George Adams 2 1/2 questions

Hi everyone.

a couple of years ago i bought this George Adams lathe on eBay, as a had always wanted a small lathe that i could use. When i received it, it was in worse shape than i thought it would be. The whole chuck had massive wobble, and the lathe bed was in very bad shape. It also was badly rusted. So i ended up just putting it into storage.

this year i took it out again, and decided to give it a go, and try to get this lovely little machine back into somewhat working order. And this have led me to come here. Both to ask some questions, and i suppose i wanted to show it off.

Pulling it apart, and inspecting the headstock further, i found it to be in pretty good condition. The spindle and cone bearings all look perfect, and it has no slop in it at all. The huge wobble turned out to stem from a bent backplate on the chuck itself. Which leads me to my first question:
this backplate, are these custom made by craftsmen back in the days, or are they possible to buy somewhere? Since this machine seems to be very rare, and very little information to be found out there, i suppose finding one that would fit both this spindle and type of chuck is impossible.

The chuck itself also seems to be one of those things that just dont exist in the world anymore. Which leads me to my 2nd question:
The chuck reads Goodell Pratt Company. I have not been able to find much information about this specific chuck, at all really. But my chuck jaws are completely worn out. It wont hold anything, as it just clamps down at the very back of the jaws. Is it possible to find new jaws that would fit this chuck? If not, i need to try and re grind them.

on the headstock, it has these beautiful brass oil cups. But one of them has at some point had the lid broken off. I have searched everywhere i could, but finding a replacement has so far been futile. Any tips on this would be greatly appreciated.

I am sure i have many more questions, but these are what i could remember when i tried to write this post.

i havent done anything with the bed itself yet, other than remove the surface rust that it had. But i plan to find someone who can re grind it for me. I also need to make a new “nut” for one of the lead screws in the cross slide, as the threads are badly worn.
and yes, i know i have painted the lever tail stock in a different paint. I just wanted to try something else, as i am not completely satisfied with the black colour that i have used on the rest of the machine.

***okay, so i tried to add in my pictures here, but i have no idea on how to actually do so ***

Looking forward to seeing the photos - create an albumn, add them to it and then you can post them by clicking on the camera icon.

Bed regrinding is offered by a number of companies - look for ones offering it for Myford lathes. I wouldn't want to take too much off though.

Chuck wise I would say you have a couple of options. Best one would be to make a back plate for the lathe, but this would require a screw cutting lathe. Then you can buy a good quality new or old chuck and mount it.

Alternatively you can buy 8mm clock/watch makers chucks that should fit in the headstock. These will have a more limited use, as you cannot put anything much up the headstock, but is an easy solution.

I'm the last person in the world to say this, as I like to rescue every lost cause, but there is the gentleman on ebay offering quite nice ones of these with chucks etc for £400 (the person I bought mine from). So you might just want add up what it is going to cost to get this up and running and whether by the time you have had it ground etc etc I'm just mentioning it and would fully appreciate it and respect you if you said you wanted to repair this lathe.

James

Thank you! And thank you for your feedback. I would generally like to have the more sturdy option of using a chuck with a backplate, so i will try to work something out in that direction.

to be fair, i would consider buying another one. If not to replace the one i have, i would for the spare parts. Particularly if it had a bed that is better than what i currently have. But i cant seem to find anyone, anywhere. I have searched on EBay, but i cant see anyone on there.

Here are the photos of mine:

That looks a smart lathe from here. Although you cannot really tell from photos, the bed doesn't look in bad condition. Have you taken any readings from it? Using a micrometer or a jig and test indicator?

Plain lathes don't get quite the wear that a screw cutting lathes do on the bed.

Do you have a straight edge? You can get a feel for major wear using a straight edge and a 1 thou shim.

Obviously you would need a surface plate to assess properly or scrape - but these can be purchased reasonably from ebay, but condiiton is everything. I have a new inspection grade one that I know is right and then a couple of smaller ones from ebay for layout and workshop use.

But as I say the lathe looks a good starting place to me.

James

The worst of it you cant see, as it is under the tail stock. But it has very large, and quite deep pit rust there. So the tailstock is basically just resting on the high spots. But no, i havent really measured it. I am pretty new to all of this, but i have invested an immense amount of time into the rest of this lathe, to restore it into what it is now

As I say it looks amazing - huge congratulations on that.

