Celtic (Mondiale) 14 lathe controls

[leeko]

Hi everyone,

I just picked up a good condition Celtic 14 lathe, made in Belgium by Mondiale. It's the older of the two styles I've seen, but haven't found a serial number yet to date it. I got hold of a user manual in French, and am planning to translate it to figure out lubrication etc. In the meantime, though, I'm hoping someone here has used one of these lathes and can advise on the dials and controls on the headstock. It's a bit more complicated than my Lodge and Shipley....

There are 2 dials on the headstock itself, marked A-B and C-D

There are 3 dials below the headstock, marked as follows:
E-F-G-H
1 through 9
J-J-K-K

There's a 4 position dial below that, on the plinth casting

I think that A-B and the 4 position dial control the spindle speed, BUT/ the forward / reverse lever on the apron also has 5 positions: fast for / slow for / off / slow rev / fast rev. Huh?

The threading/feeds chart also has some weird headings, like "BD". What does that mean? B and D are on different dials... Also, there are Roman numerals in some of the row headers, but I see no Roman numerals anywhere else on the machine. Help!

Thanks in advance for ANY info on how to use this lathe!

Best regards,

Lee

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[leeko]

Ok, I have it figured out. Hopefully this can help someone who's equally clueless in the future.

The Roman numerals refer to the change gear setup behind the outboard panel, as the lathe can be setup for screwcutting:
I: metric
II: imperial
III: modular
IV: diametric pitch

It's currently setup for II: imperial, and metric just involves flipping the 36 and 127 tooth gears. I don't have the extra gears required for modular or diametric pitch threads, but I think I'll manage without :-)

The J-J-K-K lever controls the leadscrew rotation. There are two "J's" for forward and reverse, and same for the "K's". K is mostly used for imperial threading.

I ran through the spindle speed range and a few random feeds/threading settings, and all seem to work fine. The shear pin was broken on the leadscrew, but that was an easy enough fix. The pin that came out was a 0.057" square key. I replaced it with a small piece of shim stock cut to fit.

The only other thing I've noticed is that the feed engagement lever on the apron gets consistently stuck in the "on" position and needs a smack to disengage. Need to figure out a way to make that better. Otherwise I think this is going to be a nice lathe to work on

Lee

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[Steven A]

Hello Leeko, I recently bought a celtic 14 too. When looking for a manual I stumbled onto this forum/thread. Do you perhaps have the manual in digital format? Thanks in advance.

 

[leeko]

Hi Steven,

I found a few manuals that were kinda sorta what I needed, I'll post up what I have. I think there was an English manual for a Gallic 16 lathe, and a French manual for the mondiale 14. Between them, I was able to figure out what I needed

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[leeko]

Found them, but the forum says they're too big. Pm me your email address and I'll send them to you

Lee

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[Steven A]

Hi Lee,

What a fast response.
The french manual should suffice for me, I am from the flemish speaking part of belgium but I speak some french too.

 

[Steven A]

Hi Everybody, I thougth I'd hyjack this thread as the celtic 14 thread :-)
Post some photo's here of the celtic 14 I bought, am cleaning up at the moment.
I bougth the lathe without motor (well they gave me the broken one, but it turned out to not be what was in it) and in rusty state.
With the help of the manual (kindly given to me by Lee) I got the new motor in and running.
I am only missing the correct motor pulley, the one I got from my father in law with the new motor is a bit small.
So it will be running a bit slow.
I have no info of what the speed of the stock motor should be, or the size of the motor pulley.
If I do a quick calculation with the components that I have it will be 1/3 slow.
I have the "high speed" lathe.

 

[Steven A]

as acquired:


Some elbow grease:


Shoving in the new motor:

 

[Steven A]

The new motor an the "old" one, maybe the old one is for a the slow type?
The bolt pattern didn't match up.
I also removed the emegency stop and the circuit they made for it, was very badly made.
They put in very thin wire in between all the components, only cut off 2 of the 3 phases.
No reset...
I'll take my chances without, might upgrade it myself later.

 

[leeko]

Very nice, and it cleaned up nicely too.

