Changing chucks on Harrison L140

Hi,

I recently purchased a Harrison L140 3 phase lathe. I fitted a VFD drive direct to the motor (reconfigured to 240v) and have been using it to make some 35mm stainless shafts. I need to buy a 4 jaw chuck but don’t really understand what I need to buy. What is the easiest way to swap from 3 jaw to 4 jaw and back again. Does my current 3 jaw chuck have a faceplate that I need to match or is it easier to buy the 4 jaw with a faceplate and the specific thread to fit my lathe?

Any advice is greatly appreciated.

This was in the cabinet with the lathe.

If your lathe uses a L00 size backplate, (check the size) it will cost around £100 for the plate. From the picture, your three jaw is fitted to a separate backplate, but as three and four jaw chucks vary so much in registers and bolt fittings, it would not be easy to get both types fitting on the same plate.

How do you expect to stop the lathe in an emergency with only the VFD controls? The stop button is tiny.

Ah I see, I’ve just been doing some research on chuck fittings on lathe.com. It seems like quite the minefield. My VFD is wired with an E stop and isolator (grey box bottom left) it’s slighly out of view In the picture but when I’m using the lathe it is right by my feet so I can use this as an emergency foot brake. It’s a bit ‘Flintstones’ at the moment but I’ve got a 2.2kw motor to go on when I get chance and then everything will be wired correctly. 🙃

Yes, your right it is a L00 fitting.......thanks

That’s the same chuck fitting as on a Colchester student

homeandworkshop.co.uk have nice looking 10” diameter one £175 ,oops mistake, in edit, that one is a L0 not L00 

stopping in emergency is easy with the clutch on these machines. Stopping with the vdf would be slow due to the ramp down timing, depending on how it is set.

Do ensure there are no switches between the vdf and the motor or you will blow it

Edited By Zan on 21/10/2019 17:20:02

David

When you do wire it finally I suggest that you put a box with decently large shrouded buttons for start & reverse along with a mushroom headed stop button just under the chip tray about where that round hole in the stand is. Buttons pointing out horizontally but not beyond the tray.

I did such with my old SouthBend Heavy 10 toolroom and found it to work very well indeed. Buttons easily found and always accessible. My Smart & Brown 1024 VSL has the factory arrangement with the buttons on an angled panel effectively running up from the inside of the chip tray towards the headstock with its right hand edge a little back from the right hand edge of the headstock. Perfectly functional and button visibility is better but, I feel, placement not so good as being a bit too far to the left.

Tromp bar along the front of the machine is better than a foot button fro the emergency stop. Probably not something I'd change if I had a fully working system but if installing "do it right, do it once".

Clive

What make and model VFD is it?

That L00 catch plate could be modified to use an er32 collet system for small jobs, like this one:

**LINK**

Have a word with John Mills... 'Doubleboost' … I'm pretty sure he has a lathe like yours …

George.

I must admit I was in quite a hurry to get the lathe running as I had some 35mm shafts to make for a job. I had made the first few on a Myford ml7 but it was taking too long. I saw this lathe about 3 miles from home and at the right money so I jumped into gear. Cutting key ways and roughing out is so much faster on the Harrison. The VDF was a cheap £80 one from Amazon which has an extendable panel which can be mounted in a more suitable position and has analogue inputs for controlling it via an Arduino or similar. When I have a quiet Sunday afternoon I’ll fit the bigger 2.2kw motor to the lathe and install some easier/more accessible controls and estops. The footbar across the front will definitely be on the list because if I get tangled up in my headstock then no one would here the screams over the generator!!

As regards the chuck, you’ve given me enough information so at least I know what I am looking for now. I’ll look up Mr Mills on here, if it’s the same fellow then I have just recently found his YouTube channel.

Greetings David, I have the slightly earlier/later Harrison 11 inch, which is basically the same machine as you have, and more importantly, I may have a spare 4 jaw chuck, with LOO fitting.

I warn you they are heavy, and bigger than the 3 jaw.

I live in Norfolk, near Norwich, so is it worth the journey from where you live?

Regards

Brian

Hi Brian,

Now I know what I’m after I think I have found one on fleabay. I live in Shrewsbury which is quite a trip from you, although, I do have a customer fairly close to you so I might be able to kill two birds with one stone.

I guess it comes down to condition and price.......

regards,

Dave

Love the picture of that lathe standing on its head !!

Nice looking machine though !

I haven’t worked out how to rotate my pictures yet!! She’s a bit rough around the edges but a work in progress. I’d like to get rid of the awful green paint and return it to its original grey but that’s a job for 2025.

That's because it's not obvious! The forum doesn't allow users to rotate photos online so orientation has to be checked and fixed by the user before they are uploaded.

Although it's usually obvious to an intelligent human which way is 'up', a camera has to guess. Any confusion caused is further compounded by digital photos having 4 or 5 different ways of recording orientation which display software can misunderstand or ignore entirely. Mostly it works, but we live an imperfect world.

The cure is to view pictures in an Image Editor before uploading into an Album. If the editor displays wrongly or issues a warning, then the picture can be rotated and saved. Saving writes the human perception of 'THIS WAY UP' unambiguously into the image, and the forum gets it right. Most image editors seem to work, but there's always the possibility of one of them being eccentric too!

Quite a good example why I don't believe in 'common-sense'. Orientation seems obvious to us, but it's not. Right, Left, Up and Down all depend on the ability to sense an agreed frame of reference. If in the UK you believe 'Up' is overhead, then Australia really is upside-down. Or perhaps we are!

Dave

And there we go. Thanks for your help 👍