Ladies and Gents,

I spent the weekend collecting and transporting a Drummond Bros. B type lathe from my Uncle's place in Yorkshire to my home in the Highlands.

My intention is to restore this bonny little lathe to it's former glory. I have to say though that it has been some considerable time since it saw any sort of glory at all.

I have done a lot of reading courtesy of Tony's excellent site, lathes.co.uk. I remember when my Uncle bought the machine from a friend in about 1987, and we always wondered about it. Looking at Tony's site it was obviously a B type, sporting the stiffening loop at the top of the headstock casting, designed to prevent chatter.

The history of the lathe since it has been in my family is as follows. My Uncle is a model railway enthusiast (but that doesn't make him a bad person) and he bought the machine from a friend in his local MR club. The friend had rescued the machine from a landfill site! The lathe was mounted on it's original stand but lacked any of the treadle gear. It did have a large single phase motor attached by way of an extremely beefy bracket that looks original.

My Uncle never used the machine and it has languished in the back of his workshop for nearly 30 years. I've got to say that those 30 years were likely kinder than the previous 70, since all the dirt on the machine would have come from then. This got me thinking about the passage of time and the journeys that artefacts make. My Uncle's intention had been to weigh the machine in for scrap. For my own part I could not in all conscience allow a 100 year old piece of British manufacturing heritage to go in the crusher.

I include some photographs of the machine in my workshop, straight out the back of the van.

The first shows an overview of the machine, parts of the stand can be seen. The large BSF/Whit spanners you can see belonged to my Grandfather. I picked them up at the same time as the lathe. As can be seen, there is no cross slide. Were these machines supplied without them? The toolpost looks original, being similar to those I've seen online. Apparently the serial number should be stamped on one of the bed shears at the rear of the tailstock. I haven't found it yet, so I can't date the machine beyond the period of 1912 – 1921 when the type was in production.

Second and third photographs show the headstock. I can't get my head around the unusual back gear arrangement. With the shaft locked in what might be described as the rear position, both sets of gears are locked up so the spindle can't rotate…I suspect incorrect assembly by a previous owner. The leadscrew is free and rotates in it's bearings, and the clutch actuating bar is also free. The male portion of the clutch and all of the changewheels are missing so I'll have to make these, as well as fabricating a bracket for them. More info from Tony's site required!

Fourth photo shows the tailstock. Currently stuck fast on the bed, but I haven't really made any attempt to shift it as yet.

My eventual aim is to get the machine back into good order and to fit a 1HP 3ph motor with a VFD.

I have joined the Drummond group on Yahoo, so I'll be posting there too. I'm sure I'll get a lot of useful information from them as well as all the other sources. That said, I'll reiterate the questions I've got so far as I'm sure someone here will have an answer.

1) Where is the serial number likely to be?

2) Whats going on with the odd back gear arrangement?

3) Is the cross slide missing or were some machines supplied without?

Here are the pictures:-

Edited By Carl Wilson 4 on 30/01/2014 17:31:36

Edited By Carl Wilson 4 on 30/01/2014 17:38:10

Edited By Carl Wilson 4 on 30/01/2014 17:41:23

Hello Keith,

Many thanks for your post and the information therein. The arrangement you give in 1) makes more sense. The large gear or bull wheel on the spindle has a nut on the forward face of it. I know that this secures a locking block that keys together the spindle cone pulley and the bull wheel. As an aside there is a lot of backlash/play between the cone pulley and the bull wheel so I suspect either the locking block or the locating tenon in the pulley (or both) are worn. I may need to make a new block.

I can't really understand what is going on with the back gear because in one position the whole of the headstock rotating assembly is locked solid by the fact that in that position the spindle bull wheel and pinion are locked together by the gear and pinion on the back gear shaft.

I am going to start stripping the lathe down in the next few days. I will hopefully get a better idea of the scheme of things and some more information during that time. I will update here with regard to my efforts.

Carl.

Hello Dave,

Thanks for that, I had suspected something of the kind. There will be a fair bit of work to do before I get to "oil the sleeve"! Great resource this site.

Going to start stripping the lathe tomorrow so I will report back as I have more to share.

Carl.

Edited By Carl Wilson 4 on 30/01/2014 20:40:54

Hello Ady,

Thanks for the info, I've already joined this group and I hope to get a lot of help from it. I am in the Harrison Yahoo group and this has also been a great help.

Carl.

Hello All,

Removed the leadscrew and saddle today. Leadscrew handwheel is secured by two locked nuts and transmits drive via a slot engaging a transition fit pin in the screw. Once the Handwheel was off I drove this pin out and then threaded the screw towards the headstock to gain enough clearance for removal. During this I discovered that the driving feature on the full nut – a threaded section that engages a slot in the saddle – had sheared off. It was not possible to take the leadscrew out via the tailstock end due to a transition fit collar on the screw.

Once the screw was out I threaded the full not off, and it rapidly became apparent that the internal thread was very worn.

After removing the transition fit collar, I gave the leadscrew a preliminary clean and it looks to be in decent condition. One thing that gives me pause is that the thread form of the leadscrew. Maybe it is just my eyes but it looks square as opposed to acme. Does this ring any bells for anyone? I had better find out as I will need to make a new nut.

The next job is to clean 95 years of dirt from the bed and then see what condition the ways are in. Hopefully you can make sense of the photographs and what I have written.

Got the bed onto the table of my Chester mill/drill today. I wanted to do this to check the saddle and tailstock guiding and locating features are parallel. With the bed parallel to the table I ran a DTI along the relevant surfaces. All was well, certainly within 0.0005", which is probably as good as it ever was.

To be honest, I didn't expect to find anything different, I was really just satisfying my own curiosity on the matter. The chaps on the Drummond Yahoo Group have all advised me that if they find any wear on these little machines, they by and large just live with it. It has been interesting and edifying to check this one, and to learn that despite it's long life and indifferent ownership, it is substantially fine.

My mill/drill may be lacking a motor just now but it is still useful for something!