Home built model engineers lathe

[mexican jon]

I've just picked this up



Now i know it's based around the Flexispeed, Perris, Cowells lathe. My question is does anyone know if there was a set of plans or an article on building this lathe  It's going to the back of the workshop for the time being as other projects are more important at the moment  but I would like to think that I'll get round to completing it 1 day 

[Fergus OMore]

I suspect that this is a follow up from the other two discussions. Frankly, I don't think that your lathe has been made from published plans.
What there is  a wealth of information on modifications and perhaps a couple of articles or books. One is L.C Mason's Building the Small Lathe and the other is Martin Cleeve's article in ME on a plain lathe. I have the article amongst my various Cleeve notes etc.

I can add that I did a fair amount on a Zyto from Tyzacks. At that time, there was a lot of articles by both he and David Lammas on the early ML's. Lammas reconditioned one and described how it was done with nothing much more than a old file and a bit of plate glass or ruler. Humbly, I did a bit of write up on a ML7 after doing up a friend's early ML.

If you plough through old ME's, you will find that Tom Walshaw writing as Tubal Cain did an article on where  ALL the old lathes came from- ie what Fitzwilliam FitzHerbert

Norman

[PekkaNF]

Have you had look here:
http://www.lathes.co.uk/page21.html

At the bottom of the page there is title "HOME-BUILT LATHES" and I have seen misc. articles on some of them but that one does not look familiar.

Maybe reading this could give you some indication how some of it might have started?
http://www.lathes.co.uk/homemadeprecision/

Pekka

[vtsteam]

Lotsof nice features on that one, Jon! I lke the ways and bed construction with a channel milled in a single piece. 

[mexican jon]

Lotsof nice features on that one, Jon! I lke the ways and bed construction with a channel milled in a single piece. 

Cheers  I've spoke to the daughter of the guy that started it (came from a clearance from a deceased estate) and she thinks she has all the notes and drawings that her father made  That should make life that little bit easier 

[vtsteam]

The headstock is very similar to the Gingery lathe, and the tailstock setover method is very similar, though the long tailstock extension is quite different. The ways are the same construction except for the channel to take the fasteners. The bed looks to be cantilevered, and that is not Gingery style at all -- Zyto there. The mount on a board with cleats is similar to Gingery's original lathe. The Gingery does not have a back gear system.

I don't know if there was any reference to Gingery by the builder, could be, but there might have been none, and it's also possible they both took ideas from a common ancestor or ancestors.