NIce modification Simon, I served my apprenticeship on a Colchester Student lathe nearly 50 years ago, finishing my working days on CNC's, I wouldn't know where to start setting up a conventional lathe up for screwcutting these days, forgotten how to. Can't wait to see the Riley running, always had a thing about them, a bloke across the street had a 1953 RME with the 2.5 engine which was basically a bigger version of yours, he offered to sell me it for 10 quid when I was 17 so the car was 18 years old at the time, what put me off was you could see the road through big rusty holes in the floor pans so I politely declined, I saw the car in a scrapyard about 3 years later and I nicked the Riley badge off the radiator which has long gone missing sadly...
The problem with lathes is they are never big enough! The Emco is still a small lathe but a step up form my original Chinese one in terms of quality. At some point I expect the switches to go on this one (it's a mechanical setup that is known to fail) so I imagine I will be fixing that at some point. The Riley is slow but steady progress needed I think. I have to spread out the costs a little too. I can't just buy all the parts I need up front so it's a matter of getting what I need, when I need it and trying to minimise the postage costs. I still try to do a little every day though.
There is a hierarchy of dial engagement rules depending on thread pitch. Yours has a 16 TPI leadscrew, so if you're cutting a 16 or 32 or 48 pitch, you can engage the half nut in any position and the tool will chase the thread. You need a more restrictive rule if the pitch is not divisible by 16, yet another if it's not divisible by 8, and so on down to not divisible by 2. It was actually kind of fun to get my head into the numbers and figure it out. Of course, you can always just use the most restrictive rule and that will work for any pitch.
Just found your channel, and subbed. Always been on the lookout for an Emcomat lathe, but when I saw your Enigma machine and pre-war race car content, I was hooked!
They are well made machines but suffer the same problem as all lathes, you always end up needing to machine something slightly bigger than your lathe can handle!
Im assuming your Emco is an imperial version, I have a V10P and its metric. I too would like to have a TDI but from what Ive seen its not that easy on a metric lathe and you need different gears for some of the non integer threads like 1.75 etc. Im surprised that mini lathe TDI from Aliexpress meshes with your leadscrew as mine is Mod1, I guess yours is imperial but I would have thought Chinese mini lathes were metric.
It's because when you engage the carriage it starts moving as well. So the gear moves the dial one direction but the carriage movement moves it the other direction so it cancels out. That's why you need a gear with the right number of teeth to match the pitch of the screw.
I have never seen on in person so I am not sure this will work on one sorry. If that part of the carriage and the lead screw are similar it should work? From china those little indicators were cheap enough to risk buying one to try.
NIce modification Simon, I served my apprenticeship on a Colchester Student lathe nearly 50 years ago, finishing my working days on CNC's, I wouldn't know where to start setting up a conventional lathe up for screwcutting these days, forgotten how to. Can't wait to see the Riley running, always had a thing about them, a bloke across the street had a 1953 RME with the 2.5 engine which was basically a bigger version of yours, he offered to sell me it for 10 quid when I was 17 so the car was 18 years old at the time, what put me off was you could see the road through big rusty holes in the floor pans so I politely declined, I saw the car in a scrapyard about 3 years later and I nicked the Riley badge off the radiator which has long gone missing sadly...
The problem with lathes is they are never big enough! The Emco is still a small lathe but a step up form my original Chinese one in terms of quality. At some point I expect the switches to go on this one (it's a mechanical setup that is known to fail) so I imagine I will be fixing that at some point. The Riley is slow but steady progress needed I think. I have to spread out the costs a little too. I can't just buy all the parts I need up front so it's a matter of getting what I need, when I need it and trying to minimise the postage costs. I still try to do a little every day though.
Dito Allen
There is a hierarchy of dial engagement rules depending on thread pitch. Yours has a 16 TPI leadscrew, so if you're cutting a 16 or 32 or 48 pitch, you can engage the half nut in any position and the tool will chase the thread. You need a more restrictive rule if the pitch is not divisible by 16, yet another if it's not divisible by 8, and so on down to not divisible by 2. It was actually kind of fun to get my head into the numbers and figure it out. Of course, you can always just use the most restrictive rule and that will work for any pitch.
I can never remember the rules since I don't use them enough so I stick to the slow, always engage on the same number technique!
Just found your channel, and subbed. Always been on the lookout for an Emcomat lathe, but when I saw your Enigma machine and pre-war race car content, I was hooked!
They are nice little lathes. I am slowly adding to mine to make it more usable for what I need to do - mainly Enigma machines and pre-war cars!
I think you can shim the dial mounting to get a more lined up engagement.
Nice! Want this on my Emco compact 8, but I'm sure I have a metric lead screw.. Hope I can find a suitable threading dial..
Excellent job...
Looks a lot like my 8.4 but for the v ways on mine and milling portion, nice little machines .
They are well made machines but suffer the same problem as all lathes, you always end up needing to machine something slightly bigger than your lathe can handle!
Nice work. I need to do same thing for my lathe.
It's a very handy mod!
Im assuming your Emco is an imperial version, I have a V10P and its metric. I too would like to have a TDI but from what Ive seen its not that easy on a metric lathe and you need different gears for some of the non integer threads like 1.75 etc. Im surprised that mini lathe TDI from Aliexpress meshes with your leadscrew as mine is Mod1, I guess yours is imperial but I would have thought Chinese mini lathes were metric.
I don't know sorry. I've never actually seen one in person so am not sure if they are the same or not.
I didn't understand how the indicator stops since the gear is always in contact.
It's because when you engage the carriage it starts moving as well. So the gear moves the dial one direction but the carriage movement moves it the other direction so it cancels out. That's why you need a gear with the right number of teeth to match the pitch of the screw.
Do you think this attachment works also with a emco maximat v10p?
I have never seen on in person so I am not sure this will work on one sorry. If that part of the carriage and the lead screw are similar it should work? From china those little indicators were cheap enough to risk buying one to try.
Ciao mi raccomando attenzione non mettere maglie lunghe é pericoloso bye bye