Sounds like the next steps are to get it working as well as it looks. Try a couple of the things above (straight edge, micrometer) and see how far out the bed is - they'll give you an idea. If you look at Jan Sverre Haugjord's youtube channel you'll get lots of advice on checking a bed and then scraping it in. Rust pits aren't always a bed killer (they can be!), but so long as you have enough areas contacing the tail stock (20 ppi) some hollows won't matter.

Yes, I have seen some of his videos. And I have been considering to reach out to him, as he is a fellow Norwegian if I am not mistaken.

I tried just placing a ruler on it. Now this probably isn’t perfectly level by itself, but just using that, the bed got noteworthy gaps. I will upload a picture of the tail stock side so you can see what I mean by pit rust. As it is in my view quite extensive

Backplates.

These are most unlikely to be availabe "off the shelf".

Recently, to enable a friend to mount a 4 jaw chuck on his small lathe, we had to make a backplate.

The nearest that we could get as raw material was a 100mm plate with a 26.5 mm central bore.

Having measured the bore, a plug was made to have a 0.00!" interference. This was fitted by the "Heat and Freeze" technique.

The backplate was then put into the 3 jaw chuck on a larger lathe to be bored ready to be tapped 3/4 x 10 BSW to suit the spindle on the lathe..

When this had been done a dummy spindle was turned and screwcut, before being finished with a die. (This entailed making a Die Holder for the 2" diameter Die! )

The backplate was then screwed onto this dummy spindle, tfaced and to reduce the diameter to 80 mm and to produce the register.

Fortunately, the backplate had been tapped M6 on the required PCD, so it was just a matter of opening up the holes to clearance, to enable chuck and backplate to be united.

You are going to have do somethinbg similar for your lathe. finish machining the backplate, once it has been fitted to your lathe.

Hopefully, the chuck will then hold work closer to true.

Howard.

I recommend starting by using the lathe to cut metal rather than measuring. Measuring is difficult and understanding the results more so. Getting either wrong can lead to unnecessary remedial work and making the lathe worse.

In contrast, cutting metal is relatively easy to do and it makes faults very obvious. Bent spindle, knackered bearings, head and tailstock misalignment, loose headstock, unacceptably worn bed, worn jaws, damaged chuck internals, cracked parts, broken keys, broken & maladjusted gibs, worn worms, backlash, broken shear pins, jambed collars, missing parts, blocked oil-ways, damaged nose thread etc. Running a lathe reveals problems that are hard to measure - like overheating bearings and horrible mechanical noises!

Many of these are cheap easy fixes, others difficult and expensive, possibly show-stoppers. Although she looks lovely, that lathe could be BER. (Beyond economic repair.) I advise putting the lathe 'as is' through it's paces to identify as many faults as possible before deciding what to do about them.

So don't start by laying a straight-edge on the bed and going immediately for an expensive regrind! Cutting metal highlights other issues, and the bed may not be worth fixing. A rust pit under the tailstock is unlikely to matter, whereas a deep hollow ground into the headstock end is trouble. But note it's possible to do good work on a rather badly worn lathe - how important the wear is depends on what the lathe is used for. Don't fixate on the bed or anything else: before spending money, cut metal and evaluate whatever it reveals.

With luck cutting metal will allow everything that matters to be fixed in short order. But cutting may only the first step. Although a good way of identifying lots of problems and giving a rough idea how serious they are, measuring is the next step, and essential for fine adjustments. For example if a DTI or micrometer shows the happily working lathe cuts a taper, measurement is needed to identify and correct the cause - might be bed-twist, which is fixed by "levelling", or the headstock needs realigning. Both are delicate adjustments.

I would only buy the lathe in it's present condition as an ornamental antique. It's obviously been beautifully cleaned up, but she's a very old lady, and condition as a working precision machine is unknown - could be anything between good or scrap. Unfortunately it's not difficult to tart lathes up, and anything of that age looking that gorgeous makes me suspicious. Appearance is secondary to me. Buying a second-hand lathe for work rather than decoration, I'd insist on seeing it run before buying it.

That said, lathes are fairly robust, and quite a few ancient survivors are in remarkably good condition. It depends on the machine's history - many were thrashed by men working hard to earn a crust and were scrapped decades ago. Others were used for light repair or prototyping work. A few sat on a bench, or in a crate, for 50 years. Lathes owned by hobbyists mostly have a very easy life. Not unusual for good lathes to end up rusting slowly away in a damp cellar, in which case the damage varies from fatal to cosmetic. When an item becomes BER depends on how much time and effort the owner wants to spend. In my case, not much, because I own tools to use them. But restoring old equipment is a respectable hobby in itself. Men cheerfully spend years bringing historic gear back to life. Heritage repair may not be for me, but I admire those who do it, and their results.

