Minilor TR1 – anything!

[TakeawayParticipant @takeaway]

Hello – I used to be in the engineering business but enjoyed steam model making more in my home workshop at home but divorce put an end to that many years ago – don’t laugh

 

Years on and my desire for a bit of posh fettling have not diminished so I have just purchased a nice example of a Minilor TR1 combined mini centre lathe with milling attachment and lots of extras (including a dividing head – wow!) to supplement my titchy Peatol.

 

If anyone has any info on this machine especially details about where spares might be obtainable I would be very grateful to hear from you. I think the “lathes” website might stock belts but that’s about it.

 

For my part, I have the User Manual for both the lathe and milling attachment and also an article which reveiwed this machine in a popular model engineering magazine.

[TakeawayParticipant @takeaway]

Info needed

[PekkaNFParticipant @pekkanf]

Hello,

 

I have similar lathe minus milling attachment. I don’t have very rosy picture of the this lathe.

 

See Beginners questions “Which New Lathe; choices, choices…”somewhere at the end of :

http://www.model-engineer.co.uk/forums/postings.asp?th=45283&p=4

 

I bought some spares right after from the original importer “Hegner” or something like that. I got all that ordered, but I was not happy with the lathe. I probably have completely unused topslide, slow speed attachment (Belt and stepped gear) etc.

 

I supose belts and other wearing parts are pretty standard, you should have no problem obtaining them.

 

I might use the lathe bed to make more useful tool, If I ever start taking appart I might advertice rest of the parts for sale. This might take some time tough, I have some more productive things to finish off first.

 

Best luck with TR1, Its fine with pastic, wood, some aluminium, but copper and steel starts to act up on bigger than 50 mm dia.

 

PekkaNF

[Richard ParsonsParticipant @richardparsons61721]

 

PekkaNF – What type of lathe tools are you using and what speeds? I used to use a Unimat SL which I still have. It had similar sort of problems

[PekkaNFParticipant @pekkanf]

Hello,

 

Weak lathes pretty much are any use only with very sharp HSS tools. I had one tool grinder guy to sharpen quite a few (about 8 mm) HSS blanks. Broken HSS drills and taps can be recycled to nice boring tools.

 

I also had some carbide tipped tools, they needed to be touched with diamond lap.

 

RGDS,

PekkaNF

[TakeawayParticipant @takeaway]

Thanks to everyone so far for your comments. I have not done much with the lathe to date but am confident that it will do what I want it to as I am not intending to turn anything big. I have succesfully made a number of tools in mild steel with no problem using carbide tipped tooling.

 

I use ROTOBROACH cutting oil rather than mistic as my shed is a bit damp and this helps to keep the rust at bay.

 

This little lathe is odd in that some of the construction is superb and some is frankly, naff.. The ground cast iron bed is as good as it gets. Headstock is strong and capable as is the tailstock. On the downside, the apron is flimsily constructed from ally and poorly designed. Simply attaching the tool post with two small capheads can distort the aluminium in an upward plane. One of the first things I did with the lathe was flycut the apron flat so that the milling table would sit firmly without rocking. I know that it will go again in time but it will do for now. (It should have been made in cast iron.)

 

Changing speed is fiddly and I am not impressed with the plastic change gears.

 

On the whole though I am quite sure that this little machine will be capable of handling anything that I throw at it.

 

I am planning a garden railway and this machine centre will be what I use to construct a “G” gauge live steam loco and running stock – I do not envisage any problems whatsoever.

 

One last thing, the lathe and milling attachment can accept ER25 collets but none were included when I aquired the machine so I have purchased a boxed set of 15 from GLOSTER tooling and they are the business – very accurate.

 

All I need now is the weather to cheer up a bit because it’s so ffffreezing up that shed!!!

Stuart

[adyParticipant @ady]

Most small lathes have various design weaknesses.

My first lathe was a unimat, with 12mm bedbars.

 

Now if they had made those bedbars 16mm…

 

Cowells Lathes seem to be pretty good, but very expensive.

 

Getting it all “just right” doesn’t always happen, even with good manufacturers, because there are two opposing areas. Roughing and Finishing.

 

I have an old 1590 pultra which has a broken topslide t-slot section.

It’s been well repaired but looking at it more closely, the cross slide and topslide are pretty flimsy compared to the head, bed, and tailstock which are hugely strong and stiff.

So only light/moderate cuts are intended on this lathe even though the lathe is very stiff, someone tried to rough a workpiece…and broke it, which is not hard to do.

 

My Drummond on the other hand has the same 3-1/2 inch centre height as the pultra, and only an MT1 taper…but a hugely strong saddle and cross slide which with a chunky toolpost and a half inch tool can rough big chunks of metal away, and even cut down heat hardened stainless steel billets etc.

 

However, the Drummond saddle and topslide aint much use for efficiently producing very fine final cuts, it’s a real fiddle and I often polish the last critical bit, whereas the Pultra topslide appears to be useless for roughing, but good for 1-2 hundredths of a millimeter on those very fine final cuts.

 

I’m actually looking at fitting the pultra topslide to the drummond bed at the minit, to see if I can get the best of both worlds on one hobby lathe.

 

2 cents

Edited By ady on 11/12/2010 10:22:06

[TakeawayParticipant @takeaway]

To Ady – I wish you well with the interchanging of lathe parts although it all sounds a bit incestuous to me Just as a matter of interest, I clocked an old round bed 3.5″ lathe at a local auction today. I think it might have been a Drummond but I could not see a makers name anywhere. Suprised to find that the apron could be advanced by what seemed to be a leadscrew hidden within the round bed – amazing! Does this mean that I accidently stumbled across a Drummond?

 

And to Richard Parsons, are you the pipe smoking horologist who writes in the current issue of ME? Yes? An interesting and well written article. Your pictures of the optical centering device took me back many years to when I used one of these on a Hauser jig grinder. Thankfully I no longer have to clock in to earn a crust. Don’t you just LOVE retirement))))))) 

[Nicholas FarrParticipant @nicholasfarr14254]

Hi Stuart, I have a long bed version of the round bed lathe. All aspects of it sugest that it is a Drummond even down to the pattern of the treadle, but there is no makers name on it and no evidence that there ever has been. I don’t know wether Drummond supplied casting ect. to other makers or not.

 

Regards Nick.

[John OlsenParticipant @johnolsen79199]

Some of the round bed Drummonds had a brass makers name plate fitted to the headstock. The one on display in our clubhouse has had a paper facsimile fitted since the original is long gone.

 

regards

John

[Author]

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