I've always wanted a lathe, ever since I used one for all of 5 minutes at school, now around 10 years later I've got one. Wahoo! 
My dad has a nice 2.7tonne trailer with full sides and a rear ramp, but no winch, no mounting plate and no method of realistically getting a lathe into it. I moved a Fobco 7/8 a couple of times on a sack truck and that was tough enough. Seeing ZZR120s thread about his trailer winch mount got me excited! I could make something similar picking up off existing mounting holes without drilling into my dad's trailer, which was a real no no. So I present to you my hodge-podge of a trailer mount, made from all sorts of offcuts and scrap, with some suitable dodgy cold mig welding. Turns out trying to weld 5mm steel requires a decent chunk of current that my mig doesn't have. It's not got the best force direction design with the mounting plate not being on top of the upright but its some beefy steel, bolted and secured tightly, and it did the job.
So trailer, winch mount and trusty Volvo tow car sorted it was time to start looking. Ideally I wanted something with history, reasonably old and built to last, not too fussed about huge capacity as I don't expect to be turning anything large, threadcutting and power feeds would be nice. My budget was reasonable but not huge ~/<£1000 basically led to me looking at old colchesters or old harrisons. Then I saw a Smart and Brown for sale this time all the way down south as part of a deceased sale.
The vendor had a hand winch so I simply made up a bracket to loop off the mount and we winched it in without too much fuss, once we'd got it out of the garage of course. Turns out when they say a lathe is heavy they're not kidding, estimates seem to be 500-750kg unless anyone knows otherwise?. 2 hours for loading seemed very reasonable, the 5 hour drive down and 5 and a half driving back less so. I am however now the owner of a lathe!
It's a smart and brown model a (mk1?) Came with a nice 3 jaw self-centering chuck, independent 4 jaw (both with ext and int jaws), 9" faceplate, good number of collets (30ish), drawbar, dead centres, fixed steady, tailstock chuck, taper turning attachment, few inserts and holders, 3 tool holders and a small selection of hss tooling. Downsides being a few dings in the bed, some wear in the center of the bed, around 12thou backlash on all the dials and a 400/415V star only motor.
Unloading was good fun, basically ended up building a big A frame from some scaffolding and using an old block and tackle. The old block and tackle that wouldn't lift or lower beyond 10mm each time.. Took a few hours to get it up into the air, drive the trailer out and then lowered onto a decent wheeled pallet and into the garage.
I've spent the last week getting it slowly cleaned and sorting the motor out. I looked into my options for powering the lathe. My fobco is a three phase 220/415 motor, so I know how to run off an inverter. However the 400V was an issue and left the options of: new motor and inverter, "boost" inverter for big bucks, 29Hz running off an inverter = or have a go at pulling out the star point and re-wiring delta. I chose the cheapest option and figured as it was a 400/415V motor I had nothing to lose trying to dig out the star point from the windings. It took a good few hours to sort but happily it's now permanently wired delta ready for running off a cheap 220/240V inverter.
Getting the motor and gearbox assembly in and out of the cabinet is not something I want to repeat... seems you need about 5 hands and the strength of 3 silverback gorillas! Anyway got the motor back in the cabinet with the 3 speed gearbox lined up and working today. Not a job I want to repeat in a hurry.
I pulled the .75kw inverter off my fobco and pugged it in, we have forward and backwards, it lives! I figured the odd short run from a lower powered inverter wasn't going to kill a 1.5kW motor?
Whilst up and running thought I would have a play with the back gear, so back gear engaged, spindle bolt turned appropriately, we have a back gear. With the back gear disengaged I've now come into some difficulty getting the allen bolt to line back up with the spindle as it seems I can't find the locating point. See drawings etc below.
I've asked on the facebook page and have a few things to try but does anyone have any idea about what I need to do? Basically with the back gear disengaged, regardless of the allen bolt position I can turn the spindle and belt pulley in different directions, as if there is a clutch slipping or more appropriately the spindle not connected properly.
