RobCox
Member
- Messages
- 390
- Location
- Cambridge, UK
I picked up this little machine a few months ago as a restoration project.
It came with a crateful of rusty bits and pieces, which may or may not belong to it. It's missing a whole load of stuff too, not least the motor to drive the spindle. Here's the bootload of bits and pieces in the back of my car:
This machine is a Taylor Hobson chasing lathe, designed for cutting precision threads for optical equipment, not that it's capable of doing that at present, as I have no thread hobs for it. There's absolutely no information anywhere on the web on this machine, I have no manual, drawings or other clues as to what's missing, how it works, how you use it etc, but I've been put in contact with someone who has some copies of articles in Machinery Magazine, dating back to 1948 which describe the lathe in some detail.
My intention is to take it apart, clean it up, fix anything that needs doing, then make whatever's missing to make it a useable machine again. After that, it'll sit on a bench doing very little I suppose, but I hope to have some fun along the way getting it going.
So far I've had the headstock apart, cleaned up, painted, replaced the spindle bearings (which were as rough as a badger's backside), dismantled and cleaned the various bolt-on assemblies around the headstock, and cleaned and painted the base casting. Lots of photos taken along the way, as it's the only way of reminding myself how this jigsaw puzzle goes back together.
A few pictures. The headstock removed from the base.
The headstock slides on the ground rod at the bottom to allow the work to travel as the thread is cut. It also pivots on this rod to enable the tool and hob/follower to disengage so it can return after a pass. The projection on the bottom attaches to a spring which pulls the spindle assembly back to the right at the end of a cut. Here it is in bits:
After cleaning up, here is a collection of the parts waiting to be reassembled:
And when reassembled looks like this, along with the packaging for the bearings and seals, strategically placed so the photo captures the part numbers for future reference:
The little lever on the front is the spindle lock. The spindle for this has a small 32DP gear which moves a pin with a corresponding rack and pokes into one of 8 sleeved holes in the pulley wheel. The acorn shaped black knob to the left has a threaded hole for a stop but it's function is still a mystery to me.
Rob
It came with a crateful of rusty bits and pieces, which may or may not belong to it. It's missing a whole load of stuff too, not least the motor to drive the spindle. Here's the bootload of bits and pieces in the back of my car:
This machine is a Taylor Hobson chasing lathe, designed for cutting precision threads for optical equipment, not that it's capable of doing that at present, as I have no thread hobs for it. There's absolutely no information anywhere on the web on this machine, I have no manual, drawings or other clues as to what's missing, how it works, how you use it etc, but I've been put in contact with someone who has some copies of articles in Machinery Magazine, dating back to 1948 which describe the lathe in some detail.
My intention is to take it apart, clean it up, fix anything that needs doing, then make whatever's missing to make it a useable machine again. After that, it'll sit on a bench doing very little I suppose, but I hope to have some fun along the way getting it going.
So far I've had the headstock apart, cleaned up, painted, replaced the spindle bearings (which were as rough as a badger's backside), dismantled and cleaned the various bolt-on assemblies around the headstock, and cleaned and painted the base casting. Lots of photos taken along the way, as it's the only way of reminding myself how this jigsaw puzzle goes back together.
A few pictures. The headstock removed from the base.
The headstock slides on the ground rod at the bottom to allow the work to travel as the thread is cut. It also pivots on this rod to enable the tool and hob/follower to disengage so it can return after a pass. The projection on the bottom attaches to a spring which pulls the spindle assembly back to the right at the end of a cut. Here it is in bits:
After cleaning up, here is a collection of the parts waiting to be reassembled:
And when reassembled looks like this, along with the packaging for the bearings and seals, strategically placed so the photo captures the part numbers for future reference:
The little lever on the front is the spindle lock. The spindle for this has a small 32DP gear which moves a pin with a corresponding rack and pokes into one of 8 sleeved holes in the pulley wheel. The acorn shaped black knob to the left has a threaded hole for a stop but it's function is still a mystery to me.
Rob