Mega Adept

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Shock Horror! I found time to do a bit of Adept-worrying today. I put a socket in the spindle using an MT0 reamer bought at Harrogate. I had to hold the spindle in the 4-jaw (with aluminium shim wrapped around it) and it took me ages to get it running better than 0.00025"

Popped it back in the Adept and it barely troubles the needle so at least the beast will meet ONE schlesinger test if no others!

Now sacrilege time – I'm contemplating making change gears from plastic!

Neil

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by Neil Wyatt on 01/08/2015 20:33:06:

Now sacrilege time – I'm contemplating making change gears from plastic!

.

You might also consider Timing Belts

MichaelG.

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Posted by Michael Gilligan on 01/08/2015 21:03:42:

Posted by Neil Wyatt on 01/08/2015 20:33:06:

Now sacrilege time – I'm contemplating making change gears from plastic!

.You might also consider Timing Belts

MichaelG.

Very small ones! Downside being you still need lots of timing pulleys.

The idea of churning out a big pile very quickly by using a parallel (rack form) hob appeals.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by Neil Wyatt on 01/08/2015 21:40:05:

Very small ones!

**LINK**

… Readily available in sizes a little larger than this.

MichaelG.

[Saskatoon Model Engineering SocietyParticipant @saskatoonmodelengineeringsociety]

Real sacrilege…….printed plastic gears using a 3d printer.

Already there are print files available for mini lathe change gears on thingiverse.com.

[John Stevenson 1Participant @johnstevenson1]

Art Fenerty's Gearotic program will spit an STL file out of any gear it can produce, internals, ratchets, cycloids etc

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Posted by John Stevenson on 04/08/2015 09:13:18:

Art Fenerty's Gearotic program will spit an STL file out of any gear it can produce, internals, ratchets, cycloids etc

I thought that 'adept' was blocked by its profanity filter?

Neil

[John Stevenson 1Participant @johnstevenson1]

Hey, I'm only trying to help and drag the design into the 18th century.

ANYTHING made of plastic is going to be 10 times more rigid than the original.

I'm amazed at all the support you get for these clunkers from the Chinese "Not fit for purse " brigade and distant selling regulation twonks.

Personally more of these lathes like the Winfield, Pooles, Randa, Zyto and Sooper Adept need saving to prove to the world that we also made crap.

[Saskatoon Model Engineering SocietyParticipant @saskatoonmodelengineeringsociety]

Posted by John Stevenson on 04/08/2015 11:01:17:

Personally more of these lathes like the Winfield, Pooles, Randa, Zyto and Sooper Adept need saving to prove to the world that we also made crap.

If this was Facebook I would click "LIKE" all over that statement!!!!

[Ed DuffnerParticipant @edduffner79357]

I wondered if plastic gears blanks, mounted on a mandrel could be formed by heating the outer edge and running a metal gear against the softened plastic, allowing the form to harden as the heat is gradually removed. Some facing cuts would be required obviously and maybe the OD machined to allow for the root clearance.

Ed.

[AjohnwParticipant @ajohnw51620]

Posted by Neil Wyatt on 01/08/2015 20:33:06:

Shock Horror! I found time to do a bit of Adept-worrying today. I put a socket in the spindle using an MT0 reamer bought at Harrogate. I had to hold the spindle in the 4-jaw (with aluminium shim wrapped around it) and it took me ages to get it running better than 0.00025"

Popped it back in the Adept and it barely troubles the needle so at least the beast will meet ONE schlesinger test if no others!

Now sacrilege time – I'm contemplating making change gears from plastic!

Neil

Why not trim it up slightly with the reamer when the lathe is finished Neil? Actually it's a pretty common dodge on real lathes – tail stock too. Maybe tailstock first. Toolmakers seem to have a general way of doing that but will assume that who ever does it can put metal in a 3 jaw reliably and that it has been fitted correctly. Shock horror – hold the reamer in the 3 jaw and PUSH the tailstock up against it removing a little metal. Took me a while to realise why push. It's basically because it will find it's own centre probably just cutting on one side initially and even lifting the tail stock slightly where as if it's advanced with the quill and clamped it's likely to bend. Pass on lathes with light weight tail stock though. Obviously this approach is only good for removing the last couple of thou of error. I've done it several times now and it has always worked. In real terms it should also work if the reamer is held in a collet.

John

–

Edited By John W1 on 04/08/2015 18:31:33

[AjohnwParticipant @ajohnw51620]

Whoops – what I described can only be done with certain styles of lathe bed. If it's done with the quill it would have to be used very very gently.

John

–

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

That's more or less one way I've considered for boring the tailstock out to 1/2". Could be a bit touch and go setting it at centre height, but then micron accuracy is a bit pointless here, so I might just put the tailstock on an angle plate and use the mill.