That's all my rambling for today and I'll update as I get to learn it and start turning some metal.
My dad has a nice 2.7tonne trailer with full sides and a rear ramp, but no winch, no mounting plate and no method of realistically getting a lathe into it. I moved a Fobco 7/8 a couple of times on a sack truck and that was tough enough. Seeing ZZR120s thread about his trailer winch mount got me excited! I could make something similar picking up off existing mounting holes without drilling into my dad's trailer, which was a real no no. So I present to you my hodge-podge of a trailer mount, made from all sorts of offcuts and scrap, with some suitable dodgy cold mig welding. Turns out trying to weld 5mm steel requires a decent chunk of current that my mig doesn't have. It's not got the best force direction design with the mounting plate not being on top of the upright but its some beefy steel, bolted and secured tightly, and it did the job.
So trailer, winch mount and trusty Volvo tow car sorted it was time to start looking. Ideally I wanted something with history, reasonably old and built to last, not too fussed about huge capacity as I don't expect to be turning anything large, threadcutting and power feeds would be nice. My budget was reasonable but not huge ~/<£1000 basically led to me looking at old colchesters or old harrisons. Then I saw a Smart and Brown for sale this time all the way down south as part of a deceased sale.
The vendor had a hand winch so I simply made up a bracket to loop off the mount and we winched it in without too much fuss, once we'd got it out of the garage of course. Turns out when they say a lathe is heavy they're not kidding, estimates seem to be 500-750kg unless anyone knows otherwise?
. 2 hours for loading seemed very reasonable, the 5 hour drive down and 5 and a half driving back less so. I am however now the owner of a lathe!It's a smart and brown model a (mk1?) Came with a nice 3 jaw self-centering chuck, independent 4 jaw (both with ext and int jaws), 9" faceplate, good number of collets (30ish), drawbar, dead centres, fixed steady, tailstock chuck, taper turning attachment, few inserts and holders, 3 tool holders and a small selection of hss tooling. Downsides being a few dings in the bed, some wear in the center of the bed, around 12thou backlash on all the dials and a 400/415V star only motor.
Unloading was good fun, basically ended up building a big A frame from some scaffolding and using an old block and tackle. The old block and tackle that wouldn't lift or lower beyond 10mm each time.. Took a few hours to get it up into the air, drive the trailer out and then lowered onto a decent wheeled pallet and into the garage.
I've spent the last week getting it slowly cleaned and sorting the motor out. I looked into my options for powering the lathe. My fobco is a three phase 220/415 motor, so I know how to run off an inverter. However the 400V was an issue and left the options of: new motor and inverter, "boost" inverter for big bucks, 29Hz running off an inverter = or have a go at pulling out the star point and re-wiring delta. I chose the cheapest option and figured as it was a 400/415V motor I had nothing to lose trying to dig out the star point from the windings. It took a good few hours to sort but happily it's now permanently wired delta ready for running off a cheap 220/240V inverter.
Getting the motor and gearbox assembly in and out of the cabinet is not something I want to repeat... seems you need about 5 hands and the strength of 3 silverback gorillas! Anyway got the motor back in the cabinet with the 3 speed gearbox lined up and working today. Not a job I want to repeat in a hurry.
I pulled the .75kw inverter off my fobco and pugged it in, we have forward and backwards, it lives! I figured the odd short run from a lower powered inverter wasn't going to kill a 1.5kW motor?
Whilst up and running thought I would have a play with the back gear, so back gear engaged, spindle bolt turned appropriately, we have a back gear. With the back gear disengaged I've now come into some difficulty getting the allen bolt to line back up with the spindle as it seems I can't find the locating point. See drawings etc below.
I've asked on the facebook page and have a few things to try but does anyone have any idea about what I need to do? Basically with the back gear disengaged, regardless of the allen bolt position I can turn the spindle and belt pulley in different directions, as if there is a clutch slipping or more appropriately the spindle not connected properly.
That's all my rambling for today and I'll update as I get to learn it and start turning some metal.
