This is a machine geared for War , wow. Today's best little lathes have electronic speed control , so don't look that good mechanics- wise , but are much lighter - my aluminium bodied Sherline 4530 (US) weighs an incredible 25 pounds - and is a pleasure to set up , but doesn't like steel that much ... Of course I'd like to have both . One for the house , the other for the shed !
My Cowells is partially disassembled, and like you, the project was put on hold because of a house move. In my case the move happened (from the front range of the Colorado Rockies to the high Colorado Rockies), and the basement shop is mostly unpacked. I look forward to the next installment.
Great video! I have striped and cleaned it. But my cross slide smooth then sticks I have played with grubs to no joy. Can you do video showing rebuild/setup please
Thanks for the encouragement Peter but I'm afraid the full rebuild is going to be a little time yet. Adjusting the gibs on a lathe can be a bit frustrating especially on older machines that usually have more wear at one end of the travel. Without wishing to teach my grandmother to suck eggs, I'm assuming you have the gibs in the right way round (usually there is only one way) and everything is clean and lubed? Then obviously you have to adjust the grub screws for the tightest point of the cross slide travel and put up with a bit of play where the wear is. If the wear is excessive then new gibs may help. Alternatively, if you are not using all of the travel of the cross slide you can adjust for the range you are using. I hope that helps and watch this space for further installments in the restoration of the Cowells 90ME lathe.
If I'm reading your post correctly Peter with the cross slide gib correctly adjusted at one point the cross slide operates smoothly but then gets tight as the cross slide moves either inwards or out? If so that's due to wear on the male and female dovetails that guide the cross slide. The only cure is to have those surfaces re-ground or correctly hand scraped with a great deal of skill and experience. Cowells could probably do that corrective work for a price. On NO account should you try what many RUclips videos show as lapping the parts together. Yes it can correct the size and everything would then operate smoothly. What it can't do is maintain the critical alignment of how square the cross slide is to the longitudinal bed ways. Hand lapping those parts with a grinding paste gives no control over where or how much material is removed.Ideally with extremely well made watch maker and industrial sized lathes the cross slide is purposely mis aligned to the bed ways so the lathe faces very very slightly concave and not flat or convex. That's done for two very good reasons. It then slowly wears into better alignment instead of starting to wear convex, and two faced parts will join together without rocking as convex shaped parts would. Rebuilding machine tool parts is a great deal more complex and difficult to maintain there alignments in three dimensions than most at the hobby level fully understand or appreciate. Yes it can be done to very good levels by even hobbyist's using well proven hand techniques but it takes a great deal of experience and skill as well as some specialized tools such as a surface plate as your reference, straight and dovetailed edges that have been verified as straight and flat against that surface plate, marking blue, and hand scrapers. Extensive research on this channel ruclips.net/channel/UCD1jVjhwma9Ehj8BQqDMPHw would be a good start for how it's done and what's really required to do it properly. That wear on machine tools is mainly caused by not keeping the slides lubricated well enough and not keeping them spotlessly clean as much as possible. That proper and frequent lubrication and cleanliness can easily increase a machine tools usable life span to 10 times or more over a machine that's been neglected.
Great video thanks... Im looking for a Cowells as well, but i need a 90 CW ! www.horomechanic.eu/2018/04/29/cowells-90cw-lathe/ Right now im working on making a new workshop in the garage...
Great music!
This is a machine geared for War , wow.
Today's best little lathes have electronic speed control , so don't look that good mechanics-
wise , but are much lighter - my aluminium bodied Sherline 4530 (US) weighs an incredible
25 pounds - and is a pleasure to set up , but doesn't like steel that much ...
Of course I'd like to have both . One for the house , the other for the shed !
My Cowells is partially disassembled, and like you, the project was put on hold because of a house move. In my case the move happened (from the front range of the Colorado Rockies to the high Colorado Rockies), and the basement shop is mostly unpacked. I look forward to the next installment.
Congratulations on the successful move Peter. Hopefully it won't be too long before the next part in the series.
.
T
Cool time lapse.
The first one was taken from the cafe at the top of the Tate Modern. The second one from Westminster Bridge.
Great video! I have striped and cleaned it. But my cross slide smooth then sticks I have played with grubs to no joy. Can you do video showing rebuild/setup please
Thanks for the encouragement Peter but I'm afraid the full rebuild is going to be a little time yet. Adjusting the gibs on a lathe can be a bit frustrating especially on older machines that usually have more wear at one end of the travel. Without wishing to teach my grandmother to suck eggs, I'm assuming you have the gibs in the right way round (usually there is only one way) and everything is clean and lubed?
Then obviously you have to adjust the grub screws for the tightest point of the cross slide travel and put up with a bit of play where the wear is. If the wear is excessive then new gibs may help. Alternatively, if you are not using all of the travel of the cross slide you can adjust for the range you are using.
I hope that helps and watch this space for further installments in the restoration of the Cowells 90ME lathe.
If I'm reading your post correctly Peter with the cross slide gib correctly adjusted at one point the cross slide operates smoothly but then gets tight as the cross slide moves either inwards or out? If so that's due to wear on the male and female dovetails that guide the cross slide. The only cure is to have those surfaces re-ground or correctly hand scraped with a great deal of skill and experience. Cowells could probably do that corrective work for a price. On NO account should you try what many RUclips videos show as lapping the parts together. Yes it can correct the size and everything would then operate smoothly. What it can't do is maintain the critical alignment of how square the cross slide is to the longitudinal bed ways. Hand lapping those parts with a grinding paste gives no control over where or how much material is removed.Ideally with extremely well made watch maker and industrial sized lathes the cross slide is purposely mis aligned to the bed ways so the lathe faces very very slightly concave and not flat or convex.
That's done for two very good reasons. It then slowly wears into better alignment instead of starting to wear convex, and two faced parts will join together without rocking as convex shaped parts would. Rebuilding machine tool parts is a great deal more complex and difficult to maintain there alignments in three dimensions than most at the hobby level fully understand or appreciate. Yes it can be done to very good levels by even hobbyist's using well proven hand techniques but it takes a great deal of experience and skill as well as some specialized tools such as a surface plate as your reference, straight and dovetailed edges that have been verified as straight and flat against that surface plate, marking blue, and hand scrapers. Extensive research on this channel ruclips.net/channel/UCD1jVjhwma9Ehj8BQqDMPHw would be a good start for how it's done and what's really required to do it properly. That wear on machine tools is mainly caused by not keeping the slides lubricated well enough and not keeping them spotlessly clean as much as possible. That proper and frequent lubrication and cleanliness can easily increase a machine tools usable life span to 10 times or more over a machine that's been neglected.
Great video thanks... Im looking for a Cowells as well, but i need a 90 CW !
www.horomechanic.eu/2018/04/29/cowells-90cw-lathe/
Right now im working on making a new workshop in the garage...
Horrible music