Wedg1e
They call me Mr. Bodge-angles
- Messages
- 7,735
- Location
- Teesside, England
Just seeen this... fantastic effort
My first two lathes were Mellors; the first one (£100 in 1999!) had the serial number 103 but I forget the other, 265 maybe... anyway 103 had been badly monkeyed in its life (and that was before I got it, and I'd never used a lathe so it wasn't going to get any better ) - there was a huge gouge out of the ways just below the chuck. Whether it had been hit by something or (as I thought then) hacked out with an angle grinder to create more clearance wasn't clear, but lead had been poured into the carnage in an attempt to restore the ways... you can guess the rest. It was pretty dire. It came with no stand, so I welded up some old bits of tube and got it working well enough to make the usual mistakes early on (working out how to core out the centre of a cast iron wheel, realising that slowest backgear was needed, but along the way having to resharpen the tool umpteen times was a steep learning curve).
I bought the second Mellor for buttons, £50 maybe, and it had the cast-iron trumpet stand and the motor plate hanging out the back. I think I pinched a couple of bits from the first that were missing from the second and [hangs head in shame] weighed-in the remains of the first for scrap. I really couldn't see anyone wanting the poor old thing.
The second I subsequently sold on Ebay to a guy called Mellor who wanted a lathe with his own name on it... met him in a motorway services and heaved it into his car!
It was replaced by a Boxford AUD and the rest is history, but I do like some of the engineering on the Mellor, it was a good intro to machine tools. Especially as 103 had no guarding beside the alloy top plate over the power feed gear on the carriage.
Curiously, as I recall, it was possible to engage power sliding and surfacing at the same time, effectively cutting a taper, but probably nothing usable without an inifinite number of changewheels
Anyway, keep up the good work
My first two lathes were Mellors; the first one (£100 in 1999!) had the serial number 103 but I forget the other, 265 maybe... anyway 103 had been badly monkeyed in its life (and that was before I got it, and I'd never used a lathe so it wasn't going to get any better ) - there was a huge gouge out of the ways just below the chuck. Whether it had been hit by something or (as I thought then) hacked out with an angle grinder to create more clearance wasn't clear, but lead had been poured into the carnage in an attempt to restore the ways... you can guess the rest. It was pretty dire. It came with no stand, so I welded up some old bits of tube and got it working well enough to make the usual mistakes early on (working out how to core out the centre of a cast iron wheel, realising that slowest backgear was needed, but along the way having to resharpen the tool umpteen times was a steep learning curve).
I bought the second Mellor for buttons, £50 maybe, and it had the cast-iron trumpet stand and the motor plate hanging out the back. I think I pinched a couple of bits from the first that were missing from the second and [hangs head in shame] weighed-in the remains of the first for scrap. I really couldn't see anyone wanting the poor old thing.
The second I subsequently sold on Ebay to a guy called Mellor who wanted a lathe with his own name on it... met him in a motorway services and heaved it into his car!
It was replaced by a Boxford AUD and the rest is history, but I do like some of the engineering on the Mellor, it was a good intro to machine tools. Especially as 103 had no guarding beside the alloy top plate over the power feed gear on the carriage.
Curiously, as I recall, it was possible to engage power sliding and surfacing at the same time, effectively cutting a taper, but probably nothing usable without an inifinite number of changewheels
Anyway, keep up the good work