That was quick, the boxford only fell off the lorry about 5 days ago

**LINK**

Hi James,

I have the L6 Mk3 lathe also. Its quite a machine as youre going to find out.

It is normal to have no graduations on the saddle handwheel unfortunately. Harrison sold a Micrometer saddle stop, which you can use to accurately position the saddle (within the travel limits of the stop).

At the right hand end of the leadscrews there is a bearing block that houses the end bearings for the clutch engagement shaft, leadscrew and feedscrew. If you undo the two large allen bolts, position the saddle fully to the left, then pull the bearing block slightly forward to release its locating dowels, the bearing block can be slid off to the right to release the ends of the lead/feed screws. I believe (although ive not done this myself) that if you disengage the feed nut via the handle, the leadscrew can be slid out through the saddle and free of the machine. It should just pull out of the end of the gearbox. Personally if its just for cleaning and regreasing I would leave in situ and just clean in place. The clutch engagement shaft requires correctly aligning on the splines when refitting, and there is also a ball bearing that will drop out when you loosen the tension on the bearing block/clutch engagement shaft that keeps the clutch engaged/disengaged properly.

There is no spindle lock, however if you put the lathe into low gear, you should be able to get plenty of purchase on the locking ring to remove the chuck (I'm assuming yours has the L00 taper).

The quick change gearbox takes an ISO 220 Grade Mineral Oil. Note that the gearbox contains brass and bronze bushings that can be attacked by certain EP additives found in standard gearbox oils so be careful about using the correct type of oil. Harrison recommend Shell Vitrea 72, which has since been renamed to Shell Morlina S2 B220.

Harrison recommend for the headstock gearbox to use Shell Tellus 33 Hydraulic Oil, which has since been renamed to Shell Tellus S2 M68.

Both of the above oils are available on ebay in small quantities.

Harrison also recommend the same Shell Tellus 33 (Tellus S2 M68) to use on the ways, saddle, tailstock etc.. Its not a specific slideway oil, but has anti wear, anti rust and anti oxidation properties so will work just fine.

The only place you should be using grease is in the bearing nipples on the motor.

Hope this helps.

Graham

Just to add a bit more info about saddle stops,

This is a photo of my L6 with the standard saddle stop fitted to the bed just to the right of the saddle.

And this photo shows the micrometer saddle stop fitted to the bed also to the right of the saddle.

Both of the stops can be fitted either on the left or the right of the saddle. They butt up against the stops that are fitted to either side of the saddle.

Hope this helps

Graham

Thats nothing a nice DRO wont solve for you.

Congrats with the new lathe.

According to the manual (which i sent you a link to in a PM by the way) it says that the single speed ones are 3hp and the dual speed ones are 3hp/1.5hp depending on whether low/high speed is selected, although there were a range of motors fitted depending on the location the lathe was sold. It would probably be best to swing open the motor mounting plate at the rear of the base and take a look at the motor data plate to be sure.

One thing you should be aware of though, if it is an original motor in there, then they are wired for 415VAC 3 phase star configuration and are not reconfigurable for 240VAC 3 phase delta operation as you would get out of your inverter. (At least mine wasnt reconfigurable for delta operation)

I run mine from a 240VAC inverter, but I stripped the motor down, and did some modifications to the windings to allow it to run in 240VAC delta configuration instead of 415VAC star. (Basically brought out the internal star point to external connections)

I have no idea how well the lathe would run if you attempted to run a 415VAC star configuration motor on a 240VAC delta inverter output. Perhaps someone else could chime in here.

If the answer is that it wont run well, then to run via an inverter, your two options are to modify the motor to bring out the star point to allow delta operation (not easy), or replace the motor with a 3 phase motor that can be configured for 240V delta.

Another couple of things to bear in mind while were talking about electrics

1. The suds pump is 3 phase aswell, although mine was a dual voltage motor which is easily re-configured to run from a 240VAC 3 phase supply as you would get from an inverter. I run both the lathe motor and suds pump motor from a single inverter without any issues (I did leave the suds pump wired in via the suds pump switch, so I can choose to start the lathe with suds on or suds off by using the switch…. I try to avoid switching the suds pump on while the inverter is running the main motor, as all the reading material would suggest that turning loads on/off a loaded inverter could damage the inverter)

2. If the lathe is fitted with a light, then the light will probably be fed from the Phase 1 of the 3 phase supply. There is a transformer in the lamp switch box bolted to the back of the headstock which contains a transformer which is probably expecting to see 415VAC single phase input. The transformer converts the voltage to a low voltage (cant remember off hand but 28V sounds familiar). The wiring on the transformer can be altered if the input voltage is not 415VAC to ensure that the bulb voltage is correct. On my lathe, I fitted a 3 pin UK plug and lead to the lamp and powered directly from a mains socket. I reconfigured the transformer inside the lamp housing to accept 240VAC input and thus the lamp is now independent of the inverter input.

3. If you are running from an inverter it is probably worth re-wiring and bypassing the control panel start/stop buttons on the front of the lathe. You don't want any switchgear between the inverter and the motors. I start/stop the lathe from the inverter controls. Its not as fiddly as you might imagine as your lathe has a clutch so you can start the motor from the inverter and then start/stop the chuck using the mechanical clutch, then when your work is done, stop the lathe from the inverter.

Some things to think about anyway. If you're not up to scratch on 3 phase electrics, I would get an industrial sparky to drop in to take a look at your setup.

You wouldn't normally use the lathes switches with an inverter James, it wires direct to the main motor to provide 3 phase.

You could use some of the machines existing switches to control the inverter, but most people ignore them and use a dedicated pendant box, with for/rev, jog, speed control and e stop switches etc. You wire this to the low voltage side of the inverter using 8 core alarm wire.

Of course this means you need to come up with a separate solution to power the suds pump, but being a small motor, this is usually pretty easy to contend with.

Edited By Alan Waddington 2 on 14/01/2017 19:13:46

You could jury rig the suds pump to run from single phase with a capacitor….there are many examples on google…so need for a further inverter or any other complications