Remove the drill chuck from the lathe or milling attachment?

Mill – screws off

Lathe – morse taper, just wind the handle back and it should eject itself.

Edited By Hollowpoint on 28/05/2022 15:56:49

In the internet era, not too many people go to books. Youtube is more popular

Edited By Y C Lui on 28/05/2022 16:38:32

Welcome to the Forum.

Lots of books on general use of a lathe.

L H Sp[arey, "the Amateurs Lathe"

Ian Bradley "The Amateurs Workshop" is more general workshop, but is still good on a lathe.

Harold Hall "Lathewoek"

Dave Fenner, David Clark and Neil Wyatt have all written books, about the mini lathe., rather than the EMCO, but the basic principles are the same. The difference will be in the specifics of what is located where and what does what.

Any lathe will obey the same laws, needing a sharp tool set at centre height, and fed at the correct speeds and fed rates for the material being worked.

If you are a complete newbie, become familiar with the lathe and how to use it by making small tools and accessories, before launching into anything expensive. The tools (Centre Height Gauge, Tap Wrenches, etc ) that you make will allow you to learn the basics, and will be useful for years in the future.

There are some very knowledgeable EMCO users on here.

HTH

Howard

Edited By Howard Lewis on 30/05/2022 13:59:06

I don't know whether or not the original Emco table is still available, but if it is not, then one approach would just be to get hold of a piece of aluminium plate maybe 10 to 12 mm thick. Drill holes and counterbore for the holding down screws, and drill and tap holes as needed to hold jobs down. When it gets too many holes, make a new one.

The original chucks i think don't actually use separate backing plates. They can be made if you want to fit other chucks. I may be awry here, my own one is a Unimat which has the screw on chucks. The backing plate for the Emco 5 chucks might be easier to make since it does not need screwcutting.

The original Unimat collett chuck came with a backing plate and the chuck register side was a little oversize, you turned it down to fit the register on the chuck body which in theory gives a perfectly accurate chuck. They probably did the same thing for the Compact 5 and again, the backing plate would not be an impossibly hard task for a learning exercise. It is very handy to have a collett chuck for the lathe since it will hold round stock true. Also vital for the milling attachment for holding milling cutters.

I think the chuck attaching screws will be allan screws, eg with an internal hexagon drive. They are used elsewhere on the machine, and so it would be worthwhile picking up a small stock in a variety of lengths. They also come in handy with the milling table. They will be M6 as far as I know. If you do get hold of an original milling table you will want some T nuts to suit and that would be a good beginners project.

regards

John

For collets a simple start would be to use a square collet block in the 4 jaw chuck you have said you have. It will also be a useful addition to your tooling if you proceed to making a dedicated collet chuck at some future date. You will need a dial test indicator (DTI) and suitable holder for setting it up but this is something you will need anyway if you do not have one yet.

Martin C

Hi Brett

If you want to go along the route of making your own backplate to mount non Emco chucks you may find useful copy of the drawing I did for that purpose. Material used was cast iron and the chuck was a Pratt front mounting.

You can check the XY co-ordinates for drilling the fixing holes as shown in this video **LINK**

Emgee

I bought a new backplate for my C5 from the Ebay shop below, I think the register dia was 56mm which matched up perfectly to a small Röhm 3-jaw that I picked up. The Emco chuck I had with the lathe wasn't in great shape and runout was always an issue.

He's in Germany and seems to sell quite a few different Emco parts. This was pre-brexit though so I guess that may increase the cost if customs pick it up.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/234567510234

The C5 was also my first lathe/mill and has proven very capable despite it's small size.

Jamie

Edited By Jamie Wood on 08/07/2022 13:59:19