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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Oct 2020
    Location
    Greendale Vic. Australia
    Posts
    64

    Default Joolstacho from the Wombat...

    Introducing myself. I hang out on the edge of the Wombat Forest, Greendale Vic.
    My main interest is classic bikes, but I'm one of those blokes with WAY too many interests! (I'll never be bored).

    My machinery includes:
    A beautiful old Funditor sliding table saw - was used in the printing industry for cutting dead accurate spacing blocks, lovely vernier adjustments -which was dead handy when I was guitar making.
    A Taper Grinding machine that I have modified for carving guitar necks.
    A Seneca Falls 'Star 10' lathe that I'm currently working on trying to extract a little more accuracy out of it.
    I have a few questions about this, -Later.

    Looking forward to getting to know you, (Hi Joe - you might recognise my name from the CX Forum).

    Cheers.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Jan 2004
    Location
    Mackay North Qld
    Posts
    6,446

    Default

    Hi joolstacho,
    Welcome to the Metalwork Forums,
    I don't recall that we have any luthiers on our Forum so you might well be the first.

    We have a great bunch of people here who are very helpful to those who are seeking answers to various metalwork questions.

    Its a big forum and to help you find your way about it here are some directions to the navigation of it.

    Goto the FORUM box in the top left hand cnr of the page and click the down arrow. This will bring up a pull down menu that has Forum Home at the top.

    Then click Forum Home which will present a scroll down page.

    Our rules,the Terms of Service are right at the top ,please read them.

    Below that are all the various areas and sub forums that make up our MetalWork forums.


    Welcome

    Grahame

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Oct 2020
    Location
    Greendale Vic. Australia
    Posts
    64

    Default For my first trick...

    Here's my Hercus No9 Taper Grinder, adapted for guitar neck carving/shaping.
    Noting that a guitar neck has a very gentle taper, and we need accurate repeatable results.
    I made up an adaptor to fit the neck blank 'heel' at the chuck end, and adapted a little rotating bench head at the 'nut' end.
    If you look closely you might see I've replaced what would have been a big grinder with a router - mounted on the cross-slide that winds in from the rear (behind the white rectangle).
    The bed can be adjusted for the desired taper, it pivots around it's centre, so it cuts the taper as you feed the bed along from side to side.
    I found it easy to move things by hand, so I disconnected the auto feed.

    I found this thing awaiting a trip to the tip, outside my mates factory (Trim Aircraft, Melton). I'd never seen anything like it before, but i could see it could be a very useful... for something - but what?
    When I asked Tony what it was he said something like, "The bed rotates horizontally, just take it away" Then the little lightbulb went off. (with his beautiful CNC machinery Tony would never use it, but I reckoned I could).

    The trick now was to get it to my workshop. It weighs... well, I dunno, but it's a lot! We strained a bit up the Pentland Hills.
    My dear old (now departed) mate Peter Blizzard, the most fabulous sculptor and his son brought down his tandem trailer with boom mounted on it. We hoisted it on. Peter created big sculptures with massive steel and stone elements, so he was used to shifting heavy stuff. With a fair bit of sweat and oathing we got it up here and into the workshop.

    I don't think it'll ever be moved again!


  4. #4
    Join Date
    Sep 2019
    Location
    Newcastle, AU
    Posts
    238

    Default

    Hullo, another CX fan... welcome

  5. #5
    Join Date
    May 2013
    Location
    Rockhampton, QLD
    Age
    68
    Posts
    454

    Default

    Welcome to the forum.

