Identifying a vintage lathe

You're going to need all sorts of info to rebuild things

**LINK**

These guys are the Drummond users group

Not a Pools Special, I have one, a Pools '38 Special which has a base under the headstock end & a foot under the tailstock & according to Lathes.co. uk is a special edition in that it has a hinged countershaft, the only one fitted with one as standard I believe, as a historical note, a lifetime ago paperboys used to frequent the housing estate where I Iived selling the Nottingham Evening Post newspaper which had an advert for Pools Tools at the righthand end of the banner at the top, if I remember correctly they were made by firm called Slack & Parr.

Bob H

The change gears are compounded, and driven by the pins, in the same way as the Myford ML1, 2 ,3 and 4 which came afterwards, following the same design. The holes don't go all the way through to prevent the pins falling out.

On the Myfords, the gears were driven by driving collars which were secured to the Spindle and Leadscrew by 1/4 BSF grubscrews and drove the gears by the same 3/32" pins.

Howard

Worked out how the motor mounts onto the base unit. Now I have to work out how the (I think it’s called ) counter shaft is mounted….I should then get the lathe turning……the last photo shows the ( banjo ) where all the gears need to go to get the lead screw turning….I’m going to have to get a cog on the end of the spindle .a cog on the end of the lead screw and then try and connect them with other cogs….I don’t have any ‘axels ‘ to mount the intermediate cogs on so any photos or drawings would be a big help. thanks in advance

Sorry , photos in wrong order…..

Hi Haydn, three photos below, first is the Gear train, second is the Leadscrew end and the third is the Spindle end. None of the change wheels have a keyway cut into them and are all driven by two pins in all of the change wheel gears and the ones mounted onto the banjo, just have a straight pin to fit the bore of the wheels, just a tad longer the thickness of two of the wheels. The pins have a threaded portion, long enough to pass through the banjo with a nut and washer. The front of the pins are drilled to take a sprung split pin type of thing, fixed into the caps that can be seen in the gear train photo. There is a collar with two drive holes, same as the wheels on both the spindle and the leadscrew and these are held in place by a grub screw, the one on the spindle has a small flat and the one on the leadscrew is a keyway.

Sorry, I forgot to take a photo of the sprung split pin and cap, but can do one on Monday if needed.

Regards Nick.

Lovely, thanks….can I be a real pain and ask the size of each gear..?

Hi again,

looking at your very detailed photo of your gears/banjo…..my banjo looks a different shape to yours so what you have mau not be possible.

Hi Haydn, I think you'll find the banjos are the same, mine is just swung round clockwise compared to yours, anyway in the photo below I have shown the change wheel teeth numbers and the OD dimensions of the change wheels that are set-up on my lathe, I don't know why they are this way as it's just how they were when I bought the machine some years ago.

The next photo shows the extended change wheel pin that is mounted onto the fork on the headstock, which is carrying the 50 and 30 tooth wheels in the above photo and has the dimensions, with the exception of the screwed portion through the fork with a nut and washer on the other side, and also shows the hole which the sprung pin goes into.

This is the sprung pin that holds the change wheels onto their pins, these appear to be turned from a sold bar and just slotted.

This is just an unused change wheel pin with the sprung pin just entered into the hole in the change wheel pin, which can be seen at the bottom-right in the top photo.

Hope all this helps.

Regards Nick.

Nick, that is exactly what I need. Many thanks for taking the trouble.
mine doesn’t have the fork that comes off the headstock spindle.

also no 20 teeth beers..but at lease I know what I’m aiming for.

I suppose if I get different gears to transmit power from the spindle to the lead screw it will only affect the speed of the lead screw…..I doubt I will ever be doing any threading on this machine and as long as I can get the lead screw turning at a sensible speed to move the saddle I will be happy….

thanks again

Hi Haydn, yours does have a fork on the headstock, but it's not on the spindle, it's part of the headstock casting, though it looks as if it has been cut shorter, it's just behind the vertical part of your banjo in your pictures that you got in the wrong order, above my last post.

Regards Nick.

Thanks….got it !

Well, now got the basket case together and it’s looking o.k. I have cobbled up some spindles for the gears to spin on, no idea what I’m doing regarding ratios ect… the photos show the present result….all I want is the lead screw to transport the saddle at a sensible speed to work with, can’t actually run the lathe yet as I’m waiting for a drive belt which I should have tomorrow. I have a couple of gears left over so I can alter things if required.

again thanks for all the help from everyone…..

The gears are not actually turning on those M10 bolts, I made up some steel sleeves for them…should I make replacements up out of a different metal later ? These are mild steel I think.

The gears might actually be cast-iron (the texture of the un-machined areas would be a clue), which will run on mild-steel.

Otherwise, if they are steel, leaded-bronze but not phosphor-bronze, is probably the best material.

All Drummond gears are cast iron which is why some thugs manage to break teeth off. Your set up is right in principle
Have you looked at any of the hundreds of pictures on the 'net showing typical set-ups? Normally you use both slots in the banjo so that the gear train is 3 pairs of small driving large gear for max reduction then save the position on the headstock to put in just one idler that reverses the direction when you want the carriage to go left to right rather than the normal right to left.

Well, fitted drive belt and the lathe is working pretty much as it should……with the gears as above the saddle wizzes along very fast so I changed the gears as in the photo in this post and it is much better but still much to fast….where do I go from here ? Do I try and source a couple of 20 tooth gears…

another problem is when the lead screw is engaged the part the ‘clutch lever’ engages that carries the bottom gear slowly moves out until the lead screw disengages. I have looked for a grub screw or something to lock it in position but nothing seems obvious.

Edited By SillyOldDuffer on 28/09/2022 18:24:16

The minimum with the standard set of gears would be eg 20 driving 55, 30 driving 60, 30 or 35 driving 65. ie 3 smallest driving 3 largest. However nowadays you may be able to get several 20s perhaps 3D printed.
The clutch disengagement is due to wear in the engagement slot which could be filed parallel again but in the interim just hand a few nuts on a loop of string and hang it over the lever in the direction that creates the necessary holding torque.

The set up on the banjo is on the right track, but one compound stage is missing. The photo provided by Nicholas shows the arrangement:

Nicholas' set-up has an extra pair of small/big gears which reduce his overall ratio considerably. Have you another big gear available?

Dave