Mazak ACE refurb

Hey guys, I have just about finished getting my new to me lathe back together. Its an early mazak ace, I got it as a basket case from someone who pulled it apart to paint it and then lost interest. It was a good challenge working out how to get the gearbox back together with no manual and not having pulled it apart myself. I have enjoyed it so far and cant wait to make some chips with it. If anyone has any info on this model I would appreciate it, I don't have any documentation or anything. Cheers

Give these people an email.

The power drilling attachment in UK site is pretty cool.

YAMAZAKI Mazak Precision Lathes

Mazak and Yamazaki Lathe parts in stock

Yea its awesome, Unfortunately I didnt get too many accesories with the lathe when I got it. Ill keep my eyes out though for some attachments, they usually pop up every now and then however it is fairly old and not too common. I would really like a 65t change gear if anyone in aus has one by any chance.

Crazy_1_96 said:

Yea its awesome, Unfortunately I didnt get too many accesories with the lathe when I got it. Ill keep my eyes out though for some attachments, they usually pop up every now and then however it is fairly old and not too common. I would really like a 65t change gear if anyone in aus has one by any chance.

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I have a 65T change gear, but I'm not in Aus, and have no desire to part with it.

But...

What a nice job you have done freshening that machine up. I have the same model in my shop. A real nice piece! And very well tooled ;-)

Mine carries bed No 7681

I am not familar with this lathe but can you should be able to adapt a stock spur gear.

First thing will be to work out if your change gears are DP (diametral pitch) or MOD ( module)

This will help

Gear Size Calculator


You will also need to know the pressure angle, its probably 20 degrees older gears (up to 70-'s ?) were 14.5 degrees.

Then you will need to measure any splined centre or keyway and work out if it's a common system - Machinery's Handbook has a lot of detail on splines.

There's a seller on ebay UK that sells acetal gears and he mills them by CNC if you know what you need he may be able to cut one for you - the prices are good and a plastic gear won't cost that much to ship to Aus.

Youll find him with this ebay search

63T Harrison M250 change gear,

I can tell you that the M250 lathe uses 1.5 MOD.

and could help with getting the gear to you if he won't ship direct.

I have a few ideas on making splines if you need them

Hey Cal,
Your happy with yours it sounds which is great! I was hoping it would end up being a nice solid lathe. Its a big step up from my previous south bend 9 haha. I just checked the bed, mine is marked 7164, from my guessing it was early 70's.
You wouldn't by any chance know much about the spindle brake on yours would you? Mine has no means of stopping the spindle short of plugging reverse. I will be running mine on a vfd so my braking will be limited to dynamic and dc injection, and plugging wont be possible. I have scoured as much of the net as I can to find info on the original braking method, and have only been able to find some people referencing a cable brake. What the cable is attached to I have no Idea. My motor has no electromagnetic brake associated with it and there are no mechanical brakes either. Any light you could shed would be appreciated.

Thanks, Jarrad

Hey Tray, Thanks for the info, Ill measure up a couple tomorrow and see what I can come up with. I have a couple of books on gear cutting which are quite in depth, enough to make my head spin at least, and have thought about both making one from scratch or adapting one I can buy. It would be a good learning experience. I have a rotary table and a bridgeport, just no dividing plates at the moment, but yea I have not let that go as a possibility. M250 im guessing is your model of lathe? Also Im not to sure if a plastic gear would be up to driving the gearbox. The box is guite large and also the leadscrew itself has some mass to it. Have you used plastic change gears?

Crazy_1_96 said:

Hey Cal,
Your happy with yours it sounds which is great! I was hoping it would end up being a nice solid lathe. Its a big step up from my previous south bend 9 haha. I just checked the bed, mine is marked 7164, from my guessing it was early 70's.
You wouldn't by any chance know much about the spindle brake on yours would you? Mine has no means of stopping the spindle short of plugging reverse. I will be running mine on a vfd so my braking will be limited to dynamic and dc injection, and plugging wont be possible. I have scoured as much of the net as I can to find info on the original braking method, and have only been able to find some people referencing a cable brake. What the cable is attached to I have no Idea. My motor has no electromagnetic brake associated with it and there are no mechanical brakes either. Any light you could shed would be appreciated.

Thanks, Jarrad

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The original brake system on my lathe was all motor electrical. Nothing mechanical at all. A system based on opening the supply relays and then injecting DC into a pair of motor windings through a resistor with a setable timer. There was a Selenium stack rectifier in the electrical cabinet along with the timer relay and resister coil.
Perhaps you have some legacy of this same network in your cabinet.

It never worked reliably for me, sometimes nothing, and other times there was a pleasant resistance slowing the motor driven spindle. Eventually the resistance coil burned or broke. At least then I could count on the spindle slowly winding down. ;-)

Now I have the machine on a large VFD. What a treat! All connected and controlled by the apron lever. The inching button is even fully functional at a slow jog. There are times when It might be handy to have more than one stop ramp programed. One for slow spindles and rapid stops, and one for slowing down fast spindles with big workpieces. IIRC, the spindle now winds down in 3 seconds, with the energy dumped into a resistance winding boxed up next to the VFD.

The VFD has worked well for me for about 15 years. Before that, the lathe was on a home built RPC that would brown out the neighborhood with every start up ;-)

I don't have the multi-travel stop outfit, but there is the plunger for the kick out on the underside of the apron. The mounting bracket for the actuator hardware is there, but the bar, bar mounts, stops and actuator lever are all missing on mine. Not sure it ever had them.
I don't recall needing the set up much anyway. It does look nice though, and for some repeat work, could come in handy.

Crazy_1_96 said:

Hey Tray, Thanks for the info, Ill measure up a couple tomorrow and see what I can come up with. I have a couple of books on gear cutting which are quite in depth, enough to make my head spin at least, and have thought about both making one from scratch or adapting one I can buy. It would be a good learning experience. I have a rotary table and a bridgeport, just no dividing plates at the moment, but yea I have not let that go as a possibility.

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Whilst it is satisfying making gears it's not cost effective imho (in time nor money) if you can buy something off the shelf that you can adapt. As you say you will need dividing plates or build one of these.

World of Ward :: RotaryController

plus either a single point fly cutter of the right profile or a the correct Brown & Sharpe cutter covering the tooth range you need to cut.

There are some good online gear calculators that make the determinatin of the gear blank and deppth of cut easy.

M250 im guessing is your model of lathe? Also Im not to sure if a plastic gear would be up to driving the gearbox. The box is guite large and also the leadscrew itself has some mass to it. Have you used plastic change gears?

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Yes its a Harrison M250; at 11" (~280mm) swing over the bed its the baby of the M series, D1-3 camlock with a 1.5kW motor. Some of the larger changegears are fibre. The M300 @ 13" swing ~2.2kW is just a bit smallet than your Mazak - the gears are the same MOD and spline as the M250 but as I recall 15mm thick rather than 12mm on the M250 (I machined one down one to fit mine once). Plastic gears on my machine will only be a problem in the event of crash. Cuttin a single keyway in a steel gear is OK but cutting a spline is another matter without a specialist broach. It looks like the guy making the plastic gears does not have any problems like that.