Old lathe conversion

[SmithDoor]

Hello all,

My name is Will, am in my late 30's and I have been lurking here for a while admiring the talent and openness with which you show and share. The idea is at some point to watch, learn and develop a hobby in machining.

For the time being I enjoy finding and restoring old machinery namely old early 20th century pillar drills etc. I particularly love the solidity, design and curves of the old cast iron machines, and of course the usefulness.

This leads me onto a find I have made. Its an old lineshaft lathe, date and manufacturer unknown. It has a gear cover maked MWM Ditter on it but I think this is a later addition.

My Question is: Without re doing the whle lineshaft setup, (which i would love to do at some point), is there a way of adding an electric motor to take over the role of the pulleys. Has anyone done it or is it just not worth the effort for a machine that has surely had a long hard life and plenty of play.

Thanks for your ideas, thanks for the great website and please keep inspiring me.

Regards.

Will

I like v-groves on large pulley to small diameter v-grove pulley on a DC motor for speed control. Works great.

Dave

 

[packrat]

Here is a photo of a old lathe with over head drive.....

 

[terryd]

Hello all,

My name is Will, am in my late 30's and I have been lurking here for a while admiring the talent and openness with which you show and share. The idea is at some point to watch, learn and develop a hobby in machining.

For the time being I enjoy finding and restoring old machinery namely old early 20th century pillar drills etc. I particularly love the solidity, design and curves of the old cast iron machines, and of course the usefulness.

This leads me onto a find I have made. Its an old lineshaft lathe, date and manufacturer unknown. It has a gear cover maked MWM Ditter on it but I think this is a later addition.

My Question is: Without re doing the whle lineshaft setup, (which i would love to do at some point), is there a way of adding an electric motor to take over the role of the pulleys. Has anyone done it or is it just not worth the effort for a machine that has surely had a long hard life and plenty of play.

Thanks for your ideas, thanks for the great website and please keep inspiring me.

Regards.

Will

Hi,

If you get the chance, a read of the South bend booklet 'How to Run a Lathe' from 1934 may give you some idea as they were in a period of transition from countershaft drive to individual motor drive and offered lathes with either option with lots of illustrations and pictures on how to set up simple countershaft drives for the small shop. There is also information on how to lace your own flat belts and you may even be able to find the correct leather (or substitute) for the belts as there are many heritage farm machinery groups and of course those machines used flat belt drive. There is a pdf verion of the booklet of around 90 pages somewhere on the net, it just needs a search for the title. As for the 'flat' pulleys I believe that they were very slightly domed across the flat which kept the belt centred, it doesn't need much of a doming to be effective.

As an aside, when serving my apprenticeship in mechanical engineering I worked with a guy operating an old lathe dated 1904 still with flat belt drive and he had conncocted a frame loosely hinged above and just behind the lathe which carried a large electric motor and the original countershaft cone pulley (around 4' above if I remember correctly but it was over 60 years since) and the weight of those kept the tension on the belts.

Best of luck with the project,

regards

TerryD

 

[terryd]

Claire Chazal, yup, I can understand that. You are one of many.

I found this on the Usinages website.

Very similar model, the bed is flat. The legs are in different places but are the same shape. He too doesn't have any ID info...

Why would anyone go to the effort to build a lathe, casting, machining etc, then not put their mark on it ???

Anyways.

ça y est, la restauration a commencé!!!

Will

Hi Will,

as I mentioned in another reply I worked with a guy who was operating an old converted belt drive lathe and the only marking in the casting was "Austin Motor Company 1904". The Austin Factory was opened in Longbridge in the English Midlands in 1905 so I can only assume that the lathe was manufactured for installation in that factory but there was no makers name. Could lead to confusion as Austin never made machine tools only vehicles (except in WW2 when they helped with the war effort making air frames and engines).

Regards

TerryD

 

[terryd]

The word you are looking for is "way", on a flat bed, the sides act as guides and would have a gib strip to take out slack. With a V way, the weight of the tailstock and saddle take out any slack without the need for adjustment, so long as they have been mated correctly in the first place. Only my thoughts, others may have different ideas.

Paul.

Hi Paul,

You are quite right in your assumption about the ways. South Bend- at least on the small lathes and derivatives like my Engish Boxford had 3 'vee' ways and one flat, the saddle runs on two and tailstock on the other and the flat. I have seen the 'vee' ways described as prismatic (as in triangular prism) and even trapezoidal,

Regards

TerryD