Flexispeed Meteor II With Screwcutting

[thelocksmith]

This topic is about the newly acquired toy which led me to find this happy forum in the first place.

I'd been moping around the house  for far too long not doing anything very much, so to try to snap myself out of it, I decided that my (unused) master bedroom should be converted into a workshop.

After clearing out much of the junk (thank goodness for ebay) and installing some shelves to sit the rest on, I was now in a position to start filling it back up again with "useful stuff".

The central part of any workshop has to be a lathe of some description, and a bit or Googling set me thinking of acquiring a Cowells 90ME.

After a couple of disappointing bids on ebay, and even more disappointing chats with second-hand machinery dealers, I spotted a Flexispeed Meteor II advertised as being "like a Cowells" so I decided to bid on it.

Needless to say, I won it.

After a full day spent travelling to Salisbury and back with my brother, my little lathe was sat on my hallway floor ready for inspection.

My first impressions were a bit mixed - the lathe itself appears to have seen little use and has a nice trio of chucks, a faceplate and a few centres and other tools with it.

It also seems to be in the usual condition for ebay purchases, with everything loose and the electrical wiring in a horrifically dangerous state.

Anyway, down to the details, which are best preceded by a few pictures.

[Jo]

Anyway, down to the details, which are best preceded by a few pictures.

Agreed 



Cowells are very nice  I only have one now (C2) my other's leaving was demanded by Mr Silky when he moved in with me 

Jo

[thelocksmith]

I'm having some trouble uploading the pictures, so here's a few details to be going on with.

A bit of research on the www.lathes.co.uk website suggests that a Flexispeed Meteor with screw cutting is a rare beast, possibly even a home modified item.

However, the changewheel safety cover carries a factory chart which makes it clear that this is indeed a factory option.

A total of ten changewheels  were included: 60T, 55T, 50T, 45T, 40T, 35T, 30T, 25T and 22T x2

[thelocksmith]

I keep getting the following error message when I try to upload pictures:-

Internal Server Error

The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.

Please contact the server administrator, root@localhost and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the error.

More information about this error may be available in the server error log.

Any ideas ?

[Jo]

How big are your pictures? The forum has a size limit for individual pictures that I cannot remember the size of 

 I normally post pictures of 600 by 800 because they are more than adequate for looking at on the web and people who are trying to access our forum using their mobile phone don't have to wait half a day for them to load 

Jo

[thelocksmith]

Let's try this one

[thelocksmith]

Thanks Jo - just resized them as you suggested and that seems to have done the trick.

So, here's the covers (apparently a rarity in themselves):-

[thelocksmith]

The changewheels themselves seem to be a "standard" 32 DP, with suitable blanks being available off the shelf from HPC:-

[thelocksmith]

If any other Flexispeed owners are interested, I'll produce some dimensioned sketches of the quadrant and other bits ?

[thelocksmith]

Here's what appears to be the original switch, judging by the anaemic blue Hammerite paint on the housing

[thelocksmith]

....and also the original countershaft ?

[thelocksmith]

The backgear assembly, which seems to be the same as earlier machines

[thelocksmith]

The compound slide feed screws are a bit strange, to me anyway

I measured the pitch as being 24 TPI, which gives just under 0.042" per handwheel revolution

I thought I'd made a mistake, until I counted 42 divisions on the handwheel scales

Is this normal - I would have thought a pitch of 1mm or 25TPI would have been more sensible ?

[thelocksmith]

Hugh kindly sent me a copy of his manual, which has answered some questions and raised others, namely:-

- Flexispeed recommended a motor of at least 450W, which seems a bit beefy for a lathe of this size ?

- the importance of lubricating the headstock bearings and gib strips is stated, but what are the best lubricants to use ?

At the very least, I'm going to have to strip down the lathe completely, clean and re-adjust everything, which is probably no bad thing

I've just noticed that the taper slide gib strip is being pushed out as I wind the feedscrew......

[thelocksmith]

Here's the motor, just for completeness

A firm near me called Newton Tesla supplies three phase motor / inverter / control packages - does anyone have any experience of them ?

Their website: http://www.newton-tesla.co.uk/