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Feb 2014
    Location
    Werribee, Melbourne
    Posts
    177

    Default

    Welcome to the forum.
    I have a 9" Senecca Falls lathe (piccy in my profile) so would be interested to see a picture of a 10" one here in Oz - they aren't very common here.
    Ray

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Oct 2020
    Location
    Greendale Vic. Australia
    Posts
    64

    Default Seneca Falls Star 10 lathe

    Quote Originally Posted by Ray-s View Post
    Welcome to the forum.
    I have a 9" Senecca Falls lathe (piccy in my profile) so would be interested to see a picture of a 10" one here in Oz - they aren't very common here.
    Ray
    Ah.. another Seneca-sufferer!
    Hah! Just kidding mate. Good to be in touch with another Seneca Falls lathe owner. Yes, mine's a 10. I'm no expert but it seems nicely engineered.
    I've been fettling mine trying to delete slop! I do like it even if it's got it's faults.



    This is an older pic, a bit rough, if you need any other detail photos PM me -too easy.
    Now show me yours Ray!

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Feb 2014
    Location
    Werribee, Melbourne
    Posts
    177

    Default

    Yours looks to be a bit later than mine having the star shaped feed knob - the patent dates cast into the front of the bed are a reasonable indicator (within 10 years or so).
    Mine started life as a treadle machine but has been moved from the original cast iron legs to a welded frame (I do have the original legs but not the treadle pedals or flywheel).
    The electric motor is an ancient BTH reluctance motor that was retrofitted sometime in the past - the colour is a bit different but I got it that way.

    IMG_2623.jpg

    PS. Do you have any of the old SF catalogs, parts lists?
    Last edited by Ray-s; 29th Oct 2020 at 09:11 PM. Reason: Added PS.

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Oct 2020
    Location
    Greendale Vic. Australia
    Posts
    64

    Default Very smart Ray.

    Quote Originally Posted by Ray-s View Post
    Yours looks to be a bit later than mine having the star shaped feed knob - the patent dates cast into the front of the bed are a reasonable indicator (within 10 years or so).
    Mine started life as a treadle machine but has been moved from the original cast iron legs to a welded frame (I do have the original legs but not the treadle pedals or flywheel).
    The electric motor is an ancient BTH reluctance motor that was retrofitted sometime in the past - the colour is a bit different but I got it that way.

    IMG_2623.jpg

    PS. Do you have any of the old SF catalogs, parts lists?
    Yours does look very nice mate, fine job, -mine is unrestored, but I don't mind it's 'age patina'.
    I'd like to fit a new chuck, I'm getting 1.5 thou runout on the chuck, but (I'm a real newbie) I need to work out the backplate situation, I assume I'll need to buy a suitable chuck and then have it machined to fit my backplate, or try to find a backplate to suit my spindle thread (nose?) and whatever chuck I buy. My Whit thread gauge tells me it's 20TPI, dia (nominal) 1.5" I assume it'll be a UN thread form. I'm yet to discover these weird lathe threads!

    I need to look into the auto feed mechanism, I think there's something amiss inside the apron as the threaded rod isn't fitted, and there is some slack here and there which I'll try to improve, though I fear it might be worn threads. It might be feasible to get / make new brass captive nuts. (Apologies for my lack of knowledge of the correct part names!)

    I do have a catalogue covering many models, unfortunately it's not a real paper one, but a pdf file. Easy to send it to you if you like, but you may have it already. It's called 'Star Lathes catalogue No39'. 20 pages with pics and specs for the lathes in the range.

    Interesting re: your BTH motor. I'm just converting a BTH motorbike magneto from auto advance to manual advance for a Velocette I'm building. They had a good reputation BTH, a 'cut above' Lucas by all accounts.
    Cheers.

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Feb 2014
    Location
    Werribee, Melbourne
    Posts
    177

    Default

    There are several earlier catalogs on Vintage Machinerry.org that you may not have seen? One of these (catalog 27 second edition) has a parts list that would be close to your machine I would think. If your machine has a front gib on the carriage then it would be very close. Mine is from around 1900 so only has a rear carriage gib (these machines had only incremental changes over many years of production).
    I was involved with the Yahoo Senecca Falls group back before Yahoo folded it so have copies of some of the patent info and other odds and ends if any of that is of interest.

