Canadian needs help with a Britannia

Hello everyone,

A question from Vancouver Island Canada:

I recently acquired an old Britannia lathe.

I it looks like the lathe has been modified (at least that's what I think) quite a bit.

I have a box of back gears with it but don't have a clue what gears to use if I don't have some kind of guidance.

The problem is that I can't find any literature on this one at all.

Is there anyone out there that could point me in the right direction? Of all the sources I found, none of them match this lathe!

Thanks so much!

Marinus

Hello Marinus,

Welcome to the forum, that is a nice looking lathe.

Check out this article: www.lathes.co.uk/britannia/

I am sure Tony (whose site it is) would be delighted to see [photos of your machine and may be able to offer advice.

What you have are change gears for screw cutting and fine feed.

If you use the smallest gears as drivers and largest ones as drive gears it should give you a nice fine feed for general turning.

For screwcutting the ratios to use depend on the threads per inch of the leadscrew (probably 8 or maybe 4), what gears you have, a picture of the back of the lathe showing where they fit and what gears are permanently fitted to the machine (e.g. on the end of the spindle)

Neil

Looks to be a later version of the second one illustrated on the Britannia home page at lathes.co.uk and in first set of photographs. No obvious evidence of significant modification.

Typically machines of that era used fairly standard change gear set-ups. I have listings for some leadscrew pitches / TPI. Easy enough to copy and E-mail if one matches yours.

The gear peeping out from under the end of the cross slide suggests it has power cross feed but where it picks the drive up from and how it's engaged is somewhat unclear. At a guess one or the other of the two round knob things" pulls out to engage the feed. Southbend et al used a keyway in the leadscrew but I suppose some form of gear engaging in the leadscrew rather after the fashion of a thread dial indicator is possible.

Clive.

Thanks for all that.

I would love to have something that lists what gears to use for certain tread pitches. I guess that was my biggest question.

So far I have figured out the following:

In the picture below you can see the home made part ( the one with the small bolt sticking out) That one activates the automatic feed. Tightening up the smallest of the round knobs will activate the cross feed, and the large one the carriage.

Moving the larger lever will cause the half nuts to clamp on the feed spindle and the carriage will move at a greater speed.

On the left side of the head stock is the forward/reverse lever for the automatic feed. On the right side the lever to slow the lathe to tread cutting speed. (If I disengage the small lock on the front of the main gear in the head stock).

That's about as far as I've gotten.

I am also quite curious how old this lathe would be.

I would love to take Clive up on his offer to email me the info about the gears. No use to have a box of them sitting around not knowing which gear will produce what tread!

Any other info would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks

Marinus

First job !

Replace that bolt with a socket grub screw and make the handle with the 'detente' to drop into those holes.

Bonne chance.

Second job!

Buy a copy of 'The Amateur's Lathe' by L.H.Sparey...latest publisher(?) Special Interest Model Books....ISBN; 978 085242 288 5

....This Very excellent book has several tables at the back giving change wheel set ups for many threads according to the TPI of lead screws. It's an 'oldy but goody' book first written about 70 years back and in more or less constant reprint ever since due to it's great value to anyone with a small lathe....not expensive to buy online either, and full of stuff for the small lathe user.

That is a VERY nice looking Britannia lathe. Might be one of the last they made, a real classic

Great looking lathe! I nearly didn't open this thread as I assumed it was to do with the steam locomotive.

Andrew

Thank you so much everyone!

This is very helpful. I know I have a few items that require attention and will get on that as soon as I am back from a quick visit to Holland.

I am thrilled to have this lathe and the condition it's in.

I will order the book Bob mentioned, it sounds very useful.

Thanks again for all your responses and all advise is appreciated.

Marinus