[AjohnwParticipant @ajohnw51620]

You could probably do the same thing by removing the screw from the quill and pushing it by hand. At some point I will probably make a morse taper quill for my Pultra and ream it very very gently in place as I don't think there is anything to stop it from turning other than the feed.. Hopefully I will be able to find a morse taper drill from somewhere and do the lot from the headstock. That's a tapered drill for roughing out morse tapers. I wish I had bought more of those from the old Tracy tools but the new one may be able to get them – at a price.

John

–

[AndyBParticipant @andyb47186]

Hello chaps,

Sorry, a bit late finding this thread which I am finding very interesting.

Sir John; although I have enormous respect for you and your achievements, I do feel that you are a little harsh over your comments about the bottom of the market lathes produced between the wars.

These lathes were produced at a price, like the modern Chinese lathes, to supply an enormous need by demobbed servicemen who had been taught a little engineering and wanted to do something with it upon their return home with a meagre pocket. This magazine (at least Model Engineer) has survived through also catering to that need.

I think that the criticisms laid at the modern versions is the electrics and the fallibility of drive lines but these have upgrades listed in every model engineering reference. However much crap you feel we produced there has to be something said about how many are still in existence, and how many people started their model engineering on second hand models, while starting out with buying houses, raising families etc. before moving to higher priced/higher quality machines.

I realise that you will say that so many still exist because they were not used enough to wear out, and this is undoubtedly true to an extent, but at least it gave those who wanted to try their hand at the hobby the chance without investing their lifeblood into it. A lot of these lathes were bought by apprentices (remember them?), and you can't get much lower on the pay scale than that, particularly in the 50s.

I am all for the KISS principle, as a rank amateur can learn at his own pace, like I have with my old Drummonds – yes, I know they are not in quite the same league, but my great grandfather's B is now 101 years old. He was an engineer on the Southwold Railway so you can imagine that his lathe got used in earnest, and with a treadle.

I have got a Super Adept and it really needs a lot of tlc to get it to work accurately, but it can be done, as Neil's thread is showing. There is also a slightly different skill set to be learned to use these smaller lathes, and isn't that one of the reasons for it being a hobby? We all know of the apprentice's first job to file a block square; there is a lot to be said for it, firstly, patience and fortitude. Most people now just want to go straight in and use a vertical milling machine and why?

It would seem that we have reversed the old trend – we are now wealthy but have no time; earlier hobby engineers had no money but more time. Obviously our machines are now produced with this in mind. There is no right or wrong to it; it is that the machines produced reflect this, but at least both previous and current starters in the hobby have the means to make a start.

Just my opinion,

Andy

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Hi Andy,

John's comments should be taken largely in a spirit of jest, but he does make two serious points.

1 They put the lie to the idea that every machine tool made in Britain's glorious industrial past was beautifully crafted and wonderfully accurate. The Adept's weren't, they were cheap & cheerful and not a patch on today's budget lathes of similar capacity.

2 Most importantly a second hand Adept is probably the worst possible machine for a beginner to buy. See another current thread on someone's struggles with a new lathe.

That said, the Adepts were sold to people who probably had more modest expectations, and they certainly served an important purpose in the 30s and in days of austerity after the war. even so, anyone buying one once the likes of the Flexspeed or Centrix Micro were out probably needed their head read.

To me the great thing about Adepts is because they were (and largely still are) cheap and basic if you have a worn one with a broken headstock there need be no guilt about setting to and bashing it about. Some people want to do an honest restoration without forking out a fortune. Others find their pleasure in achieving good results with old-style equipment. Most, like yourself, simply enjoy honing their skills in one way or another.

For me the challenge is to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear; in my case what matters is enjoying the exercise, as I will be lucky to get a rayon purse out of it.

Personally, I think there's never been a better time for beginners than the last decade and a half. Genuinely usable machine tools have never been more affordable.

Neil

[AndyBParticipant @andyb47186]

Hi Neil,

I agree entirely. A different society has different needs. To carry on John's jest; what you are doing, turning a sow's ear into silk purse, is what many seem to have to do with new Chinese machines (according to what I read).

The fact that there are still Adepts around speaks volumes. There is a chap on an eGroup that I am a member of who asked what to do with a worn chuck. The first answers came back to chuck it away, then several people came back with ways to repair it. After that, several people came back to say chuck it away, but somewhere that they could retieve it!

Isn't this a wonderful hobby.

Andy

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

> I agree entirely. A different society has different needs. To carry on John's jest; what you are doing, turning a sow's ear into silk purse, is what many seem to have to do with new Chinese machines (according to what I read).

I have to disagree entirely there, if only because it gets said so often that people start to believe it's true, yet the myth – and it is a myth – that chinese machines are unusable without a near rebuild does a lot to put off potential new recruits to this wonderful hobby. I think Ketan recently posted that he has sold tens of thousands of mini-lathes and only about 50 have come back with significant faults or not meeting the expectations of the purchasers. Those who want to pay Adept prices and get Hardinge performance, will be disappointed whatever they buy.

