Metal lathe

[M61hops]

O.K. I'm bragging here  !  I've got three lathes and two milling machines!  Plus a cut-off bandsaw that can be used vertically and all the other stuff you find in a well equipped home shop.  One lathe is a cheap toy from Harbor Freight, the 7 X 12 and it is sort of stupid in the way it's built so I'm glad I only paid $100 for it.  Another lathe is a nice 15 X 60 gap bed with a 3 13/16 spindle hole also from china but a good machine.  My favorite tool is my 1943 Reed Prentice 15 X 72 engine lathe; it's just way cool and the serial number is stamped on all the tooling that came with it.  Everything works very smooth and you can just tell it's solid and rigid due to it's way generous portions of cast iron.  They just don't make things like this in the USA anymore.  The 15 X 60 lathe weighes 3500Lbs. and feels nice and solid, but I bet the Reed Prentice must weigh twice that and feels like it could carve an inch a pass on mild steel.  I also have a chinese clone of a Bridgeport with electric power feed, and an old Brown & Sharp No. 1 1/2 universal mill that has really cool because it's complicated gear drive power feed.  Yeah, I have a shop at home, maybe that's why I got no wife  !                 Leland

[Gippslander]

Hi All

I have 7 lathes .

1964   Colchester Chipmaster

1940  Hendey  12 X 30  ( metric version )

1958  Harrison L5

Premo ( Australian made )

1920  Drummond hobby lathe

Unknown pedestal lathe

Sheraton 9 ( copy of the South Bend 9 )

two shapers

 ATLAS 7B


Two milling machines

DM 45 Asian thing

A tool and cutter grinder ADDISON brand



1940's Cash horizontal

[mobile_bob]

hey!  is that Drummond a round bed lathe?

if so do you have any pic's?

bob g

[Gippslander]

hey!  is that Drummond a round bed lathe?

if so do you have any pic's?

bob g

hi Bob

Sorry it is a flat bed model B I have . There is a Drummond lathe yahoo group , quite a few round bed owners on there

Cheers ...Mike

[dieselgman]

Hello all you lathe aficionadoes... does anyone have a spare crossfeed screw for a Clausing 5914?

dieselgman

[selmawp]

Well after all this I guess I put in my 2 cents worth, have a small old Sunnen Hone 50ts? Cematron watercooled AC/DC300 tig welder, old bridge port that used to be a MOOG hydraulic converted to manuel with a powerfeed, a Clauser 13" Cholester, Floor drill pres cutoff saw, bench grinder, 6" belt sender with 1hp 3phase motor, Sunnen seat grinder, 50s Kwikway valve grinder, Kelco pressure blaster, 30hp Davey rotary compressor (110cfm?) band saw, old 3/4 Black and Decker drill and several handgrinders and hand drills. Also for sale watercooled Glen Tig 303 500amps. need a forklift to move it.

[Gippslander]

Hello all you lathe aficionadoes... does anyone have a spare crossfeed screw for a Clausing 5914?

dieselgman

HI

Usually, the cross feed nut is made from bronze , this wears too . I would replace both the nut and the screw .

You can make a new cross feed screw on another lathe , they normally use a ACME thread on all of that stuff .

If you cannot find a new nut, you might try tinning the nut with some bearing material ( building up the worn threads )  and then run the new screw through the nut , tapping it for a higher tolerance fit  .

mike

[Thob]

Hello all you lathe aficionadoes... does anyone have a spare crossfeed screw for a Clausing 5914?

dieselgman

I think you can still get parts from Clausing

http://www.clausing-industrial.com/partsService.asp

I'm not familiar with that particular model, but often a crossfeed screw can be made by taking a piece of stock acme threaded rod and machining it down to round where it goes thru the bearings.  That assumes you have enough of the old one left to measure - is the old one broken or just worn?

[dieselgman]

We purchased the old Clausing after someone had scavenged the crossfeed assembly. I know that folks are making the brass nuts for them but I have had trouble finding the rest of the pieces.
We can do a number of jobs with the old machine as it sits and we use it for crankshaft polishing, but it would be nice to restore it completely and be able to get full functionality out of her again.

Thanks for your responses! 

dieselgman

[mobile_bob]

i can't remember if i reported on my shop machine tools or not
but i just this last weekend picked up a decent hardinge bb4 milling machine

been working on it off an on for the last few days as time allows, and what a sweetheart it is!

it needs a cross slide lead screw and T nut, and a couple of better crank handles, but the rest of the machine is in really pretty useful shape

it only has about 5inches by maybe 3 inches of travel, but it has all the collets i need (4c) and i have a bunch of end mills, so it has enough to work with from the start.

its nice to have a machine capable of at least doing keyways and slots... and probably much more.

and it gets me really interested in getting the bigger stuff hooked up! 

which brings up a question for you 3phase guru's

i know about static converters, and rotary converters as well as electronic varispeed controllers, however this is what i am thinking of doing as i don't have 3 phase power here.

having a 19inch leblond rapid production lathe with at least a 5 hp motor (3phase) it has a clutch pack to disengage the motor from the headstock, so

i am thinking of removing one of the 3drive belts which would free up a groove, and drive it with a single phase motor to get the motor running on single phase power, once running it will generate the 3rd phase and then i would have power for the other tools...

anyone see a problem with this?

as for reduction of power to the leblond headstock because of only having 2 drive belts instead of 3, it is unlikely i will ever have a need for full power or even half power for that matter.

bob g

[Thob]

Congratulations on the Hardinge - they make excellent machines!

A lot of the VFDs will run with single phase 240V input and give 3 phase output.  They may have reduced power capability, depends on the model.  That's what I'm using on my Bridgeport clone mill.  I really love being able to adjust the speed just by turning the knob - I got spoiled to that really quick

Another option is to get a 3 phase head for your favorite prime mover, and run it when you need to machine something.

I'm not sure you'll ever get the voltage and frequency correct attempting to use a 3 phase motor as a generator.  I know it works when attempting to back-feed generated power to the grid, but that's because the grid determines the voltage and frequency.

You could always put a single phase motor on the mill (cringe).
[For those that don't know: single phase motors have a "cogging" that creates vibrations in machine tools, resulting in bad finish, frustration, etc.]

[M61hops]

Hi Bob!  You could leave all three belts on as it is and start the motor with a start capacitor in series with one leg and a momentary contact push button switch!  My back has gotten worn out to where I don't like to bend over unless it is real important so instead of winding a string around the shaft of the 10hp motor I use as a converter, I hooked up a lazy mans starter.   My home made converter draws 20A just idling so I can't help wondering what would happen if I belted a Changfa 175A to the motor shaft and pushed a few amps back into the grid when the converter is idling?  Would I get more starting torque out of my geared head lathe?   There is no clutch so there is a lot of drag when starting in the higher speed gears and I will pop a breaker trying to get things rolling in the top few speeds.    Leland