Author Topic: Living with a house lathe  (Read 24269 times)

Offline ScroungerLee

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Re: Living with a house lathe
« Reply #15 on: October 31, 2012, 09:41:58 PM »
Thanks for the write up Jo, nice to have somewhere temperature controlled to play in :)

Is that some kind of manually operated shaper you pictured? Never heard of those.  Now I want one, I will have to research.  Was that purchased? Made from plans?

Lee
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Offline Jo

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Re: Living with a house lathe
« Reply #16 on: October 31, 2012, 10:06:27 PM »
Hi Lee,

My little hand shaper is an adept no 1, you can find details about it here: http://www.lathes.co.uk/adeptshaper/index.html  They are one of those devices that either goes for silly money or like mine, nobody can see the point in having one, so I got mine for a fiver  8)

Jo
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Offline Bezalel

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Re: Living with a house lathe
« Reply #17 on: October 31, 2012, 10:23:28 PM »
Its Soo clean, i must be doing something wrong looking at the state of mine  :embarassed:

Mine gets unclean just doing something (right or wrong) :disappointed:
 
Bez
« Last Edit: October 31, 2012, 10:27:50 PM by Bezalel »
Queensland - wet one day, humid the next

Offline Raggle

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Re: Living with a house lathe
« Reply #18 on: November 01, 2012, 12:44:12 AM »
My Adept 1A I paid more than a fiver for but I have seen 'em go for far too much, particularly when the table is missing. I suspect that they languish unused for a decade or two and someone decides they need an angle plate. Mine has the table.

I'd never actually seen one before I bought it but was surprised by the sturdiness of it, compared to the Super Adept lathe I have.

Ray
All we're trying to do is combine a fuel and an oxidant in the combustion chamber and burn it in the hope of getting some useful thrust out of the back end. It's not rocket science.

Offline ScroungerLee

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Re: Living with a house lathe
« Reply #19 on: November 01, 2012, 01:05:30 PM »
Never having used a shaper I do have a question, then I will stop derailing Jo's thread.   How is the depth of each pass set?  Does the wheel on top need to be turned for each increase in depth?

Poorly formed question due to my lack of familiarity with shapers.  Sorry about that.

Lee
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Offline Jo

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Re: Living with a house lathe
« Reply #20 on: November 01, 2012, 01:23:19 PM »
Never having used a shaper I do have a question, then I will stop derailing Jo's thread.   How is the depth of each pass set?  Does the wheel on top need to be turned for each increase in depth?

Yes. The hand wheel at the top highers and lowers the tool. The handle on the left needs to be turned on each stroke to provide the sideways feed, whilst you are proving you have muscles on the lever on the right :LittleDevil:

Jo
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Offline craynerd

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Re: Living with a house lathe
« Reply #21 on: November 25, 2012, 10:53:00 PM »
Thanks for the details of the toolpost Jo. I was just going to ask over on the yahoo group and found you had already posted it. Is the post itself an original Cowells?
Chris

EDIT: Seems this is also answered in the thread and it is the official Cowells one.... humm, don`t think I can afford that for now!
« Last Edit: November 25, 2012, 11:04:18 PM by craynerd »

Offline John Hill

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Re: Living with a house lathe
« Reply #22 on: November 26, 2012, 08:42:56 AM »
Thank you for the description of your house lathe Jo, I am afraid that if I suggested such a thing I would be told to go the whole hog and move my bed out to the workshop!  ;D

But I do not complain, we have a garage through the door from the lounge and my workshop is off another door from the garage, about ten steps from my position at the computer in the lounge to be standing at my bench.

I too have an Adept shaper, it is an Adept 2 power shaper and is the only power shaper I know that I can pick up off the bench and carry around!  I found it was all too easy to over feed on the down feed and cause the tool to dig in or skate off after taking a chunk out of the work  :-\

John

Offline Jo

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Re: Living with a house lathe
« Reply #23 on: November 26, 2012, 01:07:36 PM »
Thanks for the details of the toolpost Jo. I was just going to ask over on the yahoo group and found you had already posted it. Is the post itself an original Cowells?
Chris

EDIT: Seems this is also answered in the thread and it is the official Cowells one.... humm, don`t think I can afford that for now!

Don't worry about the price it is about the simplest QCTP design going, anyone could easily make it for themselves ;D.

Jo
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Offline craynerd

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Re: Living with a house lathe
« Reply #24 on: November 26, 2012, 02:28:20 PM »
Jo, you are tempting me to make one. Can you just give me a little more info how the centre locking mechanism works?
Chris

Offline Jo

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Re: Living with a house lathe
« Reply #25 on: November 26, 2012, 02:36:24 PM »
It mounts to the top slide with a stud and nut on it, the tool clamping is by an allen key in the side ;).

Jo
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Offline craynerd

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Re: Living with a house lathe
« Reply #26 on: November 26, 2012, 05:48:16 PM »
Oh my gosh!!! I see that now. It is even an eccentric piston type! Got you....!

Offline Gedges

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Cowells 90 lathe
« Reply #27 on: February 28, 2015, 05:04:43 PM »
Hello,
I'm new here, so please bear with me if this message is incorrectly posted. I have recently acquired  a fairly old Cowells 90 lathe which suffers from similar problems posted some time ago regarding the motor hunting. The lathe and motor are both mounted to the same board, the motor being hinged and the weight of it creating tension to the belt. Whilst cutting material, the motor/belt move slightly causing a poor finish to the material. I've experimented by removing the hinge and mounting the motor directly to the base but even adjusting the belt tensioner mechanism and adjusting the position of the motor fore and aft, there isn't enough tension in the belt. There appears to be three option. 1. Use a shorter belt. 2. Raise the lathe height or 3. Drop the motor down. Without going to a lot of trouble, this last option appears to be impractical. Do any member have any practical suggestion. Any help would be appreciated.

Offline Jo

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Re: Living with a house lathe
« Reply #28 on: February 28, 2015, 05:44:00 PM »
Hello to you to, do you have a name? Would you like to post an introduction to yourself in the introduction section?

As for your Cowells you need a belt length that will let you adjust its tension with the belt tensioner mechanism. On the earlier machines people positioned their motors to suit their belt. So you could always look to move the motor back a fraction to take up some of the slack before using the tensioner. 

And which tensioner are you talking about? If you have it fitted to a board the there is one which tensions the belt to the headstock and there should be a second on the motor for adjusting the belt to the motor after you have adjusted the tension on the head belt.  If you have the later aluminium base then I will have to go and check how C2 does its adjustment   :thinking: 

Jo
Enjoyment is more important than achievement.

Offline Mosey

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Re: The best house lathe
« Reply #29 on: February 28, 2015, 06:45:13 PM »
In the future I will move from my house with basement shop to a retirement apartment with less space. At that time I will have a tiny shop and no room for my South Bend 10K, so I will want a house lathe like the Cowells you show. My question is what is the Cowells capable of?
I have a Derbyshire of the right size, but screw cutting would only be possible with an attachment to drive the slide, either making one or buying one.
What about the other micro lathes such as Sherline, Taig, etc? Are they better than the Cowells?
Mosey

 

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