Thread: Free lathes?

Someone near me is giving these away for free. Are they worth getting?

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Originally Posted by tofelofogus

Someone near me is giving these away for free. Are they worth getting?

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Why not, it appears that you have an early Sherline and another (without motor drive), but if you keen to clean the corrosion, it’s a start into a very satisfying hobby. But it will take patience


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Hi tofelofogus
Welcome to the the forums,

With two posts in nine years you don't exactly wear out keyboards ,do you?

We are a pretty sociable lot so why not leave an intro post at the Welcome Wagon and tell us about yourself .

You know the sort of stuff: like what are your metal working interests, projects and what sort of interesting tools and machines you may have. : https://metalworkforums.com/f300.

Perhaps while you are in the mood you might want to enter your location.
Our members will sometimes offer their experience or expertise to help a new fella if it turns out they live close.

No ones asking for your house number and street, rather just the general area.

You never know, some one may offer to come over and help you assess the lathes.


Cheers
Grahame

Originally Posted by markpest

Why not, it appears that you have an early Sherline and another (without motor drive), but if you keen to clean the corrosion, it’s a start into a very satisfying hobby. But it will take patience


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I believe that the green coloured machine is a clone of the Emco Unimat SL, rather than an early Sherline. The motor mount is rotated 180 degrees at the headstock, i.e. motor should be behind the headstock so that it does not interfere with the carriage motion as it would in the current position. I believe the bar with the green block is probably part of the column to convert the machine to a light weight mill, using the lathe headstock as a millhead. However it appears that the equipment to control the mill head feed on the column are missing. In milling mode the head and motor mount to the block in the column, which in turn mounts where the lathe headstock would normally be. The lathe carriage and crossfeed provide a rudimentary XY table below the mill head.

I have no idea about the other machine.

Apologies all. Yes,[mention]malb [/mention] is absolutely correct with the identification of the Emco.


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To add a bit more the Emco is not a clone, it has the Emco Unimat logo on it they are a sort after lathe, that one requires a lot of work, no longer manufactured, and no longer any parts made, however there are various suppliers of new old stock and good used parts, if it were me I would take it but then I also have use for such a lathe.

The larger lathe shares a couple of features seen on the British Portass machines - the sliding back-gear engagement, the bracket at the rear of the tailstock and the apparent lack of a saddle (bit hard to see in those photos).

Ray

Originally Posted by Grahame Collins

Hi tofelofogus
Welcome to the the forums,

With two posts in nine years you don't exactly wear out keyboards ,do you?

We are a pretty sociable lot so why not leave an intro post at the Welcome Wagon and tell us about yourself .

Cheers
Grahame

Thanks Grahame. Well I am a bit more vocal in the Woodwork Forum (69 posts) 🤣.

I guess if you snooze you lose, someone beat me to the lathes. Ok I’ll post in the Welcome Wagon, I’ve been meaning too anyway…😁. I know there’s 1 or 2 people here who own a Brackenbury & Austin lathe so maybe they can help me (finally) get my one up and running. Gee 9 years really? 😳 Didn’t realise it’s been so long.

cheers,
Chris

Originally Posted by tofelofogus

��. I know there’s 1 or 2 people here who own a Brackenbury & Austin lathe so maybe they can help me (finally) get my one up and running.Chris

Hi Chris,

I have a Brackenbury and Austin lathe (No 1049) which was bought new by my father in 1948 - I helped him to carry it up to his upstairs workshop (I had the light end!). I've had it for about 46 years. It is very basic, but is surprisingly capable for its size. I have made various bits for it which have increased its versatility. For smaller work I actually prefer it to my 13x40 Chinese lathe.

What do you need to know?

Some of the larger jobs which it has done to give you an idea of its capabilities are:
Machining the built up end of a 1924 Austin 7 crank shaft where it had been damaged by turning in a seized main bearing ball race.
Making a 5MT ER32 chuck with a hollow drawbar for the larger lathe.
Skimming Chamberlain tractor brake drums.

Frank.