    My machine has the earlier 1.125" x 12TPI spindle thread - I slightly modified a blank backplate from a Myford and fitted a Hare & Forbes supplied 4-jaw a few years ago.
    I struggled with a worn out Cushman chuck for years and this update transformed the old girl.
    Happy to help with that if you need it as I am sure that something can be done.

    Let me know if you need any info on the the auto-feed set-up - I got mine working many years ago and it works really well for a mechanism 120 years old.
    There is a worm gear seperate from the half-nuts driven from the keyway in the leadscrew . The drive from that (the bronze worm in the picture below)is fed off to the carriage drive or the cross-feed via the clutch.

    IMG_2240.jpg

  11. #11
    Join Date
    Oct 2020
    Location
    Greendale Vic. Australia
    Posts
    64

    Default Thanks Ray

    Thanks Ray that's useful info. My Star appears to be Pre WW1, latest patent date on the casting is 1908.
    The parts list in the catalogue No 27 is really useful (At least I might be able to name components properly now!)
    My first priority is to try to get rid of slop, which is probably wear in the brass Crossfeed and Feedscrew nuts.
    Cheers,
    Jools
    Interestingly, the catalogue doesn't mention my 10" -it goes from 9" to 11" and up.
    And yes, my machine does have a gib on both rails of the bed.
    Last edited by joolstacho; 30th Oct 2020 at 11:41 AM. Reason: detail addition

  12. #12
    Join Date
    Feb 2014
    Location
    Werribee, Melbourne
    Posts
    177

    Default

    The 10" description started in Catalog 28 - if you look at the actual swing for the 9" machine listed in Catalog 27 and earlier it is 10 1/8" and the actual swing of the 10" model listed in Catalog 28 and later is also 10 1/8". I'm guessing a marketing change for something that was about 20 years in production at that point.
    Also around this time they also started casting the size (eg '10 x 4' - 10" x 4ft) on the front of the bed beside the patent dates.

    I'm guessing your machine would have a 5 or 6 digit serial number starting with 9 - located on the ways at the tail stock end. This should be visible if it hasn't been reground at some point in its life.
    From the list of serial numbers and patent dates I have the serial number convention seems to have changed around the same time the sizes cast on the bed was introduced. The earlier ones seemed to be sequential but once the numbers starting with 9 appeared it was speculated that the first few digits included the year of manufacture. We'll probably never know because the old company records were destroyed at some point.

    Interesting to have a 1908 patent date - the closest I have is May 18, 1909 so I would be interested in the date associated with that 1908 one to do a patent search on that to add to my list.

    May 18, 1909.pdf

    I just noticed that I have serial number 910642 listed as having 11-Jan, 1910 as the latest patent date so we can probably nail this one of yours down to that gap between whatever date you have in 1908 and January 1910.
    Last edited by Ray-s; 30th Oct 2020 at 01:55 PM. Reason: Update

  13. #13
    Join Date
    Oct 2020
    Location
    Greendale Vic. Australia
    Posts
    64

    Default You're right...

    I've just re-read that patent number (pretty hard to read but it is as you suggest, MAY 18 1909 (not as I previously stated, 1908)
    Serial number is: 914062

  14. #14
    Join Date
    Jun 2020
    Location
    Bacchus Marsh, victoria
    Posts
    27

    Default

    Welcome to the forum jools.
    Interesting profile youi have there.
    I am in Bacchus Marsh now, lived in Parwan since 1987.
    I used to get small nuts and bolts and small diameter copper tubing from Trim. More convenient than going to Hearnes Hobbies.
    Did a bit of fiddling with vacuum systems to do with Pianola mechanisms.
    regards,
    rumpfy

  15. #15
    Join Date
    Oct 2020
    Location
    Greendale Vic. Australia
    Posts
    64

    Default Thanks mate

    Thanks for the welcome rumpty, yes I worked with Trim 'back in the day' mainly designing/developing their new Sport Jet.
    We may have run into one another, I would sometimes help out in the shop. I'm up in Greendale.
    -Jools

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