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16in Walcott change gears and gearbox, test and measurement

Gary Main

Aluminum
Joined
Mar 21, 2019
My 16x64 Walcott has in the advertisement 32 pitches of thread with standard quick change gear box. It also claims "special", Extra fine, and Extra coarse, available with optional change gears. Well here is the real problem. I am just a hobbyist playing with old heavy iron. I have those gears, in the tool compartment under the tailstock. While the compartment is obviously shop made, its very handy. However... How do i tell what these gears convert it to? I am certain there was never a manual, the buyers already knew how it all worked. SO, do i just run these gears on some stock and measure or is there some way to calculate this?
 
Somewhere there might be a chart

However it is pretty straightforward.

If you have a 'first' driven gear of a certain tooth count and a 'last' driven gear of a certain tooth count, no matter what happens in the middle, the ratio holds.

20:10= 2:1, 20:30000:23456:44:10=2:1

Then there are step gears, two gears on one shaft. These change ratio. So changing one of the gears will change the ratio.

Frequently on a simple lathe the gear on the end of the leadscrew can be interchanged for one with twice as many teeth or whatever.

if you cannot find a chart here or elsewhere, a little head scratching will tell you
 
WE can help with good photos of the end gearing AND the pitch of the lead screw

Here is some generic helpfulness

End Gear Stuff.jpg

Here is the generic COMPOUNDING

Compound End Gearing.jpg

Here is a hefty Walcott - what we are interested in is exactly what resides under those two gear covers on the left end

00P0P_2pKoKY2Sj6i_1200x900.jpg

Real slim catalog here on VM

Walcott Lathe Co. - Publication Reprints | VintageMachinery.org

Have fun

ON EDIT

If you have this info on the QC gearbox it likely does all or most pitches shown without any 'changing of gears"

QC garbox.jpg

Notice the "rotary" lever to the right is marked A, B, C, and D
 
Last edited:
that lever also controls the lead screw speeds, it has 4 speeds available. I am quite familiar with this machine, i guess i will need to get a calculator out and figure the change gears. I know its not likely, but i had hoped it could do metric threads
 
but i had hoped it could do metric threads

Look at compounding above in Post #3 - typical gearing for metric threading is like 100 and 127 teeth

A less exact approximation is like 63 and 80

The compounding pair are normally fastened together by one means or another
 








 
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