Stuart engineering Lathe

[coopertje]

Hi Nick,

The single cylinders are very nice! For sure you have the skills to make it work, if you take it step by step nothing can go wrong! And the good thing about stuart is that you can buy a spare incase of a mishap. I found that working with castings is not so much different then to build from stock material, you just need to think a little harder on a good setup before machining the cast.

I am looking forward to see your 1st single cylinder build appear on my screen!

Could not resist, start-up my CNC lathe and made pully tonight. My PC is converting the movie of the process, will post the link tomorrow. Below a picture of the result.

Regards Jeroen

 

[coopertje]

It finished quicker then expected, here is the movie

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ME8128i2Yp0]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ME8128i2Yp0[/ame]

My excuses for the mess in my shop (too much machines or too little space, or both??) and the bad video quality. My "making videos" qualities are even worse then my machining qualities..... :-\

Regards Jeroen

 

[swilliams]

That was very cool Jeroen, turned out very nice.

I like the way you drilled and bored the hole with an endmill. That would have been an instant disaster in my lathe which has a generous amount of backlash in the tailstock.

You sure have some nice stuff in your shop. Anyway must get to work, (late) :-[

 

[coopertje]

Hi Steve,

Hope you were not late at work this morning!
Must admit I like this machine a lot! Even though it's quite old, somewhere early 80's, its mechanically in a new condition. I came from a school and the paint inside was not even scratched. Those are the machines to have. I bought it without main motor and control electronics. Made all electronics new myself, mounted a 2.2kW main motor, spindle runs 4000 rpm! Its very stable, accurate and repeats within 0.01mm. I do not have more wishes ;D

Tonight I was able to finish the pulley and make the main bearings.

To lock the pulley in place (using a set screw) I drilled a hole and tapped M3.

Time to part the pulley off and clean it up

I cannot fit it on the lathe yet, need to make the main spindle first. The plan for the bearings is to drill and ream a 10mm hole in the middle and after place it on a mandrel to bring the OD to size.

I pushed the bearing against the chuck using the live center in the tailstock. When taking light cuts this works well and its a quick method.

With the OD turned to the correct size, swapped the part in the chuck and brought the outer flange to dimension.

Below the lathe with the 2 bearings installed in place

Next will be the main spindle, I want that pulley installed!

Regards Jeroen

 

[NickG]

That is looking superb Jeroen, :bow: It's a little bigger than I thought too. Will you be powering the spindle? How will you make the chuck or does it have a faceplate?

 

[coopertje]

Hi Nick,

The length is 190mm, width 50mm and height 130mm. Its indeed not so small. I will not power it, maybe in the future I can put it in a miniature steam plant. I just like the little lathe and want to put it on the dressoir in the living room. My wife is so lucky with me and my junk.... :

In fact I will make both. Hopefully I can start with the face plate this weekend, the chuck will take a little more time. I made a scan of the plan for the chuck

As you see the construction is quite simple, if the actual machining will be the same I doubt..... lets see, think I leave the chuck until I have the lathe completed.

Regards Jeroen

 

[NickG]

Ha, mine are all taking space up in our book case! :big:

Thanks for explaining the chuck, looks quite complex to me!

nick

 

[coopertje]

Hi Nick,

Nice to see that all around the world it's the same. I think for the chuck the jaws will be the most difficult to make. The other parts is just drilling holes and mill some slots.

On Saturday my wife went shopping with some friends in another city. Poor me, home alone all day, nobody to talk to.... to run away from my sadness I spend whole day in the shop.. woohoo1 and make some progress on the lathe.

I decided to make the main spindle out of 2 separate parts. That enabled me to use silver steel, which is very accurate to dimension. If you buy 10mm, you will get 10.00mm!

Started to turn down from 10 to 8mm and make a relieve for the treading

I choose Meteric fine 8 tread for the spindle nose and drilled the complete bar with 4mm internal.

Next was to make a ring, 16mm OD 4mm wide that will be soldered over the 10mm axle

After soft soldering and clean up here is the result

In the kit there was some hex material. From this I made the 2 nuts to keep the mainspindle in its position.

After drilling and tapping M10 (did not have the MF10 tapping set, would have been better, M10 is quite rough in size) time to make a chamber to give the nut a nice look

Parting off 2 pieces

Mounted together and the stock for the face plate

Ow, by the way, here is a pic with the pulley mounted!

Next I made the face plate, it was really fun to make this little thing.

First faced one side, swapped it and used a parallel to align it in the chuck (dont forget to remove before starting the lathe!!)

Drilled and tapped MF8

Placed it on a mandrel and brought the OD to dimension

For the slot in the backside of the plate I move the part over to the mill and put it in the rotary table. With light cuts of 1mm deep at a time I made the backside to dimension

Swapped the plate in the chuck and made a small CNC program to make the slots in the front of the plate because I need 6 identical shapes and the machine is much better in receptive work then me! The came out nice, I am always afraid to ruin the part by a programming error.

Then took the plate back to the lathe and gave the front a nice look with rings and polished it with some sandpaper

This is how it looks mounted on the lathe

That's all for now, next I will make the carriage. Decided to follow the original Stuart drawing on this one, meaning the complete carriage shape need to be machined from out a solid block of steel. I have my fingers crossed....