Compare a C0 baby lathe with an Adept and it's in a totally different class, yet it represents about the same cost in real terms. People have unrealistic expectations – a refurbished ML7 costs ten times as much as a mini-lathe and four times as much as a Chinese lathe of greater capacity and power, yet you will see plenty of direct comparisons being made without acknowledging this.

Notwithstanding this, I have had a CL300M for sixteen years. it's beginning to show signs of wear on the bed, and I have mercilessly modified it, but I managed to build a Stuart 10V on it with no more than adjusting the gibs.

Yes, I blew up a couple of motors, but look at my albums and you will see that this was because the mechanical capacity of the lathe far exceeds the ability of the motor to keep cool when turning massive chunks of cast iron at low speed.

So yes, you will read that, and you will come across comments from people who buy a second hand one and find it needs adjusting. You will also find people who have got rid of an aged Myford and replaced it with a Chinese machine.

All this proves is that people have different needs and expectations, and the vast majority of owners of Chinese machines find them more than satisfactory.

Neil

[RainbowsParticipant @rainbows]

I checked and the cost of an adept in 1933 was £4 10s which equates to £280.11 which happens to be the cost of A C0 Baby from ArcEuro.

I wonder how much it would cost to commerically produce a Super Adept these days considering the generally lower price of steel and low labour cost CNC machining.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by Rainbows on 20/09/2015 19:05:18:

I checked and the cost of an adept in 1933 was £4 10s

.

That's an astonishing increase over the 1930 price of £1

See advert, here.

MichaelG.

[RainbowsParticipant @rainbows]

*Super Adept

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

I suspect Rainbows has been misled by the wording of later advert on that page.

The Super Adept was £2 7s 6d when introduced in 1937, if you chose the screw tailstock option. According to RPI that would be £136.90 in 2014, but using RPI can be misleading for many reasons. Most people seem to feel that the fairest comparison is with the labour value of the lathe (reflecting that we now need to spend less of our income on essentials), which would be £374.40 – so the average 1937 worker would have had to work about a third longer to earn his Adept as a modern worker has to work to earn a C0.

As we now earn more for shorter hours, the 'income value' would be over £600, but personally I think the labour comparison is the fairest one.

Neil.

[Ketan SwaliParticipant @ketanswali79440]

Posted by Neil Wyatt on 20/09/2015 18:36:11:

AndyB said:

> I agree entirely. A different society has different needs. To carry on John's jest; what you are doing, turning a sow's ear into silk purse, is what many seem to have to do with new Chinese machines (according to what I read).

Neil W responded:

I have to disagree entirely there, if only because it gets said so often that people start to believe it's true, yet the myth – and it is a myth – that chinese machines are unusable without a near rebuild does a lot to put off potential new recruits to this wonderful hobby. I think Ketan recently posted that he has sold tens of thousands of mini-lathes and only about 50 have come back with significant faults or not meeting the expectations of the purchasers. Those who want to pay Adept prices and get Hardinge performance, will be disappointed whatever they buy.

Neil

Most of Neils response to AndyB is fine, but I would just like to issue a correction to what I actually said in another thread (sorry Neil):

I had said: 'In the 15 years+ of selling thousands of Chinese machines, I have had about 50 machines returned'

I just want to say this before this comment turns into a myth. This means, that ARC has sold thousands of machines – mills and lathes. We may come into the tens of thousands of mills and lathes in a certain more number of years time, with support of the model engineering community. However, it is another competitor (excluding Chester, Warco) who should really take credit for suggesting the myth that he has sold tens of thousands of Chinese mini-lathes. That is the fortunate and unfortunate thing about myths resulting in people choosing to believe what they like

Ketan at ARC.

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Not much has happened… but I'd like to show some progress at MEX. next task after the back gear and new headstock/spindle is screwcutting, which means a 60T gear for the back of the spindle minimum!

Gears are metric as I'm more likely to find mating gears for future projects that are mod than dp. I chose 0.7 mod as this is about the smallest size where a 20T gear can comfortable take a sleeve with a key and have enough meat in spindle,sleeve and key.

I used the rack form cutter method and it was a breeze. The cutter turned the nylon into fine powder and left a nice finish. I made four 20T gears on a stick. Still some burs to rub off, this is a bit blurred (1/2.5 seconds!)

I'm going for mostly nylon gears 1/4" thick. I started with a 25 and some 20 tooth gears. I'm not sure what size to use for the tumbler reverse yet, it will probably be 25.

Neil

[RainbowsParticipant @rainbows]

Are you adding half nuts or fitting a dog clutch to turn on/off the screw cutting?

[Author]

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