Love of lathes.

[Retired]

Hi,

Thanks Big Al, yes the bed is neatly scraped and is very original under the head-stock; a nice surprise.

I fully agree Alan D; I'd have loved to use my new toy the blaster on the bed to make a better and much easier job of removing the dirt and rust but I know if I did I would surely slip and blast one of the machined surfaces destroying its accuracy so suffer I must. Like you I've restored many things just for the fun of it; I've restored many vintage radios knowing full well that once restored I would lose interest in them; I even spent ages restoring a wreck of an AVO Wave Winder bringing it back to as new with no intention of ever using it to wind coils; there is so much satisfaction to be had in simply getting dirty in the workshop tinkering around.

Thanks Refugee; this non standard motor is pretty much what I would expect to find on a lathe it being roughly the same speed as a 4 pole; the lever at the end of the motor doesn't change speed at all but it does in fact change direction of rotation allowing the lathe to be reversed which is something I never do with a screwed mandrel nose; it's bad enough having a lump of timber become detached in a woodturning lathe but to have a heavy chuck or face-plate hurtle towards me at great speed isn't what I would call fun? Yes; this lathe is fitted with two flat drive belts; one from the motor to the counter-shaft and the other from the counter-shaft to the head-stock. I'll be able to explain more fully the belt arrangement later once I install the belts but for now a brief explanation. The motor drives the counter-shaft then the counter-shaft drives the mandrel through two pulleys per belt plus an additional idler pulley at the head-stock. The counter-shaft to mandrel is indeed strange in that the counter-shaft rotates pulling the front of the belt down from the mandrel pulley and over the idler pulley but this part is fully enclosed going through the inside of the head-stock casting; the belt then travels around the counter-shaft pulley going uphill to the mandrel but in so doing the belt goes through the rectangular opening to the rear base of the head-stock then to the mandrel pulley. The rectangular opening for the belt is actually located to the rear of the head-stock where it runs in the open but out of harms way regarding operator safety. As I say I'll expand on this belt arrangement once I can add accompanying images.

I've just had another wonderful session in the garage. As you rightly say Alan D it's nice to use a new toy; I know I've gone over the top in cleaning the idler pulley and pair of retaining collars but why have a beautiful fully restored Graduate lathe if I don't make excuses to use it; it was such a pleasure to mount the idler onto a wooden dummy mandrel in the Graduate and spin it at 1,500 rpm allowing me to use abrasive paper to polish it then I did exactly the same with each of the collars; I'm sure these items look a lot better than when I removed them from the Lorch. The idler shaft was not polished only washed with paraffin but the grease hole will get blown clear with the air line. Anyone owning a lathe will agree in that doing these small jobs is most rewarding; I also installed both new counter-shaft bearings into their housings so the housings can now be painted ready for when needed. All in all a lovely day tinkering around but I knocked off because my arms are aching so much from all the paint scraping.

Kind regards, Col.