EW Lathe Oiling Question

[merlotParticipant @merlot]

Hello,

Recently purchased my first lathe an EW. I have read most if not all the articles on here regarding EW lathes but can’t seem to to find any information on lubricating the head stock spindle.

The spindle runs directly in the cast iron casting to which I have fitted a pair of drip oilers. As this is a total loss bearing how much oil should I be feeding it?

At 3 drops a minute I have a stream of oil running from both bearings. I was told to use H32 oil, is this too thin?

Kind regards

Paul

[bernard towersParticipant @bernardtowers37738]

It does sound too much, what must not be forgotten is that the cast-iron headstock retains a bit of lube because of its make up and the mainshaft is hardened plus you are not running the lathe for long enough or hard enough to warrant lube splashing everywhere.

[merlotParticipant @merlot]

Thank you Bernard, I shall throttle back on the drops/minute, I was just worried about running it dry.

[noel shelleyParticipant @noelshelley55608]

Lathe Lube often crops up on here ! The oil will be a light hydraulic ISO32 or SAE 10, both the same oil just different systems of spec. I would try 1 drop in 5 mins even that may be too much – you will soon know as if it is not enough then the headstock will become warm and increase in warmth ! For the bed ISO 68 or SAE 30 a old car engine oil. Good Luck Noel.

[Martin of WickParticipant @martinofwick]

Not exactly precision bearings on the EW. Pretty much any old oil will do, but I use a thicker grade, SAE 30 rather than 10 or 20. I generally jam some paper towels in the hollow of the head castings and am fairly parsimonious with the oil if possible probably 7 to 10 minutes to a drop. I check the towels from time to time to ensue there is some residual.

However, as Noel says it is temperature you need to watch, so develop the habit of resting a finger on both headstocks to check from time to time.  Some procedures will cause heating more than others, at least on mine. Drilling from the tailstock for example, probably because the bearing face of my headstock and flange on the spindle resemble a ploughed field. I did try to locate a PTFE washer between flange and headstock as a thrust bearing, but it wasn’t a success.

As well as oil, you must respect maximum surface speeds for cast iron/steel bearings (roughly 150 f/min). For EW size this will be about 600 to 700 RPM max continuous. An acquaintance had something similar to and EW that he ran directly from a 1400 RPM motor without speed reducing countershaft. With the 3×3 pulley that gave 2800 1400 and 700 spindle speeds, no problems he assured me, marvelous with carbide at high speed he claimed. Come the day when cutting was impossible due to excessive chatter and heating at any speed. On inspection the bearing part of the spindle resembled something the dog had chewed. jus’ sayin’

By the way, I don’t think the spindle on an EW is hardened – at least mine certainly is not.

[merlotParticipant @merlot]

Thank you all. As always the knowledge on this forum is outstanding. My respects to all.

@Martin, I had tried to place an Oillite washer behind the headstock flange during restoration and it looked like it would work but I forgot about the locating hole in the main shaft for the drive pulley. I like the paper towel idea will give that a go. I agreed the spindle is not hardened mine looks like it has been ploughed but oddly enough no significant play.

[merlot]

On merlot Said:

… the spindle is not hardened mine looks like it has been ploughed but oddly enough no significant play.

Then I suggest you ‘re-imagine’ that as being an Oil Retention feature.

MichaelG.

[IanTParticipant @iant]

My EW has spring-cup oilers and I’d assumed that this was standard (as I’ve seen them on other EWs) but the EW Martin Cleeve modified (on checking) just had oil ‘holes’, so maybe oilers were fitted to early (or later) machines.

Anyway, as others have already stated, any light oil should do it. Whilst I don’t think you can over-oil a total loss system, three drops a minute sounds a bit excessive. I top up the cups at the start of each session but my lathe doesn’t seem to use that much. Any mess is usually caused by my missing the cup and squirting oil on the headstock.

Regards,

 

IanT

 

[Howard LewisParticipant @howardlewis46836]

Being bone idle, I used to use, and still do, engine oild, circa SAE 30. 1 drop perminute ought be sufficient.

With a simple oiling system, the object is to build up a edge of oil, so excess oil does not do anything, except leak!

Assaid, do be aware of the surface speed at which the spindle runs.  Being an old lathe, with simple plain bearings, not even low friction “brasses”. You are running a steel spindle in cast iron, so have faintly similar materials, which are more likely to gall, if run too fast with inadequate lubrication.

With phosphor bronze bushes, or even better, low friction white metal bearings, or modern ball or roller bearings, higher speeds would be acceptable.

So regard the age and design of the lathe, and limit the top speed.  Don’t exspect tu run at the speeds and feeds where carbide tooling produces blue or brown swarf.

When your EW was designed and built, High Speed Steel tooling was probably still in the future.

Treat the old lady with respect and she will reward you with years of service and pleasure!

Enjoy yourself.

Soon, you will wonder how you ever managed without a lathe for all those years!

