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Help with Powerfeed on Greves-Klusman lathe?

Kensu

Plastic
Joined
Jan 20, 2022
Sorry if this is in the wrong area.

I recently purchased an old Greves-Klusman 16" lathe and am missing something getting the powerfeed working.

Outside of the couple of threads of prospective buyers on this forum I can't find much information about this machine. Does anyone have any idea what I might be missing? I included some notes as subtitles in the video.

https://youtu.be/z0xLq41SCXI
 
The star shaped handwheel on the apron operates the power feed clutch. It must be tightened after feed direction is selected with the three position feed lever on the apron.

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You need to get the lead screw stopped and the feed rod going. The feed rod is the slick round rod with the keyway

The control for this is at the right end of QC gearbox

The lead screw is STRICTLY for threading using half nut AND WHEN DOING THIS THE THREE POSITION LEVER HAS TO BE IN THE CENTER DETENT

All the above supposes the lathe is modern enough to have a feed rod in addition to the lead screw

Here is what my 20" heavy looks like

Controls for Apron.jpg
 
He gets the feed rod going a 0:12. Just needs to tighten the star wheel after selecting feed direction.

As John says, make sure the half nuts aren't engaged when using feeds. Many lathes had an interlock to prevent that, but not all... and there's no telling if such a mechanism has been broken or removed over the years.

Depending on how long it has sat idle, the cone clutch that the star wheel controls can be stuck open and may require some persuasion.

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I got up under the apron to look behind it and learned how the mechanism works. The lead screw half not lever will not go down unless it is in the middle because the lever travels a pin that can't fully go down unless the selection is in the middle. This is because there's a round cutout with a keyway that only lines up with the lever is out of both powerfeed directional gears. It physically will not let me leave the threading gear if the half nut is engaged or engage the half nut while in the powerfeed gears.

In the video I did change the drive to powerfeed from the threading lead screw and it did turn.

I had suspected I needed to push in those knobs or pull them or do something with them but they weren't wanting to move very easily so I figured I would ask before breaking anything. I'll give it a try here in a bit and let you know how it goes! Thank you for the help!

EDITL: I used a hammer to tap the knobs clockwise and they loosened up enough to screw them in. Powerfeed works :)
 
Last edited:
Sorry if this is in the wrong area.

I recently purchased an old Greves-Klusman 16" lathe and am missing something getting the powerfeed working.

Outside of the couple of threads of prospective buyers on this forum I can't find much information about this machine. Does anyone have any idea what I might be missing? I included some notes as subtitles in the video.

https://youtu.be/z0xLq41SCXI
I have an 18" Greeves Klusman that looks to be about the same vintage as yours
378d6ebb1234498a6d9d5f5a9fd2807e.jpg


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