Czech ZPS R5 turret lathe part out

I've posted once or twice about our Soviet Czech ZPS R5 turret lathe (mid 60's vintage). We acquired it with the merger of another shop and it's been in storage for the last 10 years due to lack of shop floor space. I had been going through it as time permitted, cleaning it up and making minor repairs. Now that we have a new shop, we had floor space available with the necessary amperage to connect it. A little while ago, I got it powered up and something didn't sound right and the 10HP motor would seize up when put in gear. Tonight I got around to opening the bottom half of the headstock and found good news and terrible news.

Good news is that I see very little wear in the gears and shafts. For a 50 year old production machine that's been beat to heck, it looks pretty good.

The terrible news: Somewhere between moving the machine around the warehouse and here, the clutch/speed engageing lever must have been hit really hard as the levers branching off of it have been broken off, and the more I'm digging into it, it's looking like it will be a heavy duty repair job to get them out and welded back together (removing the massive motor, and half of the gearing in the headstock). It's that sick feeling where you can tell that the days are numbered.

So..... I was really hoping to get this machine up to speed as we have some heavy material removal jobs from time to time that would have been right up it's alley (heavy build and lots of HP in comparison to the work envelope). But we've been able to push them off on the other lathes and I've got lots of projects, so I'm seriously considering letting this one go.

Now, where this thread comes into play.

Are there any other guys out there with a lathe like this that would be interested in any parts? It seems like a fairly rare beast here in the states, but all the more reason to ask. It probably won't be going to the scrapper any time soon, at least until our next CNC lathe comes on the horizon. but If there's any interest, I can start dismantling it. I'm game to selling it as a complete machine, but I see lots of more common turret lathes on the market.

I'm sorry to see it go. I guess if machines had female pheromones, this one gave off a lot of the European thing.

But my new/old Hendey's got birthing hips for ways...
so guess I can't complain.

The lathe on its deathbed. You can see I had done a bit of cosmetic work already on it. Other than high hopes, this was because the original finnish was heavily cracked and chipping off under the layers of grime. This machine was in regular use before we got it. If only I knew what the future held...

Kind of a pretty thing. I think her time has passed though.

There are a few peripheral things I'll be sure to salvage. The amp meter works, and the oil filter assembly is a nice reusable design. It works like a pool filter with layers of thin metal plates and there's a knob on top that when turned wipes debris off of the inside surface to be dumped out routinely. The tool posts are nice, but too big for our other machines. Now that I'm thinking about it, the electrical cabinet could be reworked for the Hendey project's VFD enclosure.

The chucks a goner, covered that in a thread awhile back.

Part of the reason it wouldn't be leaving soon is it's too heavy for our forklift(which is why it got moved into the shop during our move instead of staying in storage. The riggers were already on hand), so breaking it down would be ideal. I'll post pics of that process if anyone's interested. Kind of a morbid form of machine porn though...

Here is one on the West side of Chicago.
TOS R5 Turret Lathe,SMW Autobloc pneumatic chuck



John

jhruska said:

Here is one on the West side of Chicago.
TOS R5 Turret Lathe,SMW Autobloc pneumatic chuck

View attachment 180513

John

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They probably have them off somewhere, but I've got a back panel and more turret posts.

An update: we had an opportuniy to move the lathe and seized it so it now resides under blue sky behind our shop. I bolted all he covers back in place and the headstock is full of oil, so that should resist the water a little.

I was looking at it tonight and had a wild idea. The ways would make awsome 48"+ straight edges. They already have a nice box shape to them and alot, I mean ALOT, of iron under them to cut out some decent geometry. But that would be the down side. Near as I can tell the ways, legs, and lower headstock are all one massive casting.

So that's the musing. Whats the best way to rough saw a large lathe bed apart? And afterwords, would it need to stress releive since so much material has been removed, or has the last 50 years sitting in one piece on a shop floor been enough?