Howard

 

[Martin of WickParticipant @martinofwick]

Paper towels used mainly because I object to an oily mess everywhere! As you say, there is not room for a thick thrust bearing without some modification. The thin PTFE washer worked for a while but became beacme torn up and failed quite quickly.

One little wheeze I could suggest is to get some cheap felt pads from the pound shop of the type used for sticking to the bottom of furniture for floor protection.

Remove sticky and cut some pieces of a size and thickness to fit reasonably tightly in the slot at front of headstock and pack your pads into slot between adjustment screw and spindle with fine screwdriver (careful, no levering  on the fragile parts or jabbing the spindle). This pad will reduce the propensity for oil to flow down the front of the headstock and also, in my fevered imagination, provide an oil saturated wick in permanent contact with the spindle.

I think originally all EWs just had an oil hole, which is sufficient as long as you don’t get carried away and forget to top up. I happened to find some minute, unbearably cute,  1 in high oilers (forget where) and just had to have them! I made a small fitting with a slightly tapered fine capillary pipe that sits in the headstock hole. The oilers can just be unplugged and emptied back into the bottle after use.

[merlotParticipant @merlot]

Thank you all, what a fantastic community. I had thought of the felt pads too,  as I made up the wool wicks for the the counter shaft bearings.

As for speed I measured the speeds in all gears and the fastest it will run is 954 RPM. I realised I could not run carbide tools.

[bernard towersParticipant @bernardtowers37738]

Dont really understand why you cant run carbide tools please explain as I use carbide tools down to 200 rpm for turning and 50 rpm for screw cutting

[merlotParticipant @merlot]

All the turning speed charts I have seen put Carbide approximately 4 times faster than HSS.

[merlot]

On merlot Said:

All the turning speed charts I have seen put Carbide approximately 4 times faster than HSS.

That doesn’t mean you can’t use it … just that you will be working outside its optimum efficiency envelope.

’though, as Jason will probably explain; it would be best to use the ‘ground’ inserts.

MichaelG.

[Martin of WickParticipant @martinofwick]

You can run carbide tools at lower speeds OK, but need to pick your inserts carefully, i.e. the sharpish ones rather than the ‘blunt slab’ type for best cutting. The polished ones for aluminium seem to work well on most metals at lower speeds, although I have used some standard ferrous metal types at lower speeds without issue.

The ones that were less successful overall were the ‘el cheapo’ brazed sets, I think mainly because they are not ground to give good clearances. Having said that, they do a passable job at ‘scraping’ away cast iron, if you are not too fussy about the finish.

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

I gave my EW simple oil-cups that are really only little cylindrical funnels, and it has served for many years like that. I just give it a drink at the start of the session.

Oil oozing down the front of the machine is only surplus and a bit messy but hardly serious when you consider the slides and lead-screw are all open, and all machine-tools are rather grubby things to use anyway.

‘

My lathe’s spindle and the headstocks are now worn though, and I am investigating how to bring them back to decent condition.

Following another contributor’s suggestion I have sent off an enquiry about having the spindle hard-chrome plated and ground back to its original 0.750″ diameter.

Failing that is the feasibility of making a spindle but I am not sure I could to proper standard with my workshop… and its staff. At least I’d still have the original one. The answer may be to use ground stock and make the flange as a separate collar pinned or grub-screwed on.

.

The spindle flange had worn a sort of counterbore in the casting. I solved this by making a very thin bronze thrust-washer – I’ve just measured it as 0.048″ thick so its effect on the spindle’s axial position is insignificant. It is prevented from rotating by a peg made by screwing in a brass 6BA or 8BA stud, and filing it to a blade that locates in the casting’s adjustment slot, but is thin enough still to allow that closing on the spindle.

.

Merlot –

There is a goodly section on the EW Lathe on Tony Griffith’s lathes.co web-site – and I hope your system manages to avoid the appalling external rubbish that irrelevant advertising agencies have plastered all over it!

Note that the lathe as designed does not have a fine self-acting feed. The standard change-wheels are for screw-cutting only, though investigating by spreadsheet revealed they can give a surprising range of pitches, even some of the common metric ones, to reasonable accuracy over short distances such as for studs.

If you have the vertical-slide and boring-table for your lathe, I’d advise not trying to rely on holding the VS just by the single bolt it is drilled for. I made two L-shaped steel fences about 3/4″ thick, each with 2 tee-bolts of their own, to fit to the table as buttresses against the rear and two sides of the vertical slide’s base.

I’ve also made some little tool-holders that take bits ground from 1/4″ diameter tool-steel (broken / worn out milling-cutters and the like!). They are just short lengths of m.s. rectangular bar with assorted holes for the bits, held in place by grub-screws. Drilling the holes inclined gives some height adjustment and though it’s hardly a full QCTP arrangement these holders do save a lot of faffing with shims!

I’ve also a 4-way tool-holder with my EW, but I don’t know if original or made by a previous owner. (I think I might be only its second owner!)

[IanTParticipant @iant]

If you have the vertical slide and boring table Merlot – it is very simple to make a steel adaptor plate and securely mount it. This also gives a bit more useful travel with a small vice mounted.

