• Scam Alert. Members are reminded to NOT send money to buy anything. Don't buy things remote and have it shipped - go get it yourself, pay in person, and take your equipment with you. Scammers have burned people on this forum. Urgency, secrecy, excuses, selling for friend, newish members, FUD, are RED FLAGS. A video conference call is not adequate assurance. Face to face interactions are required. Please report suspicions to the forum admins. Stay Safe - anyone can get scammed.
  • Several Regions have held meetups already, but others are being planned or are evaluating the interest. The Ontario GTA West area meetup is planned for Saturday April 26th at Greasemonkeys shop in Aylmer Ontario. If you are interested and haven’t signed up yet, click here! Arbutus has also explored interest in a Fraser Valley meetup but it seems members either missed his thread or had other plans. Let him know if you are interested in a meetup later in the year by posting here! Slowpoke is trying to pull together an Ottawa area meetup later this summer. No date has been selected yet, so let him know if you are interested here! We are not aware of any other meetups being planned this year. If you are interested in doing something in your area, let everyone know and make it happen! Meetups are a great way to make new machining friends and get hands on help in your area. Don’t be shy, sign up and come, or plan your own meetup!

Search results

  1. JohnW

    My "New" Lathe

    Thanks. I thought Colchester's were British made. Am I wrong? I don't really know, I just asking. Mine is a clone of a Colchester that is either Taiwan or Chinese from the late 1970's (the motor nameplate indicates 1978 - assuming the original motor). I know that many companies copied much of...
  2. JohnW

    My "New" Lathe

    And now onto some electrical stuff. I obtained an Allen-Bradley PowerFlex VFD used from e-Bay waaaay back when I started this project, and it has always been the plan to use it to drive the 5HP 3-phase motor on this lathe. As with most home shops, my shop power supply is single phase. This is...
  3. JohnW

    My "New" Lathe

    So today is really catch-up day in this saga. I dug out and edited photos last night, and took a couple more this morning, so I'm ready to go with another update: The control panel obviously needs some nice labels. I created the following design in Adobe Illustrator. It is carefully sized to...
  4. JohnW

    My "New" Lathe

    Well, hopefully it won't actually leak. I haven't added coolant yet. Here is what I did. Its been a while and I didn't take pictures. I just ran out to the shop and grabbed these pictures. Hopefully they will tell the story well enough. I'm pretty sure it will work OK. I found this fitting in...
  5. JohnW

    My "New" Lathe

    The next sub-project was making up a new front control panel for the machine. Here is what the original panel looked like. It had a couple of large switches, and the previous owner had moved the main power switch, which was originally awkwardly on the back of the machine to the front. Those are...
  6. JohnW

    My "New" Lathe

    Its been a long time since I've posted any progress on this project, although I have actually done some stuff on the project over the last two years. . . . I've added a coolant pump. Busy Bee had a 220V coolant pump and reservoir on sale about 2 years ago - I think it was significantly less...
  7. JohnW

    Lathe Leveling Mounts

    Be careful about machining hockey pucks. They contain a bunch of powdered limestone that adds weight and hardness to the rubber. Better for knocking out teeth that way. When I made my hockey-puck feet, I had to sharpen the HSS bit after each puck. When I started, it was burning on the third puck...
  8. JohnW

    lathe power off timing

    Most VFD's have big manuals (100+ pages) that describe all the things they can do, but for the most part they are pretty simple. There are some analog and digital inputs that can do various things. All of the inputs are low-voltage (typically 10VDC), and very low current so relatively thin...
  9. JohnW

    lathe power off timing

    In my recent lathe rebuild, I incorporated a VFD to control the 5hp 3ph motor. I gutted the lathe wiring and completely re-designed the electrics to properly (in my little mind at least) integrate it into the lathe and take advantage of the capabilities of the VFD. The simple route is to power...
  10. JohnW

    mill power feed mount improvement

    Last year when working on rebuilding my (new to me) lathe, I purchased oilers off e-bay: https://www.ebay.com/itm/LOT-20-Brass-Push-Button-oiler-press-fit-ball-oiler-Hit-Miss-Engine-Motor-/231742666701?var=&hash=item7b9f18bc9e They were cheap and worked well for me.
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