Lathe oil

[peterd51]

Hi,

I bought an old lathe a couple of weeks ago and I noticed there's a sort of oiler thing that sits in either of a couple of holes just above the main gears.

I assume I put some oil in it and the oil then drips down onto the gears as I run the lathe?

Can anyone give me an idea of what oil to use please?

If I was to guess then I'd go for general gear oil, EP80 maybe?

Regards
Peter

 

[MrFluffy]

My harrison l5a has the equivalent to ep90 in the headstock, but the miller takes vactra #2 (similar to ep60 in consistancy) and myfords etc are different again.
The best is to find out whats supposed to be in there, and cross reference it to a vactra etc reference. The vactra range has different additives in it than automotive oils...
What lathe is it for? always worth trying to get a manual etc for it, lathes.co.uk usually has somehting...

 

[snowcat]

yep ditto what fluff said, the colchester's run ATF, or hydrex, where the big old herberts take a standard 15/40 engine oil being a hydrostatic drive, so really does depend.

 

[Welderpaul]

Hello mr Tidy. Does that mean to say you have cleared the mess you call your workshop
Matt?!!

 

[snowcat]

Hello mr Tidy. Does that mean to say you have cleared the mess you call your workshop
Matt?!!

Two days tidy wp, Iv found 5 squares, 2 angle gauges, god knows how many DTI clocks, a selection of wire brushes, verniers a plenty, spanners galore from the back of the benches, some torex bits, god knows how many alan keys, tang removers + tangs, some clamp's which i had to pry out with a broom handle, Ventured into the back of the gilotine and scraped about half a ton of offcuts, fixed the light bulbs and replaced a contactor in the horizontal saw...and even deswalfed the lathes, saw's and mills, AND sent about 40 drills to be sharpend, wow feal like a whole new chapter has opened..

 

[peterd51]

Hi,

it's an IXL and there's not much information around on the net...

of German origin around 1920, imported and eventually made in the UK by either a company in Sheffield or another one in Suffolk, no-one seems to know. Apart from the name there are no identification marks on it, all I know is that it's old.

This model doesn't have a gear-box as such just a cover over the gears and an 'oiler' that fits into one of two holes positioned above the main gears.

I assumed some type of engine oil would be used as it needs to be thick enough to sit in the oiler with capillary action but thin enough to drip out onto the gears.

I have a an old oiler with a plunger and I was considering cleaning that up then I could just give the gears a short squirt each time I used the lathe.

I'll have a look at lathes.co.uk, thanks for the tip.

Regards
Peter

 

[MrFluffy]

Quite a write up on the IXL lathes at the lathes.co.uk site as it happens.
Heres another discussion on myford oiling I wandered into, in the event of not knowing, you probably would be best served with taking the lead of the ML owners and using what they use until you know better.

I smear the ways in straight 40 after each time I use it, just to make myself feel better

 

[peterd51]

Hi,

yes, I found that write up. It looks like mine's a mark 1 as the long thread for auto driving the cross-thingy is down the middle of the lathe rather than across the front (you may guess I have no idea what most of the bits are called!).

Looking at it again tonight I found I was wrong to say that these oil-ways drip onto the gears...they actually drip onto the bearings either side of the main belt pulleys.

There's another thing that's puzzling me if you don't mind another question...

Think of the drive-belt pulleys at the top left hand side, just to the left of the chuck...at the back there's a sort of 'lay-shaft' with two gears and it sits dis-engaged with a clasp in a groove to stop it moving. If I lift the clasp and slide this shaft to the left it stops the lathe from turning.

I've not tried it with power, I was operating the drive wheel by hand!

So I guessed it was to lock the drive so the chuck could be changed, does this sound right please? If so, it seems a bit of over-kill as the shaft has a second groove for the locking clasp when it's moved to the left. Surely if it was simply a locking device then there'd be no need to clamp it in place while changing the chuck?

I found a number stamped under the belt-guard, 26515. There's also a faint stick-on label with 'ELAC Made In England' but obviously I have no idea when this was stuck on there.

Does ELAC mean anything to you please?

Regards
Peter

 

[Weldingartisan]

That's the back gear - a reduction for low speed work like thread cutting etc. There will be a release dog somewhere, on a Myford it's a sliding bolt on one of the gears to disengage the direct drive when in use. W/A

 

[tankslap]

we use shell tellus 32 i think for harrison140 & trumph2000 gearboxes.
glideway oil on the rest.

 

[peterd51]

Hi,

ah, I've heard of a back-gear, read it somewhere recently!

There are several gears down the left-hand side with screw-on nuts...(that sounds odd, sorry!) what I mean is that they have a threaded tube with a sping underneath and these press the gears onto the shaft and can be loosened/tightened with just finger pressure.

I'll try un-doing them one by one to see what affect it has on the chuck when I rotate the motor by hand.

Thanks for the oil suggestions Tankslap.

Regards
Peter

 

[HasBean]

Certainly sounds like backgear, just make sure that you find whatever locks the gears together or the whole caboodle will jam up solid, it's a semicircular rotatable pin on my myford (easier to see/do than explain).
On mine I use esso nuto H32 on everthing except the slideways and gearbox which uses esso febis K68 but any oils of 32 & 68 grade viscosity would suffice.

 

[peterd51]

Hi,

I had a look around again today but saw nothing obvious.

The motor drives one of two pulleys depending on the position of the vee-belt. These pulleys are connected to a shaft with three pulleys in between two bearings. There's a flat belt about 1" wide that connect to the three pulleys on the back of the chuck...

so going to the left from the 'bed' there's the chuck, a main bearing, a large gear that the back-gear connects to when I slide it left, the three drive pulleys, a small gear where the back-gear also connects to when I slide it left, the left-hand main-bearing and then various cogs that will drive the auto-feed for the tail-stock or saddle. All of these are on one shaft with no apparent way of separating them.

The only thing I can see is a hole in the left-hand of the three pulleys that would indicate there's an alley screw in there to release the three pulleys from the main shaft but I've not tried loosening that yet.

I have to say that I can't see I'll ever want to cut a thread so maybe I don't need to worry about this.

Thanks for the input.

Regards
Peter

 

[peterd51]

Hi,

found it!

There's a nut on the right-hand cog just behind the chuck but the bolt-head is inside the pulley and I'd thought as there was no chance of getting the bolt out there was no point loosening the nut.

Actually the bolt doesn't come out, it slides about 1/2" and engages another gear.

It seems to reduce the chuck to around 1/3 or 1/4 of its original speed.

Thanks for the advice!

Regards
Peter