Originally Posted by franco

Hi Chris,

I have a Brackenbury and Austin lathe (No 1049) which was bought new by my father in 1948 - I helped him to carry it up to his upstairs workshop (I had the light end!). I've had it for about 46 years. It is very basic, but is surprisingly capable for its size. I have made various bits for it which have increased its versatility. For smaller work I actually prefer it to my 13x40 Chinese lathe.

What do you need to know?

Frank.

Hi Frank,

When I bought the New Gregco lathe (below) the power cable was removed. I was told that it still works but they had to remove the cable in order to sell it (?) I’ll take some better photos on the weekend. I want to be sure it is actually complete before I try wiring on a new power plug. I’d also like to know whether I need to disassemble it and restore it before trying to use it.

Chris

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Hi Chris,

Missing bits - do you have the tailstock? Any change gears?

Motor - I don't think you can sell commercial machinery with motor lead attached unless the motor has been tested and certified safe - one of the better informed members will probably correct me if this is wrong. If the machine has an industrial background the motor is probably 3 phase. If so and you want to use a single phase, I would suggest something in the 1/2 to 1 hp range would be suitable. Mine has a 1/3 hp (250w) which gets too hot to touch after half an hour or so of steady work, but it has being doing this for 74 years, so I'll wait till it fails before I change it!

As far as I know the Gregco lathes are identical to the standard B&A lathes. I believe the Gregco lathes were sold by H P Greogry, a well known machinery merchant at the time.

I don't know about the Gregco lathes, but ours was supplied without a motor or chucks: all that came with it was a faceplate, a set of change gears, a blank chuck backplate, and a three step countershaft pulley to match the three step flat belt headstock pulley - no countershaft or bearings. The supply of these was left to the new owner.

I can't tell from the photo whether yours still has the original flat belt pulleys or has been converted to V belts. We chose a counter shaft speed which gave us speeds of about 640, 320 and 160 RPM in direct drive, and 100, 50 and 25 RPM using the back gear. These speeds seem to suit the lathe very well. We originally used leather belting 1" x 3/16" which worked well. At the moment I am using !" x 1/4" (the price was right) but it is really too stiff to wrap properly around the small pulleys.

If it was mine I would give it a good clean up and get it under power for a trial before dismantling anything. I wouldn't use anything abrasive on any of the sliding surfaces: use steel wool and WD40 and a lot of elbow grease. In the photo I can't see any areas of brown rust - if there is any, flood it with WD40 or similar, and use a razor blade scraper or something similar to peel the rust off, then do the final clean up with steel wool. Don't move the various sliding parts any further than necessary to clean underneath where they have been sitting.

Then give everything a good wipe down to get rid of all traces of the abrasive mixture of WD40, dirt and rust, oil everything, and check that all moving parts move smoothly. Then rig up a temporary drive, and check that everything works. Check that the headstock bearings are not getting hot. DON'T run it at motor speed; the bronze bearings were not designed to run at much over 700 RPM. Ideally they should be just warm to the touch after half an hour's running. Yours appears to have a countershaft fitted, so the speeds should be OK for the lathe.

Frank.

Just went out to the garage to take a few more pics, although I’m in a moon boot and on crutches so I couldn’t do much. I have a wooden drawer full of different bits, and yes I have the tailstock. I don’t think I have any extra change gears other than those already on the lathe. Edit: looking at the pic of the tailstock I think there are change gears under it.

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Hi Chris,

Thanks for the photos. Interesting that you have a chain driven countershaft.

There is quite a lot of information on B&A lathes, including the original change gears supplied with my lathe here if you want to check your set:
Brackenbury & Austin Lathes

Frank.

That is definitely a single phase motor also, would be pretty easy to get running. Although chain drive is very efficient its a little noisy for my liking id swap that out for vee pulleys. Francos advice is on point.

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Chris, don’t beat yourself up about taking too long to respond to that ad, I also saw the original ad and I’m pretty sure it lasted less than an hour before the listing appeared as sold. Someone probably promised to collect it quite quickly.