That's a big pity, TOS R5's were seriously good turrets of their size, ........could you not try a spares or repair type Ebay job? ........there's a guy on YouTube with one - as a toy I think, but guys spend $ on their toys?
I can't remember what it is, but the hex turret tooling was an odd metric size, .well it was on R5's that found their way in to the UK, so the tooling could be really worth it to a guy running an R5.

Limy Sami said:

That's a big pity, TOS R5's were seriously good turrets of their size, ........could you not try a spares or repair type Ebay job? ........there's a guy on YouTube with one - as a toy I think, but guys spend $ on their toys?
I can't remember what it is, but the hex turret tooling was an odd metric size, .well it was on R5's that found their way in to the UK, so the tooling could be really worth it to a guy running an R5.

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So long as there's an interest, I'll keep the lathe on the market. I doubt anyone will want to pay riggers to move the whole thing given how much work it'll take to get the headstock apart, fixed, and back together, but who knows... Ive got my share of projects that have been or are being brought back from the dead.

I've got a 54' chevy 210 4 door sedan that I'm restoring. After all the parts and labor, I'll probably have $60,000 invested in it. If it was mint condition I'd be lucky to get $40,000 on the market. But it's MY 54'. Sentiment is a dangerous thing, lol.

M.B. Naegle said:

Whats the best way to rough saw a large lathe bed apart? And afterwords, would it need to stress releive since so much material has been removed, or has the last 50 years sitting in one piece on a shop floor been enough?

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Oxygen Lance.

For a poor mans cast iron lance you can use a large stick welder cranked up with big rod and an air hose.

A less third degree burns way to do it is drill a series of small holes, score with a chisel and then swing a big sledge to break it.

You might tape measure it out and see if it will fit in your bandsaw. Might be surprised. I have cut a couple things much larger than my horizontal bandsaw by turning the part. Even if you just cut a fair distance through then break with a hammer.

Garwood said:

A less third degree burns way to do it is drill a series of small holes, score with a chisel and then swing a big sledge to break it.

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That's the sort of job to put a skinny teenager on. When I was about 16 or so my dad had me put a 15 inch hole in a 2 1/2 inch thick die shoe. Laid out the series of holes so there was only about .020 material between each hole. I then proceeded to drill about 125 3/8 inch holes in a drill press. After that I used a punch he had made up to cut out the web between the holes then finished on a rotary table.

On a lathe bed where you trying to cut in two you could drill your row of holes and then drive in tapered pines in about every fourth hole or so. You can generate a great deal of force with a tapered pin and you don't have to hit them that hard.

This lathe is still sitting behind our shop if anyone needs parts. Some broken and loose parts have already made the journey to the melting pot, and the tail end of the turret took a heavy hit with some other scrap falling on it, but otherwise it's still in one piece. I'm not looking to make anything off it, I just know these things are not common.

This lathe went to the scrap yard today. I still have a few external components that I saved off of it like the chip pan and coolant sump, tool holding items, etc., but anything integral to the machine is gone.

REsp

Good morning friend, Do you still have parts for this machine?

M.B. Naegle said:

This lathe went to the scrap yard today. I still have a few external components that I saved off of it like the chip pan and coolant sump, tool holding items, etc., but anything integral to the machine is gone.

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Dudaprates, it looks like you're stay on this forum was short, but for everyone's information this is what remains available for the old R5 turret lathe:

Front tool post. Parts of it were Nickle plated at one point. It includes the mounting bolts and likely will fit other turret lathe cross-slides.




Turret sockets and mounting bolts (metric), and a few reducer sleeves of various sizes. Anyone interested I can get dimensions.

Chip tray and back splash apron.




Coolant sump with 3-phase pump (works).


Also in the coolant tray, I have the saddle locking plates/bolts and the turret depth stop rods and their binding screws.

I might have a couple other pieces floating around that I'll add if they turn up, but I guarantee that there's nothing internal, no hand wheels or levers, etc.