Colchester Triumph 1958 Restoration

Thank you very much Kroll, much appreciated.

At this point the lathe was not modified for nearly two years, then I started the DRO mounting, unfortunately there is no pics of the actual work, but I will try to explain.
I got this Heidenhain glass scale for the cross slide.

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It was discarded because it didn't work properly, it came from an EDM machine, I took it home, and gave it a good cleaning with isopropyl alcohol.dsc02918.jpg

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It was too long, so I shortened it about 7 centimeters, I milled the aluminium housing, and snapped the glass inside
 
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Nice lathe, and will be a great lathe when you get it to your satisfaction! Very nice work.
 
Thank you Bob, but with a project like this, I guess it will never be quite finished, there will always be something.

This Heidenhain scale put out sine wave signals, the most common signals on DRO systems are square wave quadrature output, Heidenhain makes a very expensive interpolation box to overcome this issue.

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As I said at the start of this tread, I am a cheapskate, an in no way was I going to pay the same for such a box than I had spend on the whole lathe, I looked at ebay for some time, and suddenly a box came up with no starting price, and apparently very little interest, I got it for about $14, and it works a treat.
 
I didn't find a proper way to fit the scale on the cross slide, the readhead was in the way whatever I did, then I came up with the idea of milling a pocket for it in the sattle.

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There is no pics of the operation or the result, so you have to do with my drawing.
The big square are of course for the read head itself, the lines to the side, illustrates boltholes to secure the read head, and the two lines going out the back, is a slot for the wire.
On this later picture, you can see the scale in it's new place.

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You can also see my home made QCTP with some of the pieces being made, but more of that later.
Buying a new glass scale for the main slide was out of the question, and I haven't been able to score a used one. It have to be about 50" or 1.3 meter long costing a fortune, so I had to come up with something else.
At work, the old EMD wire cutter was being replaced, and send to the scrap yard, but befor it was picked up, I was allowed to take as many parts as i wanted, I got a pair of ball screws, that is put away for later, and a couple of rotary encoders, they give out the same type of signal as the normal glass scale when the shaft is turned.
On the lathe I milled a housing for the encoder, so a toothed belt could rotate the encoder when the main slide is moved.

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The toothed belt is attached to the bed in both ends, and the encoder and house travels with the main slide.

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And a 10" tablet is the screen

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More about the DRO at http://www.yuriystoys.com/p/android-dro.html dsc03834.jpg
 
Last cristmas I decided it would be a good time to mount my home made QCTP that have been lying almost completed for well over a year.
One of the reasons was I didn't own a 4 jaw chuck, but finally I found the right size for a reasonably price, and although I don't have a back plate for it, I mounted it in the 3 jaw and trued up the center cube for drilling and turning the center hole.
The Colchester's compound had a 54mm or 2 1/8" shaft 50mm high the old toolpost rotated about, but I only had space for a 50mm shaft with a hight of 20 mm, so it had to be turned down.
The Colchester couldn't swing the compound, and even if it could, I had no place to mount my tooling, but fortunately, I can borrow the machines at work, and the big manuel lathe had no problems swinging that little compound.
Here we have a couple of pics showing the almost finished mount, I have been making some hight adjusters, and need some milling on the locking shims, that are to be mounted on the eccentrics.

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I have 10 more or less finished holders, and the clamping side made in two bars, where I think there can be 6-8 holders made.

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Here we have the first ten hight adjusters.

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The design is based on the Rapid toolpost http://www.rapidoriginal.it/

The original purpose of the cube was as a insert for a plastic injection mould (mold in some regions) but it didn't clean up when it was ground, it was sat aside for another project, but the costumer decided that another material was to be used in the future, this material is Impax supreme, a well known tool steel when you want to avoid hardening.
It's origin is the reason for the threated holes 15 mm from the bottom, they where intended for water cooling, I just have to live with them.
I milled two slots on each side, the cube was put in the wire cutter, and all corners were cut in one setup.

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I am keeping the original spindle, because it have a nice feature, when tightening the cube, a spring loadet dowel pin with a tapered end is released, centering the cube at the right angle, and securing it from turning under heavy load. The opposite hole is for a spring loaded ball for helping centering the cube before tightening.

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I have a 7mm thick shim under the cube, here will be made tapered holes for the locking pin, four holes for zero, 90, 180 and 270 degrees, on the two opposite sides, there will be holes made at 30 and 60 degrees, and the two other sites, 45 degree holes will be made.
If I had to make all the holes on each side, they would interfere with each other

I had to mill some grooves on the locking rings, but i haven't got a rotary table, and my mill isn't working yet, so I had to use the lathe for milling.
I mounted a 20mm shaft in the toolholder with the V-groove at the bottom, I used a piece of 5 mm plate from the scrap bin, and drilled a couple of pilot holes for the spanner bolts, they have a point at the end, that fits the pilot holes, so the plate stays in place when the shaft is turned.

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A small vice got the job as handle to turn the shaft.

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The touchDRO was of little use for this setup, just showing the cut depth, but a label on the shaft with lines for start and stop points was perfect for the job.

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Here tree is in place, and the fourth is ready to leave the shaft.

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Well, this is it for now, there is nothing more to report at the moment, if you have any questions or comments, please write, I would love any feedback.
 
Now I have this problem again, is it impossible to insert vertical pictures?

Holt,

I suspect that the problem is with your photo editor. I assume that you took the photo with the camera rotated 90 deg. and then rotated the photo with some editor. Which of course shows it vertical as you wanted it. I ran into the same problem when trying to use a later version Nikon editor. The earlier version editor, as well as IrfanView didn't show rotated photos as rotated. I had to quit using the incompatible later version. Apparently someone changed a standard and stupidly did not make it backwards compatible.
 
You've done a really great job on your lathe and your tool post is tops. I think your lathe will be still working in another fifty years. Most people want all new machines that more then likely will be lucky to last ten years or so. I'd love to own an old lathe there's some out there but with me it's all just about out of my range. Keep the pics coming and keep us informed on your lathe and mill progress.
 
18Feb2015 137.jpg 18Feb2015 137.jpg Colchester made some good machines, but the quality of materials 50 years ago did not suit there machines. I have the baby brother, the Student and could not work on the machine a night because it was so noisy. So I got brave and did open heart surgery on it. I removed all the gears, connected a belt between the incoming and main spindle. I replaced the motor with a induction motor and fitted a VFD
 
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Hello Kenn.
Very strange you should show me that, I have thought of a similar thing, in fact I was going to ask here on the forum, if I was totally crazy, or you think it would be possible.
I take it, you run the head without oil, how are you lubricating the main bearings?
On the Triumph, there is a little more space at the back, leaving enough room to fit a chain on both sides of the high/low shifter, the idea was then, like you did, to remove the mittle shaft with all gears, and remove all gears on the drive shaft, but keeping the high/low shifter. My first thought was a toothed belt, but because I wanted to keep the oil, I decided on chains (some motorcycle chains can handle hundreds of horsepower)
 
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