Mini Lathe and Accessory Advice Please.

[Ajohn]

Seeing some one comment on engineering lathes here is the data sheet on a real one. Must add on the cheap.

http://www.excelmachinetools.co.uk/products/datasheet/custom/UPDATE_PAGES_28-29.pdf

Toolrooms tend to use large lathes. Workshops of one sort or another smaller ones.

Frankly I don't think anyone can really tell anything about a lathe by looking at it other than things like the general proportions looking right and if it's possible to turn to the end of work when a centre is in it, Cross slide travel and things like that.

If some one lives in the USA there is a bit more choice such as this one that even has the right sort of proportions but I'll bet the gears aren't hardened and that it would probably benefit from a better headstock bearing arrangement which the industrial machine is very likely to have. Just look at the weight. This is more of a workshop lathe. On the cheap.

http://www.busybeetools.com/products/lathe-metal-10in-x-18in-3-4-hp-craftex.html

Another workshop lathe was the Boxford VSL, Raglans etc etc. In the Raglan days a popular toolroom lathe was a Colchester triumph and even bigger from other makes. Training lathe / workshop a Student. Corner of the shed type workshop a Bantam. Just because some lathes are referred to as toolroom lathes doesn't really mean that they have been used for that much. Especially plain turning ones with no feed. More likely they may have been pre and slightly past wwII. Some toolrooms might have a smaller lathe in there for if they needed to make some accurate parts for other machines. It would be well equipped and most importantly hardly used.

My Raglan when I had it had brass swarf in it in places and some slight signs of steel.  Probably used by electricians and maybe pipe people in a workshop in a factory some where. They managed to put a noticeable amount of wear in the bed just doing this - right at the very end.

John

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[sdkfz181]

Hi and thanks

I've started looking at some second hand lathes also, and I've decided to sell my ES100 degree eyepieces to help buy the extras needed, I'm pretty happy with my Luminos EP's anyway so I think I can just about bear to part with them.

Here are a couple of lathes I've been looking at on Ebay:

This one looks nice but as said is perhaps a bit light duty

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Stunning-Elliott-Emco-Unimat-SL1000-Lathe-Austrian-made-English-Ash-Base-/201367562837?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item2ee2712a55

not sure about the size of this one

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/smart-brown-lathe-/111701275756?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item1a01ea346c

This one looks very good

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/EMCO-COMPACT-5-LATHE-MAIER-CO-WITH-LOADS-OF-EXTRAS-PLUS-THE-EMCO-MILLING-HEAD-/281732013966?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item4198895f8e 

The first (SL) is too small to do anything useful. The bar "bed" twists under load. The motor is not capable of continuous use, the rule of thumb is when the motor casing gets too hot to hold your hand on it you have to switch it off until it cools down! And because you have to take so many small cuts (low power, poor stiffness) it spends more time cooling than working.

The second I know nothing about.

The third, I would want to see, hear and feel before I would consider buying. Two things I don't like. First - that type of three jaw chuck is horrible to use, a friend had one and it always annoyed me every time I used it! Second - coolant, I have an Emco F1 CNC mill which I bought second hand, the coolant had set like glue and I had to strip the whole thing down to clean it off before I could use it!  The mill/drill head is very useful but it is much better mounted on the separate x-y table as a stand alone machine. The problem is every time you want to drill, odds are it is set up to turn, and every time you want to turn, chance is it is set to drill. I had one like it for a while until I bought an x-y table, but then I have the room. However, if you swing the head right behind the lathe it doesn't get in the way so much.

Unfortunately, you really need to examine a lathe, look for wear, feel the play and listen to them running before you can judge.

Someone mentioned the Hobbymat, a couple of my friends have those and they are very nice too, slightly bigger than the emco 5. The mill head is very much more substantial and gear driven, good for milling but no so good for drilling. When last I knew both the Hobbymat and the Emco where still available new, albeit the new Emco is no longer made in Europe. So it should not be too difficult to get a look at a new one, even if too expensive to buy new, once you have seen a new one you will have a much better idea what a good used one should look like. And a much better idea of whether they are the right size for you.

I did my apprenticeship on imperial machines but I prefer working in metric now.

[Ajohn]

On metric it is worth mentioning that it can be more difficult to obtain new imperial measuring instruments now especially in UK / EU. Probably down to retailers reducing their stock  inventory. That in itself could swing the decision. Items with a battery in them will generally be dual scale via a push button but battery life can vary a lot.

2nd hand mic's are generally ok but it's best to buy ones that come with a measuring standard just to be sure.

