Author Topic: Colchester Student Lathe Refurb  (Read 2944 times)

Offline hermetic

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Colchester Student Lathe Refurb
« on: September 28, 2019, 09:35:46 AM »
   
 Colchester lathe strip and repaint
Hi guys, I have been keeping a low profile for the last couple of years whilst I completed the refurbish on my workshop. It has taken a lot longer than I thought, but life gets in the way of best intentions! I am now nearing completion and I am starting a you tube channel (search Phil Whitley on YouTube) consisting of slideshows of what I have done, and in future, videos of what I am doing, and machines I am rebuilding and using. Hope you enjoy them, and please leave a like if you do, or even subscribe! I will be trying to put out a slideshow or video every week till I have cleared the backlog of still photos, and now I am using the GoPro to record more of what I am doing, things can only get better. Hope you enjoy!
Phil,
UK




Man who says it cannot be done should not disturb man doing it! https://www.youtube.com/user/philhermetic/videos?

Offline awemawson

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Re: Colchester Student Lathe Refurb
« Reply #1 on: September 28, 2019, 09:42:56 AM »
Extremely nice  :thumbup:
Andrew Mawson
East Sussex

Offline hermetic

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Re: Colchester Student Lathe Refurb
« Reply #2 on: September 28, 2019, 10:14:57 AM »
Thanks Andrew,  There will be further video on this lathe! It became obvious during the refurb that someone had been inside, and not been too careful! In the bottom of the headstock were a collection of circlips and spacers, which I was able to identify and refit thanks to the explded parts diagrams in the manual,, and also the original gearbox oil plug, the hole being plugged with an aluminium copy! There had always been a problem selecting the lead screw direction, and this turned out to be a detent that was wrongly assembled. Same story with the QCGB, a circlip in the sump of the QCGB was jammed in one of the selector slots, and had been left off the shaft! when this was recovered and refitted, QCGB action perfect again. There are two problems remaining, which I will document when I do them, the main one being the dubious state of the spindle bearings. With the gearbox empty of oil and "spares" I was able to flush it with some white spirit, and noticed some fine grey powder coming from the oil outlet from the spindle front bearing.......not a good sign! Now Colchester headstocks are noisy, but I have always had a feeling that this one is excessive! Luckily I had got an ebay bargain on a set of spindle bearings (which are horrendously expensive) from a breaker and they are absolutely unmarked. Add to this the fact that the endplay has been not to carefully "adjusted" with a hammer and punch by the look of it!  So when the time comes I will be measuring the play on the spindle, and probably will be stripping it to replace the bearings. The other problem is fairly simple, there is wear on the bush at the outer end of the leadscrew, which is a BS bush, but the leadscrew also appears to be worn undersize, so now I have the Covmac running, I can true up the leadscrew end, and make an undersize bush to suit.

That Generator looks awesome, you are lucky I don't live in Suffolk, I would be camping in the shed with it!
Man who says it cannot be done should not disturb man doing it! https://www.youtube.com/user/philhermetic/videos?