Have fun, regards Jeroen

 

[swilliams]

The face plate looks great Jeroen, what diameter is it? The chuck should be fun to make

 

[BenPeake]

Great project you have on the go there Jeroen! I'm watching with interest as I'd like to take on a similar project at some point. Keep up the good work,
Ben

 

[NickG]

Looks brilliant Jeroen, really nice. Have you thought of a colour scheme yet?

I'm glad you mentioned about removing the parallel before starting the lathe! I've forgotten once, I was lucky it just wedged itself into the bed and probably rendered the parallel useless now, no noticable damage to machine though hopefully.

Nick

 

[coopertje]

Thank you all for your nice comments!!

Steve the diameter is 38mm, thickness 6mm. I am looking forward to make the chuck, the only thing that I do not have clear yet is how to make the jaws. The front part of the chuck (number 52 in the drawing) I will make out of one round piece, drill the holes, mill the slots on both sides and finally cut it in 4 parts. For the jaws I could take a piece of square bar, make the basic shapes and cut it in 4 pieces. If anybody has a more efficient way I will be glad to hear.

I can really advice you to start one Ben, its so much fun to make this little lathe. Something completely different and for me so nice to do something conventional again after a CNC based project. Love to control the wheels myself for a change.

Nick, I am doubting about the colors. Originally these kind of machines were black or light gray (I learned). I tend to use a dark green glossy paint, I think it will give a nice contrast with the aluminum and brass parts. Although I did not decide yet, I still have some months to go before arriving to this stage.... Luckily I did not have the experience of forgetting the parallel yet, I just forgot the chuck key once :- Also in my case no damage to myself nor the machine!! I think you need this experience to really realize that these machines are serious tools and that mistakes can cause great harm!! From that moment I always check if everything is clear before starting the machine. Wisdom come with age and experience they say, I am patiently waiting for mine to arrive :big:

Not so much progress tonight. I made the 60 degree chamber on the bed of the lathe tonight.

Started with very accurately checking the setup of the bed in the vise. I changed the position of the vise until the dial indicator showed less then 0.01mm when running along the side and over the top of the bed.

I took a 60 degree swallowtail cutter and took a cut on the complete depth on one side. It went trough very well, casting metal is so easy to machine

]

The other side finished

In the picture below the bar of metal from which the saddle will be made. I hope I do not mess up this one.....

Tomorrow I will machine the blank to size and put the marks on it for machining reference.

Regards Jeroen

 

[gbritnell]

Hi Jeroen,
Having built the PM Research lathe I am watching your thread with great interest. I would have preferred to work with iron parts like Stuart's but it came out well in the end. I think you will be quite happy with your lathe when it's complete.
Keep up the good work.
George

 

[coopertje]

Hi George,

I have seen your build on the PM research lathe, beautiful build! I learned a lot from it, and hope you don’t mind that I stole some ideas from you... for example the setup for drilling the holes in the head and tailstock. I agree that creating a part out of stock material give more satisfaction then working with a casting. However to achieve a realistic shape of a casting also has its advantages.
Good luck with your transmission, looking forward to see it grow during the upcoming time!

Regards Jeroen

 

[swilliams]

I'm looking forward to seeing you convert that rough chunk of steel into the saddle.

 

[coopertje]

Well Steve, here we go!

Today I made the piece of metal square and to dimension, put the dimension lines on it and was actually able to make some chips.

As you can see below its not just the dogs that behave like their owners, mills do too :big:

Smoke seems worse then it is, I use quite thin cutting oil, mill was running at 250 rpm.

After deburring and cleaning I put marking paint and start scratching the lines

Things went smooth today so I decided to start the mill and drill all the holes on both sides of the blank. I also tapped already the M5 tread for the spindle, a square block is easier to clamp in the vise then a finished saddle.

I first cut the top of the saddle to shape, after I will remove the remaining parts with a saw.

Last action for today was to cut the 60 degree swallow tail guide, first on the right side

After on the left

Up to now I am happy with the progress on the saddle, worked out well up to now.....

Regards Jeroen

 

[NickG]

Nice work on the saddle Jeroen, quick question, do you tap under power?

 

[coopertje]

Hi Nick,

Depends on the situation. Blind holes I never tap under power, normally I use the machine to make the first few turns (to make sure it goes in straight) and then continue by hand. If it is just one hole to tap I take it also out of the vise, in this way you are less sensitive to lateral forces on the tap.

True holes up to M6 I do under power, put the mill on 60 rpm and let it do the job. About M6 I follow the same procedure as with blind holes. Works well for me, did not brake a tap in this way yet.

Hope its clear, if not let me know.

Regards Jeroen

 

[NickG]

Hi,

I asked only because I had tried it acouple of times, I don't grip the tap too tight so that it will just spin rather than break the tap! It seems to work just to get the threads started off straight then I take out and finish by hand as I'm a believer in 1 turn forward half a turn back method!

I suppose if you're going straight through as you say it would be ok to leave in the machine as long as the hole isn't too deep as the swarf has somewhere to go.

Good to know I'm doing something that others also do! Thanks for the reply.

Nick

 

[coopertje]

Hi Nick,

I totally agree with your 1 turn forward half a turn back method! And thank you too for your confirmation of my method, I think many of us here use the trial and error method and find their way in metal working. That's why this site is such a great source of information!

In my opinion a tap will brake if it is not in straight from the beginning, applying a lateral force or when the swarf blocks the tap from rotating. What also helps a lot is to invest some bucks in a good quality tapping fluid, makes a big difference.

Best regards Jeroen