In terms of finding them I recently came across this company, all sorts of prices on all sorts of things

http://www.mscdirect.co.uk/CGI/INSRCH?Ntt=micrometer&N=4137+4294840511&Ne=180&Ntk=Keyword+Search&Ntx=mode+matchallpartial

I started ordering something off them and found some oddities in the catalogue. Cheap stuff though and asked about them. They maintain the descriptions in the catalogue but the items may vary from the images. In the case I noticed it was a DTI stand with a fine adjustment according to the description but the image showed one without. Huge inventory so understandable really. Some of the offers they have are spectacular if you need the item. They came from a recommendation. Cromwell UK  is another but their trade prices are well below the catalogue prices.

When buying mic's it generally works out cheaper to bite the bullet and buy a set. For digital callipers personally I would stick with Mitutoyo and also buy one which is longer than the usual 150mm / 6in however as this company really is an industrial supplier their value items are probably perfectly ok.

Take care on Ebay. Another example of many yesterday. My wife wants a sun shade for the garden. Bought a parasol, £65 on Amazon and £90 odd on ebay. There is more of this sort of thing going on now. It started several years ago. My first that I noticed was stainless kitchen scales at 3 times the price they were being sold for by Maplin of all people. 

John

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[Stub Mandrel]

It's good to hear you're able to use these mini lathes in anger at least, you must have got a good one!

To be honest, I just spent the time to set it up properly.

Indeed

What's you shunter based on? It reminds me of the one that was stood at the brickyard on the Stoney Stanton road, Coventry

Richard

It's Hudswell Clarke D604 'Southam', and I know it spend time in a yard in Coventry.

Oh yeah? None of a lathe is turning about more than one axis. This planet thing we are standing on though - well!

Have you ever seen a five-axis  CNC lathe in action? - Awesome :-)

Neil :-)

[RLWP]

To be honest, I just spent the time to set it up properly.

It's Hudswell Clarke D604 'Southam', and I know it spend time in a yard in Coventry.

Have you ever seen a five-axis  CNC lathe in action? - Awesome :-)

Neil :-)

I thought the shunter looked familiar

Five axis - pah! You should see the riveting machine they use to make the engine housings at Airbus. From memory, it's around nine axis. That really makes your head hurt. IIRC it's like a five axis machine mounted on a three axis machine

Richard

[Ajohn]

Millers usually crop up at some point. I did have an earlier version of this one

http://www.arceurotrade.co.uk/Catalogue/Machines-Accessories/Milling-Machines/Model-Super-X2-Plus-Mill/SIEG-Super-X2P-HiTorque-Mill

It's about in various forms. They have increased the throat somewhat. It used to have a very narrow table but I would hope that doesn't upset it too much.

As I may have mentioned I bought it of an embryonic model engineer who I suspect also fancied himself as a machine tool dealer. He didn't rate it all all but 2 points. I suspect he tried to mill with the drill chuck and the slides needed setting. Milling also needs a rigid vice. I'd describe it as cheap and cheerful compared with what could be called a real one or a  much much heavier one but set up correctly it was ok. Not brilliant but OK. From memory it may benefit from a cheap digital scale on the quill feed but they may have moved on in that area. There was a counterweight running up and down inside the column on mine to balance the weight of the head - good idea. Just attached to a wire running over a pulley at the top of the column. Setting the vertical slide isn't easy but it can be done by trial and error.  The table slides can be set up and polished a bit if needed the usual way - lead screws out and by hand. Has to be said though on any machine a tiny touch tighter may be better. Stiff by hand ?? etc

Would I buy one of the other models below this -  probably not.

John

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[RLWP]

 have you managed to find any plans for a classic refractor? I've searched the internet without success so far as Newtonians are simpler to make. I'm surprised there wasn't a design in the Model Engineer magazine from the early 1900's

Could I bump this bit?

Has anyone found plans for classic refractors anywhere?

Richard (thread hijacker extraordinaire) 

[Ajohn]

The only complicated aspect is the lens cell really Ideas will be around on the web and probably in old books too.

http://mirrorworkshop.mtbparker.com/refractorStory.html

Another but no info on the cell other than push pull screws and a routed mount.

http://www.instructables.com/id/Homebuilt-6-F15-Refractor-and-Mount/?ALLSTEPS

On good astro telescopes the lens may not be held tightly. Just a really tiny amount of free movement. My 5in F9 apo is like that, a slight rattle can be heard if shook about. If it was tight temperature variations would mess things up anyway. The push pull screws can also be in the cell but I'm not sure how that arrangement works.

Some people build the 6in glass blank kits on cloudynights. If a rad comes out a bit incorrect some one is usually about who will run an optimisation on it to correct the error on other surfaces.

John

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[Chris]

Could I bump this bit?

Has anyone found plans for classic refractors anywhere?

