Grayson Lathe

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Grayson Lathe

This topic has 17 replies, 11 voices, and was last updated 17 January 2012 at 21:26 by Sub Mandrel.

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3 October 2011 at 19:50 #5684
Mike Wainwright
Participant
@mikewainwright87512
Motor Setup
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3 October 2011 at 19:50 #75767
Mike Wainwright
Participant
@mikewainwright87512
Does anyone have a Grayson lathe simular to the one in my album. If you do, please could you show the setup of the pulleys and motor as I need to set my Grayson lathe now.

Second point with this lathe. How do I know how much I am taking /cut as there was no measurement on the handles

Pictures of my lathe are in my album

Any help will be gratefully received or pictures of the setup would be great.

Need to set the lathe up before a start on my Simplex loco
3 October 2011 at 21:47 #75773
ady
Participant
@ady
Lathes.co.uk has a bit on them.

There’s some Grayson literature out there somewhere, I have a couple of pages of it but aint got a clue where it came from.

good luck
3 October 2011 at 23:26 #75779
Steve Garnett
Participant
@stevegarnett62550
Posted by Mike Wainwright on 03/10/2011 19:50:23:

Second point with this lathe. How do I know how much I am taking /cut as there was no measurement on the handles

Several possibilities here – temporarily fit a digital caliper to the slide, for instance, but that might be a bit of a pain… initially, I think that calibrating the dial is probably your best bet.

You inspect the leadscrew carefully, and make sure it’s the same as on the specification (8 tpi). This means that for every full turn of the cross-slide handle, you’ve moved the cutter 0.125″. So, if you made up a temporary dial having 25 main divisions, that would give you 5 thou/division, and you could also divide each of these by 5 to give you 1 thou/smaller division. It shouldn’t be too difficult to fit this – the handle looks as though it unscrews from the front, and making something to interpose temporarily there shouldn’t be beyond the wit of anybody prepared to have a go at a loco, I would have thought. Same procedure applies to the compound slide handle – check the leadscrew pitch, and calibrate a dial for it.

Edited By Steve Garnett on 03/10/2011 23:28:45
3 October 2011 at 23:28 #75780
Clive Foster
Participant
@clivefoster55965
Mike

Do you have a countershaft unit and simply need set up instructions or are you going to have to fabricate a unit?

If you need to make one I have a PDF “concept write-up” describing a couple of relatively easy to make set-ups based on ones I built for my two SouthBend 9″ lathes. Both can be made without needing access to a working lathe but they are concepts only, not full designs, intended to be easily adaptable to use a variety of functionally equivalent components selected from whatever can be obtained cheaply or is in the handy box. If you fancy a copy contact me and I’ll E-mail it.

Whatever countershaft you use a poly-vee “serpentine” belt of the type used on modern car engine accessory drives makes an excellent substitute for old style leather belts. Run it Vee side down, ant decent belt’n bearing supplier has a variety of widths and lengths not too expensive.

For measuring cut you could fit suitable size disks or dials to the cross and compound feed handles and stick a printed scale generated by your computer drawing program on. A band round the edge looks more proper but is harder to make as the length has to be right for the disk diameter. One stuck on the face is effective although you will need a pointer extended over the edge to show the reading. Laser print and varnish is pretty durable, 2 to 3 years at least unless thinners or something similarly aggressive gets on them, and replacements are easily made.

Clive
4 October 2011 at 07:48 #75786
Mike Wainwright
Participant
@mikewainwright87512
Clive

Could you please email me your pdf when you get a chance.

mikegw1961@gmail.com
4 October 2011 at 08:23 #75787
Flywheel
Participant
@flywheel
Hi Mike

I used to own a Grayson lathe like yours and I had the same trouble has you with no measurement on the handles, I cut a piece from a flexible metal tape measure 6 and 13/16″ long which gave me 125 divisions and then turned a alluminium disc to fit on the cross slide screw behind the handle I then arranged a pointer to line up with the divisions [cant remember how I did this. [senior moments] but no doubt you can puzzle it out, I was working on a shoestring budget at the time and this was a cheap way round the problem, I think I also fitted the same idea to the leadscrew handle.

You could substitute the 6 and 13/16″ for 125mm which would give you a smaller diameter disc to turn because it does not matter what system you use it is the number of divisions that is important

Regards Peter
4 October 2011 at 08:27 #75788
Flywheel
Participant
@flywheel
Hi again Mike

I’ve just had another senior moment sorry

I forgot to say that I riveted {or glued} the piece of tape measure to the rim of the alloy disc

Peter
4 October 2011 at 08:38 #75789
Flywheel
Participant
@flywheel
Hi Mike

Dont know if you know but the headstock spindle on the Grayson is the same thread as Myford and the Myford change gears can also be used [you have to drill a 1/16″ hole in them for the Grayson pins clamp one of the original gears to the Myford gear and drill through ] also on the lathe that I had the crosslide threads were very worn so I bored out the crosslide thread and fitted a Myford crosslide screw and nut.

