Buying a lathe?

petehb said:
As a very small boy I can remember seeing in my grandfathers engineering works a large cast gear wheel finished on a BIG lathe and then heat shrunk on to an equally large drum which had it's rim machined on the same lath I am guessing that the diameters were in the region of 10 foot perhaps bigger but I was a young lad then:D The most memorable thing was to see three men heat it up to dull red and then sledge hammer it on to the drum:eek: Thats when men were men and there were real fitters and turners that served 7 year apprenticeships;)
Click to expand...

I worked at Westinghouse in Chippenham once, biggest machines I have ever got close to. When you realise you are standing in the working space of a pillar drill it's a bit of a shock.
 
lw395 said:
I worked at Westinghouse in Chippenham once, biggest machines I have ever got close to. When you realise you are standing in the working space of a pillar drill it's a bit of a shock.
Click to expand...

And having to climb up a set of steps to the working platform if I remember correctly.
 
petehb said:
I looked at that one but in the end decided on a "retail" one which was delivered on a pallet direct to my workshop for £60 on top of the purchase price. It would have cost me over £200 to hire a jib crane then fetching it etc in the end made it a bit of a no brainer:D

As I work on it I can feel the heavy hand and tut tutting of 3 generations of engineers as they look down or more probably up:D when viewing my efforts.
Click to expand...

You would not need a crane, just a good set of Imperial spanners and an ordinary van, though a sack barrow helps. No part of that Boxford is too heavy for two men to lift once you have stripped it down. I moved my South Bend all by myself, the bed was the heaviest bit at about 80 lb.
 
petehb said:
Well I found a Mk3 AUD and at the moment just checking things out, ordered a new cross slide feed nut hoping that will take out most of the 0.3 mm backlash which is the only problem I have found. Next up is to sort out some tooling then to start on some basic exercises followed by a couple of tool builds and a dividing head kit.
Click to expand...

Curious,what's a mark 3 AUD?
 
Norman_E said:
You would not need a crane, just a good set of Imperial spanners and an ordinary van, though a sack barrow helps. No part of that Boxford is too heavy for two men to lift once you have stripped it down. I moved my South Bend all by myself, the bed was the heaviest bit at about 80 lb.
Click to expand...

Ah but the impatience of youth:D I had made my mind up that I was going to get something within a few weeks and given that at the moment I am limited to what I can lift and can't (not allowed to) drive I would have had to press gang two or three friends to help strip and reassemble it, so £60 was a small price to pay and highly convenient but what you say is quiet true but a little time consuming.
 
Boo2 said:
You don't see many of them about !

Boo2
Click to expand...

Because they were expensive, and a bit odd. The Myford arrangement of fitting the indexing handle directly to the end of the leadscrew was much simpler and worked just as well, and all it cost to make was the price of the handle and a small extension to the end of the leadscrew. The Boxford one needed a modified leadscrew and a pair of gears as well as a bracket casting, for no gain in utility.
 
I don't think that handwheel is an actual Boxford accessory, rather a "home-brew" added by a previous owner. The handwheel itself looks, to me, rather like one from a Myford S7, still available as an aftermarket item.
I've never seen that handwheel in any Boxford sales or instructional literature.
Boxford themselves did offer a micrometer saddle-stop for accurate positioning of the saddle, probably more useful in most instances IMHO.
 
Anyone know what that Boxford Model A sold for? It comes up on my e-bay watchlist as "ended" with only the starting bid of 99p shown. Last time I saw it, it was at about £420.
 
petehb said:
Well I found a Mk3 AUD and at the moment just checking things out, ordered a new cross slide feed nut hoping that will take out most of the 0.3 mm backlash which is the only problem I have found. Next up is to sort out some tooling then to start on some basic exercises followed by a couple of tool builds and a dividing head kit.
Click to expand...

I'm at a loss to know why you are worried about .3 mm backlash & what a dividing head has got to do with a lathe.I worked on many machine tools with sometimes in excess of 1/8" backlash producing aircraft components to within +- .002" & I have only ever seen a dividing head used on a mill or possibly a tool cutter grinder though I can't see why one could'nt be used on a shaper.:confused:
 
Nicholas123 said:
I'm at a loss to know why you are worried about .3 mm backlash & what a dividing head has got to do with a lathe.I worked on many machine tools with sometimes in excess of 1/8" backlash producing aircraft components to within +- .002" & I have only ever seen a dividing head used on a mill or possibly a tool cutter grinder though I can't see why one could'nt be used on a shaper.:confused:
Click to expand...

I think anything less than .3mm backlash would tighten the leadscrew too much making it stiff to operate.
A dividing head can be offset in a 4 jaw to make crankshafts, or anything that needs multiple diameters on different centres.
If you want to screw cut multi start threads you can use the dividing head to position each start of the thread.
If you want to bore some offset holes in a lathe you can use the dividing head to create a PCD.
If broaching you can use it to create a spline.

I've been a machinist too long. Must get a life:o
 
colhel said:
I think anything less than .3mm backlash would tighten the leadscrew too much making it stiff to operate.
A dividing head can be offset in a 4 jaw to make crankshafts, or anything that needs multiple diameters on different centres.
If you want to screw cut multi start threads you can use the dividing head to position each start of the thread.
If you want to bore some offset holes in a lathe you can use the dividing head to create a PCD.
If broaching you can use it to create a spline.

I've been a machinist too long. Must get a life:o
Click to expand...

I agree about tightening on the leadscrew & have done off center turning as in crankshafts & made multi start threads on a lathe without using a dividing head so it all sounds mighty complicated to me.My mind is boggling as to how you bolt a brute on there so presumably it is some sort of special lathe adaption.PCD's were all the sort of stuff that were done on a mill which I found much more versatile & interesting.......I left Engineering to try & get a life.Must redouble my efforts :D
 
Norman_E said:
You would not need a crane, just a good set of Imperial spanners and an ordinary van, though a sack barrow helps. No part of that Boxford is too heavy for two men to lift once you have stripped it down. I moved my South Bend all by myself, the bed was the heaviest bit at about 80 lb.
Click to expand...

Not a good idea really; Boxfords are bedded onto their stands with some god awful sealant which takes the strength of hercules to break, probably damaging the stand in the process. There's also the issue of getting the alignment right when reassembling it and not twisting the bed, but that's a lesser concern.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page

Top