Does yours have hardened ways? I was very pleasantly surprised to find that mine did.

Also, I'm interested to hear what taper you have in your headstock, as mine doesn't fit a 5 Morse taper as stated.

Thanks!

Lee

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[Steven A]

Hello Lee, On mine the ways aren't hardened I think, doesn't look like it.
I only gave it a quick paintjob, cleaned up the essential parts.
I measured the headstock hole, and it should be a MK5.
I'll try to borrow a drill or somewhat from work to fit.
But it says so in the manual and also on lathes uk .
Is It possible for you to see what speeds the motor has? And maybe the size or the motor pulley.
I'll probably run it with the pulley I have, but maybe I can upgrade it when i know it is in working order.

Thanks,

Steven

 

[leeko]

Steven,
No problem, but I'm out of town for the next 10 days so it won't be until I get back. Thanks for measuring your taper for me

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[Steven A]

So, I tried a MK5 taper on the lathe. But I'll have to try one without the flat piece at the end, the little edge at the end of the piece hit before it got completely in.
Otherwise it looks like it would fit.
I also tried a MK3 in the tailstock, that did fit.

 

[Steven A]

Things I also noticed:
I have the slow version, not the fast.
So with my small drive pulley I now have the extra slow ;-)
When I was fitting the chuck onto the back plate I noticed they modified it to take a DIN chuck.
But THEY CUT OFF TOO MUCH...
So now the chuck touches the spindle nose before it is flat against the back plate.
This explains why the chuck had a slight wobble when I got it, and why the big nut came loose so quickly.
They must have bolted the chuck against the back plate and then the combo onto the spindle.
This way the taper wont touch, just the front of the spindle.
Good thing I didn't rev it up to 1000rpm and find out :-)
Made a temporary solution by adding spacers, the chuck still sits on the centering edge.
But it doesn't sit against the spindle nose.
So the first project will be a new back plate, already found a nice video on how to do so.
Or maybe not ;-)

YouTube

 

[Steven A]

So, lee.
I thried the spindle taper with another cone (tailstock center from the big lathe at work)
But this also bumpes into the small portion of the spindle before it gets completely in.
It came very close, and it looks like it would fit if it was i bit shorter.
So I can't guarantee it is a MK5, I am 99% shure.

 

[thermite]

So, lee.
I thried the spindle taper with another cone (tailstock center from the big lathe at work)
But this also bumpes into the small portion of the spindle before it gets completely in.
It came very close, and it looks like it would fit if it was i bit shorter.
So I can't guarantee it is a MK5, I am 99% shure.

MOST lathe spindles use truncated versions of standard tapers - usually chosen somewhere towards the middle, not either extreme end.

MOST utilize a reducing adapter for turning between centres.

Example: A shortened #12 Jarno "OD" that mounts a smaller #2 MT or #3 MT for an inch to inch and a half lesser stick-out for the 10EE. A #5 MT/MKS that mounts # 4 MT or smaller for the HBX-360, both HS AND TS.

That said, the opposite is more common than what you described. The tail on the "goods" is SMALLER than the bore. Try the next smaller MT / MKS first.

IF no joy as to fit, ("half" MT sizes have been known, too...) or as to finding the Mondial-specific adapter, you may have to do a cut-down - else fab an adaptor.

Tedious, but hardly rocket insemination, either of those solutions.

 

[liutas4x4]

Hi,

I am new there, and this info is "after a deal", but may be it will help in future.
On mine Celtic 14 (I am in for two months yet) there was such kind of motor:




Hope it helps,
Eugenijus

 

[hoganc]

Hi

Is this the original green colour and do you have a paint code/Ral?

 

[leeko]

I was able to verify - the spindle taper is a truncated Morse taper #5. I took a MT5-MT3 adapter and cut the small end off. It fits quite nicely.

Lee

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[leeko]

I posted in another subforum about some spindle runout, and was advised that the Celtic likely has Gamet bearings ($$$). Has anyone had one apart to verify that? If it's not too expensive, I was hoping to replace the bearings....

Thanks



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