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40" Metal Lathe, $1500, St. Catharines
- Thread starter YYCHM
- Start date
Way to go on the move and the new lathe. How many lathes in basements have been covered up with new walls instead of moving them out?
That would be hilarious on one of those reno shows when they have to have everything done in a week love the see the look on their faces when they were smashing the walls down.
Canadium
Ian
Right off the start I've run into a glitch with the reassembly of the lathe. I imagine the first of many glitches to follow! I need to repair the threads on the bolts that hold the bed to the base. I thought I already had all the taps and dies I would ever need. But low and behold these bolts have an uncommon 1/2 X 12 BSW thread. So now I'm waiting for my new BSW tap and die set to arrive.
Brent H
Ultra Member
@Canadium - 1/2 x 12 ? Dirty buggers.... that would be why there was no nuts on them at the beginning. Must have come down those stairs in two pieces at least and the nuts were lost in transit. Are you making new nuts?
oh - on a good news front: your gear unit is 16Dp x 14.5°PA so I have the right cutter set.
oh - on a good news front: your gear unit is 16Dp x 14.5°PA so I have the right cutter set.
Could you not replace the bolts with something standard or metric?
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Canadium
Ian
I had removed the nuts myself before you got there so I have them. I couldn't wrap my head around why I couldn't see the bolt heads sticking out at the top until you pointed out they were threaded into the bed.
Canadium
Ian
The short answer is no. The bolts thread into the bottom of the bed with a nut on the other end. I guess you could say a double ended bolt with no head. Since the underside of the bed is already tapped with the 1/2-12 BSW thread I'd rather fix the bolt than rethread the underside of the bed.
I have been helping a friend restore his 1950 Bentley car. Most of the engine hardware is BSF (British Standard Fine) with some BSW (Bristish Standard Whitworth) thrown in to add confusion. We have had problems locating quality taps and dies, the Chinese set he bought is made of cheese and is only passable for chasing threads, not cutting new ones. I have been finding some good vintage taps on eBay mostly from Australia and the UK. Finding decent wrenches and sockets is also next to impossible. I hope you have better luck finding quality taps than we did.
I'm not to sure of that Craig, check these URL's out, my gut feeling is they were.
http://www.vintagemachinery.org/mfgindex/detail.aspx?id=11143
and
http://www.lathes.co.uk/willson/
Good question Craig, along with a serious guesstimate on the overall weight.
trlvn
Ultra Member
Post #65 shows the lathe is labelled as "Elliot-Willson". From http://www.lathes.co.uk/willson/index.html -
"The Company [Wilson] went public in 1947, with Albert Kitchen as chairman, and were absorbed into the large Elliot Machine Tool Group in 1966."
Seems likely to me that the machine was produced after the merger as it has the combined name. So late 1960's or after.
Craig
"The Company [Wilson] went public in 1947, with Albert Kitchen as chairman, and were absorbed into the large Elliot Machine Tool Group in 1966."
Seems likely to me that the machine was produced after the merger as it has the combined name. So late 1960's or after.
Craig
I would concur with you on the build date however, Canadium likely has a more accurate date so we'll wait and see if he responds.
Canadium
Ian
So I think @trivn you are mostly correct. Perhaps this is the perfect place to expound on the details of this lathes history as far as I know.
The lathe must have been manufactured in the UK. From purchase receipts for the lathe that were given to me the lathe was sold new to the West Park Secondary School in St. Catharines by the dealers Moore Brothers Machinery Company. This dealer company ceased to exist around 1981 so the transaction must have happened before then and as pointed out after the 1966 merger of the Elliot and Wilsson companies. My rough guesstimate was about 1970.
Presumably the lathe was used in the schools machine shop training classes. It was taken out of service and purchased by Joseph Voght in 1993. Mr. Voght worked as a machinist at General Motors in St. Catharines in their toolroom department. He bought it when he was about 62 near or at retirement and used it as a hobby lathe. It was sold to me by his son Thomas, his father is now in a long term care home.
With respect to how the old 1/2-12 BSW got there? Google tells me the UK went metric in 1965. I'm guessing some companies may have continued using old stock materials and tools for some time after that. Just a guess.
Well, now's the time to do that alright.