn that vertical leadscrew enough to get it clear of the nut I'm afraid - so the carriage remains on the machine.

I have actually loosened the Y leadscrew bracket but not removed it yet - I'm awaiting a result on moving the carriage.

Michael Gilligan posted a link to a set of exploded drawings of a similar machine made by Deckel. In my opinion the problem lies within the mechanisms illustrated on pg20and pg18.

I wonder if it is possible to get the bottom bracket/nut pulled off the front of the column enough to spring it past the small spiral bevel. Or even wind it off the bottom off the screw ?

You might have to drill and tap the dowels to extract them from the bracket.

Phil

That would probably work with the tapered gibs removed as it will give alot of play. But if i remember on mine that bottom nut bracket was extremely hard to remove and i think i left it as it was and just cleaned it all out when i stripped mine.

I cant remember if the dowel pins could be possibly knocked out from inside the column or whether they are just accessable from the front.

David

the photos Phil posted are better than the diagrams in the manual which just shows piling pints etc and general arrangement.

I remember Phils dad very fondly for his useful guidance and advice to me before I bought my Alexander.

Hope it works out well for you.

Ian

Eureka - a Major Breakthrough!

Today I had a serious go at my one remaining option I identified earlier - and it worked. I decided I had to remove the motor drive shaft and bevel gear in thew bottom bracket and push the shaft back into the central pillar of the machine. I managed to tap around the retaining screw to get it moving and thank God it wasn't very long or I could not have got it clear of the motor shaft. By fiddling about with the changewheels inside the central pillar I was able to do two things; firstly to remove a grubscrew which allowed the drive shaft to be withdrawn into the pillar and also to access the taper pins locating the bottom bracket casting and tap them out from within. Having done that it was only necessary to wind down the leadscrew into the bottom bracket to allow the bevel pinion to be removed - and then we were good to go. I had a bit of a practise lift and it is free to go all the way up. . Yippee! After Christmas I will get the engine crane to actually lift off the carriage and then I can see the mechanism I have been blaming and see what the problem actually is.

In the words of Winston Churchill; This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is the end of the beginning!

Thanks to everybody for good avice and general support. I will continue this thread to record what the problem actually was and the rebuild of the machine for future reference.

Good to hear you are finally getting somewhere, keep us informed as to what you find.

Phil

Thanks Phil. I've just added a couple more pics to show the bottom bracket successfully removed. Not the way Mr Alexander intended it, but it works!

Well done. I would advise you to put new oil wicks in any place you can and thoroughly clean out everything first . The wicks in mine were totally blocked with gunk and all hardened so no oil gets through.

There are wicks all over the place . The all mechanism connected to the joystick lever in mine was particularly bad for dirt and tiny metal particles.

The wick channels are not exactly like the Deckel FP1.

Edited By mark smith 20 on 24/12/2019 00:14:04

What a cracking sketch! Thankyou for that. I am particularly interested in the oil way that has some effect on the sightglass behind the saddle. I have been unable to make any impression on the sightglass irrespective of oil sent down the oil cap so had already decided to give the whole thing a birthday before it goes back together. Regarding wicks - from where can they be bought?

The whole thing has gone to my head really. I am not the polishing kind of chap - preferring functionality over bling, but your pictures of a seriously well restored machine - and the fact that my workshop currently looks like an explosion in an Alexander factory, it would be the ideal time to give everything a clean and a paint....

Have a good Christmas - hostilities will resume shortly thereafter!

You have probably already found some photo's of my Alexander, but here is one for some inspiration. The machine was my late fathers and he rigged it up to use for gear cutting using the Sunderland principle.

A few more in my albums

This is one of my set ups for shaping a 3 lobe spiral claw coupling for the barring engine on Agnes.

Phil

Edited By Phil P on 24/12/2019 10:12:24

Edited By Phil P on 24/12/2019 10:13:17

Gentlemen, we have a result - and a special prize goes to Phil P for almost spelling it out for me. I got the carriage off the machine and was dismayed not to find the smoking gun within the mechanism. It was then I realised that the sliding bevel gear and its associated bush was rusted on tight to the smooth, keyed shaft. I currently have it soaking in WD40 as it was reluctant to respond to an exploratory tap. This is the result of its several years under a tarpaulin in a friend's garden! It seemed to have been well sheeted off, but obviously not well enough. I am assuming that it worked until one day in selecting upward movement it worked until the bush was forced over the previously exposed rusted part of the shaft - and that was that?

I need to give the rest of it a good examination before it all goes back together - but I will be very pleased if this is all it was - despite the deep surgery that was required to figure it out.

One thing that has struck me it my brief examination is the the power select lever appears only to have two corresponding positions in thge mechanism for the vertical drive. These are obviously up and down, but all I can see within the internal mechanism is the dog clutch either in mesh or not. I assume there is a third position as yet unwilling to select which corresponds to the UP instruction at the select lever - thus giving down - neutral - up?.

Thanks again for all help and forbearance!

.

Great News, David

MichaelG.

Well done David, I'm glad that your perseverance has finally paid off.

Brian

I’m glad that it sounds like you’ve sorted the problem. The Alexander is a fine machine that is a pleasure to use when working correctly.

David

You should find that there are TWO dog clutches in there, one for up and one for down.

The clutches have a ratchet form of tooth so that they only work in one direction, once you get the machine running you will find that when under power feed if you manually wind the respective feed handle in the same direction as it is power feeding, it will disengage the power feed by riding the sloping sides of the dog clutches out of mesh.

This design feature also means that there is little point in having a reversible motor on the machine, if you run it in reverse the power feeds will also reverse direction and the trips will no longer function which could lead to disaster. ( I think that is the case, either that or the clutches will just not engage at all )

Another little quirk is that it is also possible to engage both vertical and horizontal power feeds at the same time, they are not interlocked to prevent that happening, I cannot think when I would want it to do that, but just be aware of it.

The vertical feed dog clutches had been removed from my machine when my dad bought it, so he had to reverse engineer the design and work out what was missing and make all the new parts for it himself, I still have all his notes and design sketches from when he did it.

It runs in the family, my grandfather was chief engineer at a West Yorkshire mill back in the days of steam, my dad was Chief Deign Engineer at a company in West Yorkshire, and I have the same job title at a firm in North Yorkshire. I just wish I was as clever as my dad was sometimes !!

Phil

Edited By Phil P on 29/12/2019 12:37:20

I have now discovered the second vertical dog clutch. Progress is slow at the moment with lots of house guests etc limiting the time one can spend in the garage. Having found it however it also seems as though the detent lever that selects up or down is somehow astray? It sits against the threaded stop in one direction (DOWN) but stops well short of the other? I think its the UP selection which is currently not engaging the lower dog clutch. I need to explore further as I suspect it may be a result of the siezed bevel gear causing excessive and repeated load in one direction only?