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Lathe Disaster!

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NickG:
 :( :( :(

Hi all,

The other night I was in the garage ... was not doing any model engineering, can't remember what it was but I ended up messing with the lathe.

The 3 jaw chuck I have is well past it's sell by date so I got a new one from Axminster (I had one for my previous lathe and it was fine for me). Problem is, the current chuck is so tight on the spindle nose I can't budge it.

I had a daft idea that wedging a screw driver between two of the change wheels would lock it sufficiently to undo the chuck, however, I've just mashed one of the gears up!  :( :(   :doh:  :bang: sometimes I'm so stupid I can't believe it.

The gear is made of some sort of leathery substance, and bolted to a hub. It must be done incase you overload it or something. I thought usually it just had dowels that snap if it's overloaded on the feed shafts. Anyway, my lathe pretty basic now without any screwcutting, feeds or power cross feed!

I need to get another gear made up the same or find a source of gears for harrison L5 lathes. Even more importantly, I still need to get the chuck off! does anyone have any ideas , I've tried putting a spanner on one of the nuts that hold the other gears in place so it was pushing the spanner against the bit of spindle that sticks out of the rear of the headstock however, all this succeeded in doing was tightening the nut too much. I don't want to bend anything either. I'm struggling to think of a way without damaging anything, it's so tight.

Bit of a nightmare this!

Cheers,

Nick

bogstandard:
Nick,

I think someone else has your problem, go down to the first in the list starting 23 May

http://www.homeworkshop.org.uk/latest.html


Usually you can lock the system up with a gear selection (usually in the low range) and gently tap on the chuck key while it is in one of the tightening holes. Or make yourself an unlocking key out of ply that fits over the chuck jaws.

I don't know which L5 you have, but maybe a root thru on here might give you a bit of help

http://www.lathes.co.uk/harrison/index.html

Or even

http://www.homemodelenginemachinist.com/index.php?topic=1899.0


John

John Stevenson:
Gotta picture of the broken gear? plus outside diameter and number of teeth ?

NickG:
Thanks Bogs,

I tried locking it in the lowest back gear but it's so tight it just rotates them! I agree though I think I need to shock it off somehow. Maybe putting it in that lowest gear then locking something in the change wheels, then all the force isn't going through 1 set of gears it's more of a compound effect spreading the load through them all.

John,

I will count teeth and take some pics tonight.

Thanks,

Nick

bogstandard:
Hi Nick,

On my Atlas, I had an indexing pin that located into the bull gear, and that usually locked it up enough. But do you have a release pin that you pull out when you put the back gears in? If you do, then by leaving the pin in with the back gears in position, effectively locks the gearbox up. But again you will be putting a strain on gears and that is the chance you take.

John

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