Bought an Elgo capstan lathe

[Tractor manParticipant @tractorman]

Any thoughts on this machine

[Tractor manParticipant @tractorman]

Hi all. Just bought an Elgo capstan Lathe and wondered if anyone had any knowledge of the maker. The lathes site states it’s a Spanish machine and of pretty good quality. Not taken delivery yet but I’m.sure it will be a nice little project and useful for repettitive jobs.
I think it takes 5 c fillets but that’s guess. Regards Mick

[Tractor manParticipant @tractorman]

Well she arrived safe and well today. Very heavy old lump with gearboxes and clutches etc. It does use 5c collets and the closer works perfectly. Self indexing six station turret with integral depth stops. Can’t wait to start stripping and cleaning. Mick

[RainbowsParticipant @rainbows]

Are we in for a restoration project thread or is it just a blowing the swarf out sorta thing?

[Tractor manParticipant @tractorman]

It will hopefully be a full restoration job. I have put a couple of photos in my albums as It arrived. Luckily the owner from new has some tooling and spares so I’m off to see him next week. Hopefully get some insight into how things work. He used it to make phosphor bronze valve parts for a living. There’s enough scrap bronze in the swarf tray to fund part of the project.

[mechman48Participant @mechman48]

How did you manage to hang the lathe from the ceiling in your first pic ?… oops, sorry,, pic is upside down… … nice acquisition anyhow…

​George.

[Tractor manParticipant @tractorman]

Moved the Lathe to its new location. Plenty of room on all sides to access the doors. Don’t want to.move it again as it is way heavy.
Wired up.and fired her up and runs smooth as silk. Bit of a sticky contactor for the high speed but I’m sure I will find a solution. Can’t wait to get dirty cleaning her up. Put a new photo in the album of it in situ.

[Tractor manParticipant @tractorman]

Well it cleaned up pretty nicely with white spirit and plenty of rags.

The control panel is a bit odd with a four way joystick type switch to nominate high or low range and forward or reverse. Works fine apart from high reverse which just clunks the contactor and does not energise the motor. I need a machine electrician to sort this i think.

Then the big lever on the cabinet front changes range mechanically without stopping the motor so that boring and parting can be done without stopping the motor.

All in all I'm very happy as it's a genuine industrial machine rather than a scaled down hobby or educational unit and the build quality is very good.

Cleaning the suds tank out tomorrow.😁

[Tractor manParticipant @tractorman]

And lo….Under the swarf and muck was a tray, and the tray was good….

[Dave SpicerParticipant @davespicer27262]

Glad you put a photo, I don't know why but I,ve got it stuck in my mind that they were called ELGA. A few years back I fitted new spindle bearings to one and the owner said they were a very good machine for his type of work.

[Tractor manParticipant @tractorman]

Hi Dave. Thanks for telling me that, I know it’s very good quality kit from the heft of it and how easily the surface rust cleaned off to reveal good slideways etc.
It’s the type of work that is key here I suppose. The capstan is brilliant at repetition work but not so good for one off jobs. I’m going to tool up for nut and bolt making or even ball handle turning as it’s good for spherical turning.
I’ll probably only use her on high days and holidays but I’m happy to have saved her from the scrap man. Mick

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Mick,

There is a brochure for an [earlier model?] ELGO on ebay

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Vtg-ELGO-Catalog-DM-16-E-Turret-Lathe-Machine-Tool-/380351327482

**LINK**

… may be of interest.

MichaelG.

.

Edit: and almost inevitably … there is this page:

http://www.lathes.co.uk/elgo/

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 03/04/2017 08:55:53

[Anonymous]

Posted by Tractor man on 03/04/2017 08:39:39:

The capstan is brilliant at repetition work but not so good for one off jobs. I'm going to tool up for nut and bolt making………

+1

Makes it a doddle to churn out consistent quantities from hex stock:

Good for studs too, especially witha Coventry diehead:

Andrew

[Tractor manParticipant @tractorman]

Hi Michael. The lathes site has a manual for ?45 which I may end up buying to help with the work.
Andrew, yes I just need a project that demands many similar fastening lol.
Unless anyone needs a hundred nuts knocking out sharpish.
I’m looking forward to some small scale production turning.

[Tractor manParticipant @tractorman]

Stripped the collet closer this evening. It was dry as a desert and in need of grease. Takes standard 5c collets of which I have a few. I also still have a 3jaw Chuck and an Er32 Chuck on 5c bodies which I can use in this machine.
Still not getting high speed to work properly due to the contractors not staying in. Anyone know a firm of electrical folk who know about this type of thing.Mick

[Anonymous]

Is the contactor chattering? A common issue with contactors is dirt on the magnetic contact faces. The contactor pulls in, but the dirt causes a small air gap in the magnetic circuit which has a disproportionate affect on the pull in force. Thus the contactor fails to pull in properly and can chatter.

Dismantling the contactor and cleaning the mating core faces with a paper towel usually sorts the problem.

A word of warning though, don't do what I did. Which is dismantle the contactor and then disconnect the three phase supply.

Presumably if the collets are 5C they're not dead length?

Andrew

[Tractor manParticipant @tractorman]

Andrew. I’m not sure what dead length fillers are. Google shows them as a system with some form of back stop.
The one fitted was a 3/4 Hardinge with a screwed in depth stop but the draw tube takes standard 5c collets so that bar feed can be used. Mick

[Anonymous]

Posted by Tractor man on 04/04/2017 07:00:20:
Andrew. I'm not sure what dead length fillers are.

Some tapered collets, such as 5C, which are pulled into a tapered housing move axially as well as radially when being closed. That means that the work also moves axially; how much depends on how much the collet is tightened. For repetition work, especially where external work stops are used to set lengths, this may not be useful.

This is a dead length collet:

To close the collet a tapered bush is pushed onto the taper at the rear of the collet. The step at the front sits in a corresponding fixed step in the spindle. Thus the collet closes radially, but does not move axially. Hence the work does not move axially either. This style of collet is very common on the larger Ward and Herbert capstan lathes.

Andrew

[Tractor manParticipant @tractorman]

I see. No mine just pull in from the rear as normal but the depth stop can be swapped between collets if necessary.
Thanks for the information and I will have a go at cleaning the contacts later today.
Mick

[Tractor manParticipant @tractorman]

Well i didn't clean the electrics but did carry on cleaning and repairing her.

The turret did not self index so i stripped the whole thing down and found a broken roll pin. Replaced this with a silver steel pin and it works again.

Fitted the tooling i bought from the original owner and I'm almost ready to start trying her out.

Does anyone know how to set up a combination centre drill facing tool? Mine is an Alfred Herbert one for flat tool steel cutters but the cutters are missing.

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