Lathe Identification

alunduk · Feb 1, 2013

Hello everyone I've recently acquired a lathe and cant find any name plates or numbers anywhere I'm looking to get some more change gears but am struggling to find any the right size. I've been through just about everything on lathes.com to no avail can anyone help me with a makers name? maybe a model?

Thanks
Adam

Richard King · Feb 1, 2013

You might call and E-Mail those pictures to some Used or 2nd hand machinery dealers in the UK. Those guys, especially some old-timers will probably know what it is. Good Luck

alunduk · Feb 1, 2013

I'll get some more photos tonight, but some of the photos (the last three) have some bits soaking to free-up/clean including the gears from the counter shaft and the forward/reverse thread cutting selector that does mate with the aft gear. I'm not too sure about the v-belts I've had the thing in bits and if it has been made or altered it has been done to a very high standard a while ago. If I had to say one way or another I'd say they were original, the only information I have age wise was that it was installed where I removed it from prior to 1964 so it's older than that but that's all I know.

Thanks for the quick responses, I can tell people around here know there stuff.

kitno455 · Feb 1, 2013

The headstock is a shop-made weldment. No one will be able to identify that. The same is probably true for the tailstock. The bed, carriage and apron are more likely to provide clues.

allan

Andy FitzGibbon · Feb 1, 2013

Both the headstock and tailstock look like they may be shop-made weldments, rather than castings.

Andy

SouthBendModel34 · Feb 1, 2013

We need better mug shots of this lathe

Please re-photograph this lathe using the guidlines in the "sticky" thread near the top of this forum.

I, for one, would like to see a profile shot of the tailstock with the camera close enough so that the tailstock fills the frame.

The length of the headstock spindle is very curious - most spindles do not extend far to the left.

John Ruth

L Vanice · Feb 1, 2013

I see welded plate construction everywhere the photos are detailed enough to tell. The welds look more like gas than electric to me. In other words, this is likely a one-off machine. It might have been a wartime expedient. I won't guess which war.

The answer to finding more change gears is to determine the diametral pitch of the remaining gears, assume 14.5 degree pressure angle and decide the tooth counts you need. Then order generic gears and modify the bores to suit. Of course, the maker may have used a set of old Britannia or other change gears that were easily available at the time.

Larry

Andy FitzGibbon · Feb 1, 2013

thermite said:
My FIRST impressions also. But look closer. My bet is otherwise. Not 'shop-made weldment' so much as 'shop made mould'. Small-beer manufacturer, maybe a school project, and/or so far back the stresses were not expected to be high. Closer-up photos, and they may prove to be castings after all.

Back in the day I THINK it was made, welding was still mostly gas, still a minority player. It was WAY easier - and cheaper - to make a mould and carry it to a close-by iron foundry - they were all over the place - than it was to weld anything, especially anything very thick.

Bill

I disagree. Welds are visible on the headstock in photos three and four- look around the bearing cap bolts, back gear bearing blocks, lower front corners of the headstock, ect. I can't tell if it's gas or electric welding.

The bed appears to be a casting- I think it is an old lathe that had a shop-built headstock, tailstock, and possibly the carriage added later in its life.

Andy

Andy FitzGibbon · Feb 1, 2013

thermite said:
After some work on the pics, I 'mostly' agree. Still wondering 'til more and better photos come along - given the unusual (for the size, anyway) three-point support of the longish spindle. It could be that all three supports are shop-fabbed - or that one of them is adapted from the original.

It is curious, for example, to have gone to the trouble to position - one supposes with a degree of precision - the support for the back-gearing countershaft .. which is in-place, but naked. Much less work to have simply not bothered. Perhaps the missing mate to the gears that we DO see, even if re-purposed - was expected to be available or repairable, and was neither, or the job turned out to NOT have the needed precision as to alignment and centre-distance, preventing use of the gearing.

The spindle may be long as it is because it was NOT shop-fabbed, but rather salvaged from a different machine.

Crude as it may look to today's eye, one has to at least had relatives caught up in a serious war to know how desperate all-sides can be to use whatever is available to best advantage.

The need may have been as mundane as making it easier to repair farm machinery or such - not make bombsights or proximity fuses, but I doubt that whomever rigged this thing up did it merely for amusement or an entry in his schoolbook.

Bill

It's pretty common to see metal lathes which have had their back gears removed- usually when they have been pressed into woodturning, or some other higher-speed duty (whether the bearings are up to that task or not).

Andy

Peter S · Feb 2, 2013

I recognise the table frame underneath the lathe.....Vono bed frame.....(photo#3) I used to sleep on one, those steel angle irons must have been used on a million home-made projects...

Gary Bauer · Feb 2, 2013

Could there be an ELS (electronic lead screw) in this lathe's future ??? That would avoid the ancient gear issues and add a new chapter to the lathe's history. A VFD would also help speed things along this path.

Gary in AZ

Andy FitzGibbon · Feb 2, 2013

thermite said:
Not the case here. Going to the trouble of fabricating a replacement headstock, using wider plate than otherwise needed so as to 'reach out and touch' centre distance needed for bearing mounts for the countershaft, locating, inletting, for them, fabbing them, welding in place, then boring those mounts, installing the countershaft .. THEN not gearing it and using it?

Unless this thing is using up yet another of its allotted nine-lives, and has already been modified more than once... those back-gears never went into service. Mind - they wouldn't, would they? ... if the modifier overlooked the need to disengage more than just the sheave/bull-gear locking pin..

We may be looking at the rare FUBAR .... preserved in amber.

Bill

That is my point- that the back gears were probably installed by whoever built the headstock, then removed at a later date (possibly by someone else) when they were no longer necessary for whatever work the machine was doing.

I have seen many old metal lathes that, when pressed into woodturning duty, were stripped of their back gears, lead screw, feed gearing, and half nuts. Of course, it would have been faster, and easier, to just leave the parts in place, disengaged- but for some reason, the individual doing the work felt the need to remove and discard them. I have never figured out why people do such things.

Andy

Jim Christie · Feb 2, 2013

I seem to remember that there was a thread on here a while ago that had an other unknown or unidentified lathe with a similar bed and carriage or at least the carriage .
I searched the forum for “Unknown Lathe” and looked at some of the possibilities but didn’t see anything so far .
It was a while ago and as you can see there are a lot of threads about unknown machines so my memory could be playing tricks on me ,
If I remember that lathe was in the U.K. and had also had some non factory alterations done to it.
That machine was in less than ideal condition as well .
Maybe someone will remember the thread .
Regards,
Jim

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