Love of lathes.

[Retired]

Hi,

Thanks Colin; not only smarter but increasingly complete? Little by little I'm getting there. Many thanks for the interesting picture. The lathes to the left and middle have huge mandrel diameters to provide such large through bores? I wonder what powered all the line shafts in those days?

Thanks Alan D. You raise an interesting point about the indexing indents being only on the older lathes; it's possible newer dedicated machines took over to mass produce parts hence the need for these indents was no longer required? In order to use the lathe as a shaper it would be limited on its own but with a mill attached all kinds of possibilities open up; I've cut gears on a lathe but only with the aid of a vertical slide.

More progress has been made today; the tumbler reverse gears are now installed and you asked previously Big Al if these two small gears were of identical size; at the time I thought this to be so but I can now state that in fact you were correct in asking because these two small gears are different to each other which has surprised me; of course I found this out the hard way by reversing their assembly which locked up the mandrel; this was a puzzle at first until I realized the two gears were different sizes; I live and learn?

The counter-shaft pulley unit had been sitting around on the garage floor looking lonely so I've now installed this; it spins much better with the new bearings installed. The shaft was a loose fit in the bearing bores so I added lots of center pops to the shaft where the bearings seat giving the needed friction fit; I could have knurled the shaft but it would have been a big job to undertake on the Clarke lathe; if this is a problem in the future I'll simply turn a new shaft using this Lorch.

I also installed the lead-screw drive cover together with the Lorch nameplate; ideally I would have sprayed this Lorch nameplate with black auto acrylic then gone over with fine abrasive paper to highlight the Lorch letters and surround but this nameplate is worn so I just polished it using Brasso and installed it using new stainless steel rivets I had bought at Rufforth.

I'm working on top of this Lorch and have only just realized it must be nearing it's completion? The lead-screw gears still need installing together with assorted guards but I can now start to think about installing the electrics and look forward to giving it a test run under power.

Kind regards, Col.