Richard (thread hijacker extraordinaire) 

No particular plans for me, just going on the basic components i.e. lens in cell, counter cell to attach the cell to the tube, the tube, focuser flange for attaching the tube to the focuser, and focuser.

The lens cell can either be collimatable via push pull screws with the counter cell, or it can simply be fixed and collimation can take place via the focuser.

Obviously you need to make sure the tube is nicely squared, but long focal ratios are very forgiving to both collimation and the five Seidel aberrations: Spherical aberration, astigmatism, coma, field curvature, and distortion. Moreover, very low chromatic aberration and great depth of focus. This is why I wan't to build a long focus refractor specifically, and why some folk who are brave enough to grind there own lenses tend to choose something around f/15.

You can use something like Modus for design and testing, but if you know the focal length of the lens then you can pretty much work out how long you need the tube. I'm going a bit shorter on the tube for binoviewing, then I'll just use an extension tube for cyclops viewing.

http://www.myoptics.at/modas/

Some folks make up light baffles in the tube, I'm going to do what Televue do and just Protostar flock the inside of the tube which is in effect thousands of little baffles.

I thought about grinding my own Fraunhofer Crown and Flint Achromat objective but I think that's a step too far at the moment. Quite a bit of test equipment needed for lenses. 

[Chris]

a gold mine of info on lathes and a buy and sell

http://www.lathes.co.uk/

Lenny

Thanks for this by the way, I've been keeping my eyes peeled on ebay and looking up the details of the lathes I find using this link. I've learnt quite a bit already I reckon.

I might bid on this Myford ML7 which has popped up quite local. If not that I'll probably order the Warco WM180. 

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Myford-Ml7-Metal-Working-Lathe-/201381655033?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item2ee34831f9

[Stub Mandrel]

QCTP with two toolholders, three-jaw and tailstock chuck, not many accessories. Looks well used, copudl be worn out or may have been well looked-after.

If it goes for  a low price excellent, but with 8 days to go expect it to rise to silly money.

[RLWP]

QCTP with two toolholders, three-jaw and tailstock chuck, not many accessories. Looks well used, copudl be worn out or may have been well looked-after.

If it goes for  a low price excellent, but with 8 days to go expect it to rise to silly money.

I'd say it looks pretty honest - not repainted or dolled up. It has the right sort of accessories to get started with, I particularly like the fixed stead - very handy for long stuff

Place your bets. It should go for £600-£700

Richard

[Chris]

It will be interesting to see how the bidding goes, even if I don't win. I might go as high as 600 but might be sweating a bit after that.

[Chris]

I do have one thought mind, I'm guessing the Myford ML7 and cabinet must weight about 150-180kg in total, will my 10mm tongue and groove shed floor handle this?

[RLWP]

You might win at that. If you search on Ebay for completed listings, ML7s seem very variable. There's one with a quick change gearbox that went for less than £600

Good luck

Richard

MORE: If you are worried about the floor, put a sheet of 18mm ply under it

[Stub Mandrel]

I do have one thought mind, I'm guessing the Myford ML7 and cabinet must weight about 150-180kg in total, will my 10mm tongue and groove shed floor handle this?

A solid floor helps. If you spend a few hundred on a lathe, don't complain about spending a few tens of pounds on a sheet of 3/4" ply or OSB to put down under it!

[Chris]

If all I need to do is put some ply under the lathe then it's game on

[Ajohn]

Thanks for this by the way, I've been keeping my eyes peeled on ebay and looking up the details of the lathes I find using this link. I've learnt quite a bit already I reckon.

I might bid on this Myford ML7 which has popped up quite local. If not that I'll probably order the Warco WM180. 

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Myford-Ml7-Metal-Working-Lathe-/201381655033?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item2ee34831f9

I did mention looking to see if ML7's had any shims left the under the bearing caps on the headstock. At least then it might be possible to scrape the spindle bearings back in. Doesn't look like there are any to me which is pretty typical of this particular lathe and spells trouble in terms of finish, accuracy and more difficulty in using it as well. It may be possible to still get replacement phos bronze bearings for it. Probably a little short of £100 but then they have to be scraped by hand to fit the spindle. The original ones were white metal but they stopped producing them. Those needed scraping as well. Been there and done that. The bed wear made the effort needed to do that questionable. I understand some people have managed to cast new white metal bearings in place on the lathe but it must be a pretty difficult thing to do well.

I reckon you would be far better of with the Warco and forgetting used lathes especially old ones unless you visit and know what to look for. That Warco is actually a pretty good choice spec wise. I've nosed at it several times and it's  the cheapest one they do that I would call a lathe.  If you buy I would be very interested in see what they call an accuracy report. You could post a photo of it on here.

