Dean Smith Grace Lathe Owners

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

As far as the leadscrew reverse is concerned maybe you’ll have to manage without it for a while. It’s nice to have but not essential. Lots of decent lathes don’t have that facility.

If you do decide to remove the main spindle it’s not that big a job, nothing really to worry about.

Have you run the machine yet ? What sort of surface finish are you getting ? Maybe the spindle will have to come out anyway if the bearings aren’t in great shape.

Regards Tyrone.

 

[Clive603]

Tyrone is totally right about leadscrew, and power feed, reverse being a nice thing to have.

But doing without it and using the machine like a conventional three shaft machine may be tricky depending on how heavily integrated the reverse facility is into the design.

My P&W B is a case in point. When I first got it I drove it in the normal way. Do-able but it made hard work of everything. So much so that I began to wonder what all the fuss concerning P&W quality was all about. Hafta say I was a bit worried about how well my clutch dogs had survived as the wartime vintage lathe had clearly been through inconsiderate hands. The P&W clutch is pretty loud when it engages too which didn't help ears attuned to a near silent belt drive Heavy 10!

Eventually I got a copy of the manual and a job where I pretty much had to use the reverse. As they used to say in the old MotorCycle magazines (before it became a newspaper) "the controls fell easily to hand". And we were off to the races. Sort of "How I learned to love the dog clutch and stop fighting the lathe".

I lay odds your dog suffered from some bright spark engaging things at too high a speed. Probably a Hardinge driver!

Clive

 

[M. Moore]

Would you be willing to share the fast lock print?

I would be willing to share and have done for others but can’t find where my photos are stored on the new site?
If you pm me with your email address I can send you a photo of the drawing. My guess is the 13” lathe is different than the 17” spindle.

 

[FJsapper]

As far as the leadscrew reverse is concerned maybe you’ll have to manage without it for a while. It’s nice to have but not essential. Lots of decent lathes don’t have that facility.

If you do decide to remove the main spindle it’s not that big a job, nothing really to worry about.

Have you run the machine yet ? What sort of surface finish are you getting ? Maybe the spindle will have to come out anyway if the bearings aren’t in great shape.

Regards Tyrone.

Sir,

I have fired up the motor but the belts, of which 1/2 were missing, were so trashed they were not capable of transferring any power. I didn’t even want to try to snug them up because most were rotted 1/2 way through. New ones on the way though!

As far as running without the LSR, I am not sure if the dog clutches are rounded off on the forward or reverse side…when I get my belts I will see which way everything spins when actually under power. The wear is pretty bad, there is basically no shoulder left for the clutches to mate together. Where you would see a 90deg mating surface, you have two 45deg sections coming together, visibly rounded off. Even if they did manage to stay together, I doubt they would take much torque before popping apart.

That is a great relief about the spindle, I was afraid I would have to be knocking out taper pins and pulling gears off just to get it out of the headstock. This is a plain bearing machine so I’ll reserve my decision on how to proceed until I can measure everything. Traveling for work this week unfortunately…

 

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

Sir,

I have fired up the motor but the belts, of which 1/2 were missing, were so trashed they were not capable of transferring any power. I didn’t even want to try to snug them up because most were rotted 1/2 way through. New ones on the way though!

As far as running without the LSR, I am not sure if the dog clutches are rounded off on the forward or reverse side…when I get my belts I will see which way everything spins when actually under power. The wear is pretty bad, there is basically no shoulder left for the clutches to mate together. Where you would see a 90deg mating surface, you have two 45deg sections coming together, visibly rounded off. Even if they did manage to stay together, I doubt they would take much torque before popping apart.

That is a great relief about the spindle, I was afraid I would have to be knocking out taper pins and pulling gears off just to get it out of the headstock. This is a plain bearing machine so I’ll reserve my decision on how to proceed until I can measure everything. Traveling for work this week unfortunately…

Good evening, I’ve worked on the plain bearing “ DSG’s “ in the past but none of the jobs I did involved removing the spindle on that particular model. From what I understand the plain bearing machines were the “ Rolls-Royce’s of the Rolls-Royce brand “.
Very high quality machines.
I‘ve had the spindles out of the anti-friction bearing machines on several occasions and it’s no big deal so I don’t expect the plain bearing machines will be any different.
” DSG’s “ are great to work on because they are beautifully put together and come apart nicely. Another thing, back in the day, if you ever had any spares from them they fitted perfectly. Not like some other makers were you had to do a fair bit of “ doctoring “ to get them to fit.
Good luck with it, King Charles will be sending you a certificate of ownership if he can find the time.

Regards Tyrone.

 

[FJsapper]

So the spindle nose measures out to 3/4” per ft with 2.875” at the big end. Is there a commercial spindle taper that fits that?

 

[M. Moore]

The taper on my 13 x 40 is proprietary. As far as I know DSG made their own but that may have changed for the later models.

 

[FJsapper]

Got everything running in my machine but no oil flow. I confirmed the pulley is moving in the direction indicated by the data plate on the pulley cover. I saw mention of priming the oil pump earlier in this thread but no mention of how. This is for a 17t. There is an in-line filter installed routed outside the rear of the headstock. I confirmed that even with this disconnected I have no oil flow in forward or reverse.

