Raglan Loughborough

My first lathe was a Loughborough, it’s a simple thing, but built like a brick sh*t house. Decent size spindle bore as well. It was a good lathe.

The Loughborough was a simple training lathe; no power feeds, or screwcutting facility.

No problem, once the skill to rotate the handwheels slowly and steadily is acquired.

For many threads, Taps and Dies will suffice.

Quite a capable little machine. Only limitation is the very small of range of speeds available; but not a job stopper.

On my very infrequent visits to The WaterWorks Museum in Hereford, I enjoy the opportunity to use the one there.

Well worth the time spent cleaning up, and setting up.

Enjoy!

Howard

Having to help the motor along by hand to start it usually means a bad capacitor or sometimes the bearings. Changing the brushes wouldn’t harm.

It’s the top slide that has the note on about taper turning. You can ignore that note. I guess the dymo tape is left over from the school use where presumably they didn’t want anyone to use the top slide travel unless turning a taper, when the top slide would be rotated to give the correct angle.

You have a 4-way toolpost (sat on top of the headstock in your photos). See if you have the necessary bits to fit that in place of the flat plate with a spring underneath and a lever with red knob on top. Your turning tools would clamp into one of the slots in the toolpost, and would possibly require shims underneath to get the tool tip at centre height.

Dave

Have a look at the lathes.co.uk website (see Dave Halford’s link above). You’ll get a better idea of what the normal tool post looks like on there. I guess yours must be an early one because there is no tee-slot on the top slide. Did you ever find the serial number?

If you want one of the tool posts that appear to have been standard, and only hold 1 tool, let me know as I have some spare that I don’t use.

Dave

This is what I believe to be the standard tool post (here fitted to a Raglan 5″ in a rather tatty state!)

It has a 10mm hole through it – presumably the standard stud is 3/8″. If your stud is bigger this could be drilled out to suit. The height is about 60mm so your stud needs to be that plus enough extra for the nut.

Dave

If no capacitor the motor has a starter winding that tells it which way to rotate then a centrifugal switch disconnects it once spinning. This switch can be dirty, burned contacts, out of adjustment due to wear, or worst case the winding is burned out.

The 4way toolpost may have been a random purchase or thrown into the deal with other bits and never actually fitted.

Next time you see your grandpa set your phone to record and ask him about all he did with the lathe. Then ask him to recount his life history, and then whatever he knows about your family history and where they lived and what they did. One day it will be too late and you will regret lost opportunities.

The proper tool post is sometimes call a Gibraltar tool post

Thr Gibraltar toolpost was a massive toolpost invented by G H Thomas for use on his Myfoird 7. It was big and so rigid and held just one tool.

To turn short tapers (Such as when trimming up a centre ) the Topslide is offset. For most rurning /facing work it is set parallel to the axis .  But Taper centres for the tailstock are usually hard, whilst those for use in the Headstock are soft, and need a trim up, occasionally.)

The tool needs to be set with the cutting edge on the centreline of the lathe.  If it is not, it will not cut propoerly; if at all.

It seems a feature of Raglan lathes for the 4 way toolpost not be moiunted on the Top Slide, which can be a bit of a PITA.

(I made a rather skinny 4 way toolpost to fit on the Top Slide, for a friend who had a 5″ Raglan.)

Your lathe needs a realy good clean after being used for wood turning. Then reassemble it and carefully align it. The time spent eliminating twist from the bed and setting the tailstock in line with the headstock will be well spent. (A twisted bed will not produce parallem work.

Buy a cipy of L H Sparey “The Amateur’s Lathe” or Ian Bradley’s “Myford Series 7 Mnual”. These will tell how to check and adjust to remove twist from the bed. They will tell where to put shims to correct any twist. It is usually worth making adjust ments at the tailstock end. But on the Raglan, there is only one fixing unsr the tailstock., so that should make life easier.

Once the bed is free from twist, then you cam start work aligning Tailstock and Headstock  centres (Trim up the Headstock centre, first. Making sure that both the internal and external tapers are undamaged, and clean)

Ideally for this you coiuld do with a 4 jaw independent chuck, a DTI and a magnetic base, to make an alignment bar for this job.

Once the lathe is set up, then you can start to become familiar with it, just cutting bits of metal to gain experience.

Remember that if you put on a 0.010″ cut, the diameter will decrease by 0.020″(You will take off metal when the far side comes around to the cutting tool.)

How do you set the tool at centre height?

Initially by ” suck it and see” facing cuts. If the tool is off centre, it will l;eave a “pop”  on the end of the bar. Keep adjusting the tool height (Make sure that the tool is sharp!) until you cannot feel any pip. The tool is then on centre height.

This might then be the time to gain experience and confodence, by making your forst tool; a Centre Height gauge.

Having set that to the tool in the toolpost, it can then be used to set any other tool that you put into the toolpost, or the 4 way. You will also have gained a bit of experience in turning and facing, and possibly drilling and tapping.

When drilling, start with a centre drill -DON’T force it. It is nigh on impossible to renove the broken stub pf a centre drill from a workpoece.

If you want advice, and pictures, of Centre Height Gauges, P M me, preferably with an E mail address, so that i can send you picturea

Howard