Screwcutting Clutch for Myford Lathes

A great deal of interest has been shown on these forums into various screwcutting clutches for different lathes.

I was recently contacted by Alastair Sinclair who drew my attention to an article by Martin Cleeve which described how he had constructed one for his Myford.

To accompany Alastair's letter the article is reproduced HERE.

Interestingly, although the recent designs have been derived from the Hardinge arrangement, according to Martin Cleeve it appears it may have originated with the British Exe lathe.

Neil

Unfortunately this device was never written up in full. If anyone can scan and post better quality versions of pictures in the Martin Cleeve article, I'd be grateful.

Better still, does anyone know the present location of his lathe?

Finally Martin Cleeve's book 'Screwcutting in the Lathe' is available HERE

Neil

.

Neil,

I have a clean copy of the magazine ... I will scan the photos and post them here

[hopefully, later today]

MichaelG.

As promised:

MichaelG.

There isn't a lot new in this engineering world except materials and electronics or a combination of both.

The Hardinge system has been widely copied and used by other makers. Monarch and CVA had a very similar arrangement but did not publicised it preferring to call it the forward and reverse gear clutch but being inside the headstock and a single dog clutch it worked exactly the same way.

Where the Hardinge and the Monarch systems were concerned as regards many later inferior copies is that they were inside the headstock, hardened and ground and lubricated making them a real work horse.

Here is the dog clutch I had on my Exe lathe I fitted one on my Drummond flat bed as well useing a pin type location
Nobby

Edited By Nobby on 22/02/2015 18:16:42

Edited By Nobby on 22/02/2015 18:22:02

Edited By Nobby on 22/02/2015 18:23:10

Does anyone know what the arrangement is / was on the back driven by the round belt from the spindle?

Second pic in Michaels post.

Also seen it asked here and also been asked before but what happened to this lathe ? Does any one know for sure ?

.

John,

Vague recollection of it being a Fine Feed arrangement ... But not certain.

MichaelG.

.

Ahh ... Suppressed memories

Have a look on this EW thread.

Now, does anyone have ME for 10-November-1955 

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 22/02/2015 23:05:20

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 22/02/2015 23:07:39

.

Any offers ?

MichaelG.

You have an email, Michael.

Neil

Edit - not the most elegant solution...

Edited By Neil Wyatt on 25/02/2015 08:29:51

Thanks, Neil ... Much appreciated.

Agreed it's far from elegant ... but I suspect that there's the germ of a good idea in there.

Replace the outboard gearbox with a bit of electrickery and a stepper motor ?

MichaelG.

Edited By Ady1 on 25/02/2015 08:56:08

Hi Michael,
Is this the sort of "electrickery" you had in mind ?

Les.

John and Michael,

To answer your question, in Cleeve's book WPS 3 'Screwcutting in the lathe' he describes the rear mounted drive using the round belt off the spindle as a permanently available self act gearing running at approximately 1/10 spindle speed.

It is brought into engagement with any gear train assembled by lowering the quadrant onto the small pinion extreme bottom left in the last picture that Michael presented

Regards

Brian.

.

Yes indeed, Les

What particularly struck me, though, was the way Cleeve's gearbox is brought into mesh with an existing screw-cutting train; like an overdrive unit.

MichaelG.

.

Edit: Thanks to Ady and Brian

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 25/02/2015 09:34:38

When you look at the pictures at the top of this page on Cleeves original ML7 it's a very complex machine, made so to serve various functions to allow him to work smarter at the time.

However as we have moved on there is probably nothing that machine can do that cannot be performed by a couple of stepper motors and a simple controller.

I feel that we are lucky being where we are in time in that we are seeing great strides being taken, probably more so than the last 100 years when machine tools hardly changed.

It is more than possible now as many readers here are in the same boat, that you can have a CNC lathe, mill, laser cutter and 3D printer, all in a little shed. In Martin Cleeves day you would have been burnt on a fire of Drummond round bed packing cases as a heretic.

What is helping most though is the power of the internet where people can share ideas, drawings instantaneously without waiting for the next edition of postbag and the fact it can be a 10 sided conversation.

Edited By John Stevenson on 25/02/2015 09:50:26

Well said, John

MichaelG.

I really couldn't agree more, it was all so ponderous years ago.

It is though both interesting and instructive to understand the purely mechanical approach of those times, it gives insights into the more flexible approach available today, and being a pure 'clanky' one I have much greater empathy with.

Brian

"Also seen it asked here and also been asked before but what happened to this lathe ?"

IIRC (always questionable!!), I seem to remember that the lathe and accessories were either sold through ME or the auction was covered in the mag. This was fairly adjacent to (months) Mr Cleeves's passing.

Rgds

Bill

Might have been ponderous but at least the keyboard "Warrior" syndrome didn't occur.

Regards Ian