100 years on

There have recently been postings covering screwcutting and updating of ML4 lathes, that led me to post my experience on these 2 fronts although my ML4 .updating was 50 years ago.

All my machines, like me , are of the last century they look substantial and in many cases very pleasing to the eye. This is particularly the case with my Dalton lathe , picture enclosed after refurbishment. This item is over 100 years old but has many desirable dimensional relationships (bed width to centre ht. carriage support length to centre ht.) that would be sought after today.

After the refurb. practical aspects of the machines use became clear and its use in todays environment left room for improvement. The significant increase in Metric unit use, needs extra work on set up of the machine, and in my brain which still works in imperial units and needs a conversion for my understanding. All the foregoing bought to mind the single tooth mod done on the Myford. Then along came Joe, he being Joe Noci who described his refurb. of an Emco lathe and the fitting of an electronic leadscrew designed with his wife Gisela ( they are without doubt a formidable team).

This unit will allow the lathe to cut imperial or metric pitches , internal, external and left hand threads without resort to change wheels or thread dials and as an extra includes variable speed carriage feed. Joe describes it as an electronic version of the single tooth clutch approach I was sold on this as a must have.

Joe agreed to help me build and understand what I was doing, in building the unit. He did say it was not a plug and play project and was he ever right..

The photo's show the Dalton headstock with all the gearcutting and feed kit removed as they are now redundant, in their place is the encoder that reads the mandrel activity and the stepper motor that drives the leadscrew.

Also shown is the control panel, used when the feed function, left and right traverse, and the thread and return buttons. This is mounted in a convenient position for operation.

The further picture shows the unit used to set the pitch and unit for threading together with the start and finishing position of the thread to be cut. This unit also carries the feed speed control pot.

That then is the project that moved a100 year old machine from one century to the next in its function and scope. To my mind it looks as though it was meant to be, still beautiful .

paul

Sorry folks my computer or the site will not allow me to make an album or post it, when its sorted I will repost.

paul

here are the photo's that should have been with posting above.

Edited By Paul White 3 on 24/10/2017 16:39:00

sorry folks will not post please look in my albums.

Edited By Paul White 3 on 24/10/2017 16:40:36

Edited By Neil Wyatt on 24/10/2017 17:40:29

Very classy, Paul

Congratulations

MichaelG.

Tastefully done. Good job!

Dave

Looks like it grew there.

This should be the set of photo's.

That lathe looks lovely Paul. Did you have the bed way re-done? If you did , tell us how it was done.

Rik (dribbling)

Very nice looking Lathe! What are all those green and red buttons for?

Paul, use the black camera icon and it will let you choose photos from your albums.

Neil

P.S. nice work! Write it up for MEW!

Edited By Neil Wyatt on 25/10/2017 18:36:34

I will try once more here are the photo's the Dalton after refurb before fitting the ELS.

Paul, that is a VERY nice looking Lathe. You sent me some photo's during the ELS process, but they did not show the full picture.. It really looks beautiful! Knocks the curves off any old Myford.. Very nice, very well done.

And the addition of the ELS as implemented really looks good. I was really impressed how you took this on, not a simple or small task, and ran with it - with no previous experience in any of it at all! It was an absolute pleasure, an education, and most enjoyable to work with you, all via emails (!) on this. Thanks for the journey!

A splendid job indeed! May you have many happy and relaxed threads ahead!

Thanks Paul!

Regards

Joe

New strings to play a good tune on a nicely refurbished old fiddle, so to speak!

Very good work.

Howard