[IanTParticipant @iant]

Apart from the Martin Cleeve articles in ME which have been mentioned here many times, you can also find some very useful ideas for the EW on Alan’s website:

http://modelengineeringnorge.weebly.com/

Regards,

 

IanT

 

PS Vertical Slide in use…

[merlotParticipant @merlot]

Once again many thanks to all for sharing their knowledge.

@IanT Sadly I do not have a vertical slide or boring table. I have a horrible clamp thing for the tooling, which I am in the process of looking for a replacement quick change tool post. It seems a minefield of sizes and types of cutting tools to get my head around. All the tools that came with the lathe are tapered shank approximately 6mm to 4mm, all of the QCTP seem to accommodate 12mm shanks. I sadly assumed there would be some standard.

Again thank you all.

[IanTParticipant @iant]

You will find that there are a few issues with a QCTH on the EW – as there will be a lot of overhang, as well as a marked restriction in (cross slide) tool movement. My solution was to use (what I call) ‘Rose’ blocks and standardising on 3/16th HSS tooling. I do have a QCTH but only use it for certain tooling that I don’t have a Rose block for or where they will not fit one.

I’ll provide a bit more info if you wish but my ‘Manager’ has other things for me to do right now, so must go!  🙂

Regards,

 

IanT

[merlotParticipant @merlot]

@ IanT I would much appreciate any advise that would enable me to get the most out of this lathe. Here is a picture of my tool arrangement as purchased albeit rust removed and cleaned.

Also the Chuck its a Pratt manufactured scroll but does not have much in the way of clamping force. I was thinking of upgrading to a modern key type chuck. It also came with a 4 jaw which seems to be a black art in setting up 🙂

[HopperParticipant @hopper]

I set the drip oilers on my Myford to about one drip per minute or less and that is still plenty messy but I live with it. I use mostly 20/50 motorbike engine oil left over after oil changes as the ISO32 hydraulic oil runs out too quickly.

My old Drummond ran from 1937 until  early 21st century with just a drop or two of oil applied to the chamfered hole in the top of the bearing setting bolt whenever the operator thought of it. Which would be maybe once every 15 minutes if I had to guess from remembering my dad using it. No drip oilers at all until I fitted some. So the old bearings don’t seem to need much oil.

[Martin of WickParticipant @martinofwick]

Nothing wrong with the clamp arrangement. Just don’t over spanner it or you might crack the top slide – ask me how I know!

When using the top slide there is very little room between that surface and centre line which means the commonly available QCTPs can rarely be made to fit. The clamp is a bit of a faff but to start with you can standardise on some  4/ 5/ 6mm HSS at modest cost from ARC and make up simple dedicated mini toolholders that will permit some height adjustment as Nigel suggested.

When you get the hang of it, make up some mini tangential toolholders, once made, these are very easy to set, to grind, and give really good results (left and right if you can). Then a 1/4 – 3/16 boring bar to run in an eccentric sleeve in a small block will be a useful addition (I think one of the G H Thomas books covers that)

For practice, you could make some spindle adapters for when you want get a new chuck or add a ER32 collet chuck.

By the time you have done all that, you will be in the ‘experten’ category!

[merlotParticipant @merlot]

@Martin Mind Blown 🙂 Thank you for your advise and encouragement.

What is the purpose of the screw next to the nut?

Could someone please explain the best way to set the gibbs, I am not sure how freely the slide should move, when they feel good there is too much play, when the play is gone they are very tight. No I don’t have gorilla hands I wind them in until I feel them contact then back them out a touch. I start in the middle then work out???

 

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

I don’t think anyone has mentioned the horrid possibility that the high oil flow rate is due to the bearing being worn.  Wouldn’t be surprising because the EW lathe has a very basic plain bearing, the lathe is an old-girl and may have been abused in the past.

The bearing is just a steel spindle running in a cast-iron casting, with an oil hole.  The type works well enough lightly loaded at slow speeds, but they all wear out eventually.  Rapidly if a previous owner put grease in the oil holes, didn’t bother with maintenance, or was a gorilla who drove his light hobby lathe brutally.

With the lathe stopped, check the bearing by putting a DTI on the chuck body, front, top, and side in succession.   Make sure the DTI needle doesn’t move much when the chuck is pushed hard by hand sideways, upwards/downwards, and in-out.

A big lateral movement suggests the bearing is worn.  If so, may not be bad enough to matter yet.  The acid test is how well the lathe cuts metal.  Surprisingly good work can be done on worn lathes, provided the operator compensates, though that needs a certain amount of experience.   To find out,  I’d start by turning Brass with a sharp tool and then check the result; poor finish, dig-ins, tapers, etc are all suspicious.  (Most varieties of Brass machine well whereas other metals can confuse a beginner.   Part of the fun is discovering that not all metals machine well, and some are vile!)

If the DTI tests show movement, and turning Brass doesn’t go well, ask again.

Dave

 

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