Regrinds - anyone able to name any firms doing this work at the moment? They seem to be disappearing.

Dave

Wow - shiny. It looks like you have been polishing it on a buffing wheel. Didn't we have a thread on this lathe model a couple of months back when I mentioned I have never seen any spare parts on ebay for it. The spindle thread is unusually fine so not similar to any of the other small lathes.
There are loads of little chucks on ebay though so you just need to make a backplate. You need another lathe for that. Just make the threaded part initially in cast iron bar in case it doesn't come out right. Then solder on a disc and finish on you lathe to make sure it is true. Actually as the current chuck is poor why not remove it and true up the backplate in situ?

It is not a screwcutting lathe. Therefore the bed is only to hold bits together and you could use a bit of angle iron instead. It is completely pointless to regrind the bed. All the real work is done by the saddle/cross slide/topslide assembly.

It is a good lathe for clockmaking, model railways, small engineering up to G1, not just an ornamental antique except for the fact that it is so shiny.

Use an industrial sewing machine motor to power it; which also gives you variable speed.

That second tailstock is interesting - can you provide a better photo of just that please.

The damage to the tailstock area is worse than I had thought. You're not going to scrape that out.

Whilst I agree that having a perfectly flat and aligned bed isn't essential on a plain lathe, for accurate, consistant and timely work it's nice to have. If I'm honest though I wouldn't spend the time on this bed getting it to that state.

I think the view that you should use the lathe and see where you go from there is good advice. You might find it does all you wan it to do, or else you'll out grow it but know what you want in the future.

James

Probably, you won't be using that area of the bed all that much, anyway; so worry about that when, and if, the need does arise.

In the meantime concentrate of becominbg familiar with the lathe.

From what you've said the imost pressing job will be to make a new backplate for the 3 jaw, so that workholding is improved. (The lathe for which the 3/4 x 10 BSW backplate was made was also 2 1/2" centre height, but was not the same as yours. )

Your worst problem might be tappinbg the thread. Almost certainly, the thread on the spindle will be Whitworth form. This is where a set of thread gauges will come into their own, to allow you to find the pitch, ot rather, tpi..

Then, as part of the familiarisation, and learning processes, you can make simple tools.

Not only will you benefit from the experience, but the tools will be useful in the futuire.,

Eventually you may find a need for a 4 jaw ichuck., and your experience in making a backplate for the 3 jaw will be invaluable.

Howard

Simon

You have already received a lot of sage advice here, so I thought I would just chip-in with an historical note about the maker of your chuck: **LINK**

https://oldtoolheaven.com/related/goodell-pratt-history.htm

Damaged and worn as the lathe bed may be: It appears that you have good headstock bearings and a fine chuck … With your obvious enthusiasm for it; one way or another that machine will surely end-up capable of doing good work.

MichaelG.

Machining a new one is currently out of my capabilities, as i dont have another lathe, or the necessary knowledge to do this well.

but after having done some speculating, i decided to take the backplate off the chuck. And having that mounted alone in the spindle, i machined off the end, to make it level again. I did the same with both sides of the brass spacer that is fitted to the chuck.
as i dont yet have a motor setup for this, i improvised a hand crank, and powered it manually! It did work, quite well actually, but it took eons to finish. And it improved the chuck wobble drastically. I didnt measure it when it was at its worst, but during the work i had to run a buy one of these measuring devices. Now i got the wobble in the chuck down to 0,03 mm. before i did this, i would estimate the wobble to be at least 2mm or so. It was huge.

not being all that knowledgable, i dont know if 0,03mm is good enough. But to me it seems to be quite decent.

There is another thread for a G.Adams 2 1/2" lathe, I have an original G.Adams catalogue and posted some pages of the lathe see other thread for G Adams 2 1/2

Yes, i hear you. Trying to run the lathe, and use it for cutting first was always the plan. I will not use this machine for tasks that require a massive amount of precision (at least for now). So the bed not being perfect will likely not cause me all that much of an issue. That being said, it is one of those things that i want to do down the road, if the machine turns out to be useful. I guess i am just one of those guys who care for both usability and looks.

but i thank you for your advice. It all sounds very sound to me

Yeah i did this yesterday. And it seems to have worked quite well. Now to look into the jaws..

here are some pictures of the 2nd tailstock

Thank you for the article. I sure hope it will.

The catalogue picture linked by Vic shows the lever tailstock though it doesn't seem to have the round base of yours. I imagine it is a rather rare item.