Peter
8 October 2011 at 19:45 #76022
_Paul_
Participant
@_paul_
This is what mine looks like:

Regards

Paul
9 October 2011 at 11:24 #76050
Chris Trice
Participant
@christrice43267
A quick “get you out of trouble” trick for unmarked handwheels is to simply scan a metal rule and resize the image in image manipulation software to suit the perimeter circumference of the handwheel before printing it and taping it on. You have the option to easily tweak the size to get it accurate.
9 October 2011 at 12:02 #76052
ady
Participant
@ady
I would definitely recommend digitalising your cross slide.

This completely eliminates backlash issues and allows you to change between metric and imperial at the push of a button.

I got mine from this place because it has an auto switch off after around 2 mins of inactivity, the batteries are the cheapo AG13s from poundland, and it stores the measurement when it switches off, (some calipers reset at zero)

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/290564367965

It’s no’ pretty, but it sure works great, wish I’d done it from the start.

details of my own one in here

http://www.model-engineer.co.uk/forums/postings.asp?th=55550
16 January 2012 at 08:08 #82200
Mike Wainwright
Participant
@mikewainwright87512
I have decided to get the Grayson working instead of buying a new or secondhand lathe. It has been stripped down and everything cleaned up. The old motor has been stripped and cleaned. New NVR switch bought and the motor has been wired up. I have made a frame for the motor and countershaft. The garage opposite me welded it up for me. I bought 2 new plummer blocks and a few nuts and bolts. All I need to get everything working is a flat belt for the headstock drive.

I have contacted http://www.lathes.co.uk but they want £35.00 for a metre of belt. Does anyone know where I can get a length of belt so I can join it together. I do not want to have to strip the headstock down again to fit the belt.

As soon as I can get this then I can see if the lathe is working ok. I know the headstock bearing were replaced and there is no play on the movement of the slides.
16 January 2012 at 09:25 #82206
Flywheel
Participant
@flywheel
Can you let me know the width of the belt you require,[ if I remember correctly it is about 1″ or 1 1/4″ for the Grayson,] I might be able to help you
16 January 2012 at 10:04 #82209
Keith Long
Participant
@keithlong89920
Hi Mike

If you have a look on E-Bay, use the search phrase “flat drive belt” you’ll find several suppliers who do it by the meter and can supply the alligator clips to join it.

I bought mine from the chap in Penrhyndeudraeth, quick delivery and also wrote out the instructions for the clips. Very helpful.

Keith
16 January 2012 at 10:18 #82211
NJH
Participant
@njh
Mike

I assume that this is a flat belt drive. If you are desperate you could find a gents leather trousers belt of suitable width, scarf the ends and overlap them. Then drill a pattern of small holes in a rectangular shape through both bits. Fit the belt around the headstock pulley, bond the overlapped ends together with something like Evostick then stitch through the holes you have drilled with some waxed twine. This is what I did with a Myford ML4 (a close relative of the Grayson) that I had some years ago and it worked well. I never needed to replace the belt and it had the bonus that , with my great inexperience, if I had a “dig in” the belt slipped and disaster was avoided!

On the other hand if you have a “V” pulley try RDG.

Regards

Norman
17 January 2012 at 11:17 #82289
Bazyle
Participant
@bazyle
Scales! next you’ll be asking someone to invent a measuring system where everything is subdivided by factors of 10 so you can count on your fingers

I recall a mention in an old ME, probably by Tubal Cain or the like about lathes without scales. The way to work is with a piece of chalk to mark the top of the flange then you can wind out X turns when needed and wind back in to exactly the same setting. Since people used to work to 64th and 128th not thou (which is why leadscrews are 8 tpi not 10) it is easy to estimate 1/8 th or 1/16 th of a turn from the chalk to put on a cut having measured the diameter of the work using calipers held up to a rule probably only showing 64ths.

Once you have carefully measured and cut a diameter at say 1/2 inch you only have to mark the setting and everything else smaller is relative to that as eg X turns plus 3/8 turn. Bit like using a dividing head.
17 January 2012 at 21:26 #82317
Sub Mandrel
Participant
@submandrel
> Since people used to work to 64th and 128th not thou (which is why leadscrews are 8 tpi not 10)

I made a 64-graduation index for my 16tpi leadscrew. Works well and iis close enough to a ‘thou’ over short distances.

Neil
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