 

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

What was your thinking regarding fitting an external oil filter ? You could remove the original oil filter and clean it. Does the knob turn easily ? Occasionally they get blocked. Don’t be tempted to take the actual filter apart, they’re really hard to get back together again. I’ve primed pumps like that in the past using the simple method of a “ squirty “ oil can down one of the bigger pipes.

Regards Tyrone.

 

[FJsapper]

What was your thinking regarding fitting an external oil filter ? You could remove the original oil filter and clean it. Does the knob turn easily ? Occasionally they get blocked. Don’t be tempted to take the actual filter apart, they’re really hard to get back together again. I’ve primed pumps like that in the past using the simple method of a “ squirty “ oil can down one of the bigger pipes.

Regards Tyrone.

The external filter was done somewhere in the previous life of the machine….I would not have chosen that option, but since it’s there, I changed the filter.

It’s kind of tight inside the headstock, can’t seem to make out where this pump would be.

 

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

It’s a while since I last had the headstock cover off a “ DSG “ but normally on a small lathe they are on the input line so towards the back of the headstock towards the Chuck end of the casting.

Regards Tyrone.

 

[FJsapper]

It’s a while since I last had the headstock cover off a “ DSG “ but normally on a small lathe they are on the input line so towards the back of the headstock towards the Chuck end of the casting.

Regards Tyrone.

Just called DSG and spoke with a gentleman who was acquainted with the machine right away. He sent me prints showing where the worm gear driven oil pump should be right off of the input shaft. Big surprise, mine is missing! I highlighted in red what is absent from the back of the pump housing. There is a lovely helical gear that is present but I am assuming has just been twiddling its thumbs for a few decades.

Guess that explains the external setup… Unless anybody has a better idea I’m going to have to set up a little electric pump. I don’t expect DSG to have parts but who knows…

 

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

Wow, how can somebody remove the headstock lubrication pump and not replace it ? How did the headstock bearings get lubricated ? Did they arrange an alternative method of supply ? I’d expect DSG to be able to supply a replacement pump but it’ll probably cost more than you paid for the lathe !
Are DSG still in Keighley ? That’s about 15 miles from where I live.

Regards Tyrone.

 

[FJsapper]

Wow, how can somebody remove the headstock lubrication pump and not replace it ? How did the headstock bearings get lubricated ? Did they arrange an alternative method of supply ? I’d expect DSG to be able to supply a replacement pump but it’ll probably cost more than you paid for the lathe !
Are DSG still in Keighley ? That’s about 15 miles from where I live.

Regards Tyrone.

Not sure of location, spoke to a gentleman named Paul. I expect the external oil filter met up with an electric pump at the last location of the machine. He mentioned that they would have clearance issues after a time so maybe somebody replaced it with an electric external vs actually fixing the issue.

 

[FJsapper]

Does anybody have a photo of what the actual taper attachment bed slide looks like? Mine apprised to be missing. Going to fab something up…

 

[PDW]

Does anybody have a photo of what the actual taper attachment bed slide looks like? Mine apprised to be missing. Going to fab something up… View attachment 380253

I can take one of mine, but the back end of my taper attachment doesn't look like yours. Mine has a dovetail body for starters.

PDW

 

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

I can take one of mine, but the back end of my taper attachment doesn't look like yours. Mine has a dovetail body for starters.

PDW

Do you use it much PDW ? Lots of the lathes I worked on had powered top slides or compounds. Having said that they were bigger machines in the main. I didn’t come across many lathes with taper attachments.

Regards Tyrone

 

[PDW]

Do you use it much PDW ? Lots of the lathes I worked on had powered top slides or compounds. Having said that they were bigger machines in the main. I didn’t come across many lathes with taper attachments.

Regards Tyrone

I don't use it a lot, but it was on my 'must have' list. Every so often I make propellor shafts for example, and more tooling for my Tos T&C grinder - basically MT3 shanks with various mounts for grinding wheels of different types. I'm far too lazy to swap out a grinding wheel if I can just pop the entire assembly.

My Monarch CY has a taper attachment and the DS&G is basically a replacement/upgrade from that lathe. Upgrade mainly due to the much bigger spindle bore and wider speed/feed/thread range, the Monarch is considerably more heavily built and the headstock gearing substantially heavier. Funnily enough the Monarch is also quieter, I'd guess due to helical gears versus straight spur gears.

PDW

 

[jpt2go]

I can take one of mine, but the back end of my taper attachment doesn't look like yours. Mine has a dovetail body for starters.

PDW

My DSG 17 (not 17T) has the taper adjustment screw completely enclosed, and a 100-division dial that says "1 DIV = .002" PER FOOT ON DIA.". So, it's possible your taper attachment was not made by DSG.

But I think the bed slide attachment that I have could be made to work with yours if you want to see a picture.

Regards, Jon

 

[Neil Scully]

So the spindle nose measures out to 3/4” per ft with 2.875” at the big end. Is there a commercial spindle taper that fits that?

According to a copy of an original print I have the machines with D1-8 have a taper of 1/4" per foot and the earlier DSG fixing is 1:20 both with a diameter of 2.875" at the big end.

3/4" per foot seems awfully steep for tooling use.