John

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[darkside53]

It's just like anything you can pay a little or a lot for a 80-100mm long focus achromat objective.

Cheapest way = find a vintage Towa or Kenko 80mm f/15 refractor on ebay for 100 quid. I nearly had my hands on one from ABS but the deal fell through so I'm still keeping my eyes peeled. These lenses are the ones used by Moonraker.

Hi Chris,

Just thought I'd mention that I don't only use these lenses excellent though they are, although I did a couple of years ago. I mostly build with Lzos ED & triplets, Zeiss, Carton, Istar, CFF, Vixen, AP and even optics some from Ron Irving, still wrapped in brown paper and Kunming optics 102 F11} and others...

Cheers, Mark.

[Chris]

Hi Mark, welcome to SGL!

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply you only used these lenses, I know you use lots of different lenses now days. I'm liking the new Rocket model by the way (more my league, and just the right amount of bling).

I take it this uses the Kunming 4" f/11 lens? I'm looking forward to more info on this one

[Chris]

I did mention looking to see if ML7's had any shims left the under the bearing caps on the headstock. At least then it might be possible to scrape the spindle bearings back in. Doesn't look like there are any to me which is pretty typical of this particular lathe and spells trouble in terms of finish, accuracy and more difficulty in using it as well. It may be possible to still get replacement phos bronze bearings for it. Probably a little short of £100 but then they have to be scraped by hand to fit the spindle. The original ones were white metal but they stopped producing them. Those needed scraping as well. Been there and done that. The bed wear made the effort needed to do that questionable. I understand some people have managed to cast new white metal bearings in place on the lathe but it must be a pretty difficult thing to do well.

I reckon you would be far better of with the Warco and forgetting used lathes especially old ones unless you visit and know what to look for. That Warco is actually a pretty good choice spec wise. I've nosed at it several times and it's  the cheapest one they do that I would call a lathe.  If you buy I would be very interested in see what they call an accuracy report. You could post a photo of it on here.

John

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Thanks John for your pivotal post. I hadn't picked up on the lack of shims, plus I have zero clue about casting or scraping bearings? The price is already rising fast with 7 days to go, so I could end up paying close to the cost of the Warco 180 for a lathe that needs work that I can't carry out.

I think 'bearing' these points in mind I don't want to get unless its cheap. I don't want to pay the price of a new Chinese lathe for an old machine that will give just as bad surface finish and accuracy as a cheap Chinese lathe. 

They only have metric Warco 180's in stock but I still think this might be the sensible compromise, at least it will have brand new taper bearings in the headstock, and all metal gears over some of the even cheaper mini lathes.

Now I've decided on a lathe (thank goodness), I need to formulate exactly what I need to order with it tooling, measuring and safety kit etc?

I know some of this was mentioned earlier in the thread so I will re-read it.

I've spent some time lurking on a couple of forums so I'm learning but would be grateful for help putting a list of accessories together please. 

Warco  WM180 it is, phew! glad that's sorted! 

[Stub Mandrel]

> tooling, measuring and safety kit

Best investments for a beginner are:

vernier or digital callipers (the cheap ones eat batteries but are still accurate enough for most purposes if kept clean)

If you can afford it a micrometer (ditto for digital ones)

set of HSS tools in  a useful set of shapes (these will guide you when making your own, carbide is tricky to get used to and can leave the beginner frustrated)

neat cutting oil

eye protection - googles  and possible barrier cream DO NOT wear gloves near moving machinery

Bit of bent wire for clearing swarf (don't do this by hand)

tailstock drill chuck and a reasonable quality set of drills

Scriber

decent quality rule

A piece of granite worktop or chopping board will serve as a cheap surface plate for aligning things and marking up.

Do not rush out an buy too much stuff - pretty gadgets that look essential may end up living on the top shelf for years. It's best to buy what you need as you go along. Lots of basic gadgets can be made very cheaply. You wiull no doubt end up wanting a vice, various files, taps & dies, a 4-jaw chuck and......

[Chris]

Thanks Stub

Ok sounds good, I'll start with the following to begin with:

-Digital Caliper

-Goggles (Might have these)

-Drill Chuck (I have metal drills)

-HSS tool set

-Neat cutting oil 

I might get some ear defenders also based on Gina's earlier comment

[Chris]

The bent wire for swarf has brought back memories of my CNC days, I'll sort something out for that

I still have a scar on the back of my thumb from a particularly deep swarf cut, not nice having lots of cuts and being upto your wrists in coolant all day! 

[Chris]

 "If you buy I would be very interested in see what they call an accuracy report. You could post a photo of it on here."

Yes John, I'd be happy to