Stringer EW lathe

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

Yes – I would agree very much with IanT's caution.

The T-slots on the boring-table and vertical slide are not very strong, and my VS has a bit broken out of it. (Not by me!)

I made full-length T-strips with tapped holes to spread the clamping load, but do ensure as with any machine-tool, that the mounting-studs or screws do not pass right through the T-nut and bind on the slot floor. If the screw can do that, it adds a very unfair additional stress on the slot flanges, and can break them.

If you look at the typical commercial clamping-sets commonly sold by our suppliers, you find the undersides of the nuts are staked to prevent that. Or you can use shortened or short-threaded fastenings.

'

Vertical slide Mounting:

For my EW, I made two L-shaped steel blocks each with 2 stud-holes, to provide an anti-rotation "nest" for the one-bolt vertical slide without modifying any of the original lathe fittings.

'

Tool-holders:

Well before hearing the magic incantation 'Kewseeteepee', I cut a set of blocks from rectangular m.s. bar, and gave them assorted 1/4 " dia. plain and smaller tapped holes, to take tool-bits ground appropriately and gripped by grub-screws.

The bit-holes are inclined, giving "fine" height adjustment to obviate faffing with shims. Some have one end also cut and drilled at 45º in azimuth, to improve access close to the chuck.

The blocks are held by the original tool-post – they work well and their only disadvantage is lacking position repeatability. That could be overcome by shallow rebates or small dowels on their undersides to engage the slide edges.

Most of the bits are ground from worn-out/ broken FC3 cutters, centre-drills and similar salvage.

[IanTParticipant @iant]

My EW tool-holders sound very much like Nigel's – although I use 3/16th HSS tooling as standard.

I'm afraid I had a bit of a 'brain-fail' when posting my previous message – as I referred to them as 'Adams' blocks – when I should have said 'Rose' blocks. Old age I guess.

A gentlemen called Dr RM Rose (who I think was an American) described his "Simple Toolholders" in a series of articles in ME during November 1972. They are very easy/cheap to make (so you can have lots) and simple in use. For the work I do on the EW they work very well – the QCTH only gets used for anything they can't manage.

The Rose blocks allow a little more travel/movement than the QCTH as they are smaller and can be set further back on the block if required. They are very rigid in use which is important on a small/light lathe like the EW.

Regards,

IanT

[Andy CarlsonParticipant @andycarlson18141]

Some photos of my vertical slide below. At the moment it is pretty unmolested with the exception of a small rebate cut out of the very bottom which allows it to clear the saddle where it sticks out in front of the cross slide on my Faircut lathe.

As well as the extension and dial, I see some extra mounting blocks plus some modifications to the 'gib' arrangement on yours which on the original is not a gib at all but a separate dovetailed piece secured by 4 screws.

For mine I'm planning an extension because the handle likes to foul the clamping screw on my machine vice. I may fit a dial one day too. Backlash is also an issue but it remains to be seen to what extent this is caused by wear in the feed screw or the nut. The leadscrew is longer than necessary so adding an extension will hopefully move the nut onto an unworn part. I suspect I will need to make a new nut but have not yet figured out how this is attached.

[smfParticipant @smf]

Thanks for the advice on the tool post. It is on a single T bolt and I've been somewhat cautious tightening it because of the risk of damage to the t slots. I like the idea of a separate block and the rose blocks – I'll look them up.

On the vertical slide, again thank you for the information. Here are some more photos – I hope they help:

Let me know if you need any more.

[smfParticipant @smf]

Thanks for the advice on the tool post. It is on a single T bolt and I've been somewhat cautious tightening it because of the risk of damage to the t slots. I like the idea of a separate block and the rose blocks – I'll look them up.

On the vertical slide, again thank you for the information. Here are some more photos – I hope they help:

Let me know if you need any more.

[Andy CarlsonParticipant @andycarlson18141]

Thanks for the photos of the slide. I think the castings on yours are slightly different so probably not from the same maker but you'd have to look pretty closely to spot the differences. The basic design is pretty much identical to mine, even down to the four screws down one side of the working face and the hole in the middle for the feed screw nut fixing.

I think I see a finer pitched, non square threaded feed screw on yours. Is that original or a modification? Did you ever take the feed screw nut off (and if so, how?).

Regards, Andy

[smfParticipant @smf]

Hi – I'm pretty sure that it's been modified. The feed screw is a fine non-square thread and the nut is the block attached to the base casting – see below. There's nothing fixed to the central hole (which I didn't know was the original nut hole – interesting).

Stephen

[Andy CarlsonParticipant @andycarlson18141]

Thanks Stephen. Sounds like it was a previous owner that did that modification… or maybe it started life as a kit of castings rather than being modified later… although if that was the case you wouldn't expect there to be an unused hole in the middle.

Regards, Andy

[smfParticipant @smf]

The first owner of my lathe was, I understand, a watchmaker/repairer and modified the lathe substantially. I suspect that this is another one of his, but I hadn't realised how much. Having a second almost completely unmodified version to compare it against is interesting. I ought to make a list as I strip down and clean the second lathe.

Stephen

[ChrisCParticipant @chrisc]

Hello All,

Just thought I would drop a thank you to all on this thread, for the wealth of info on here. I've joined the EW club in the last week on the basis of the info here for my first steps into lathe machining.

And of course, like Stephen last year, having just bought one, I went and bought another. There's a lot of rust and crud to clean off this one which also came with the half grandfather clock bolted onto the banjo mounting plate. I think my plan is to eventually set up one for turning & screwcutting and use the other for milling – though I'll need to find or make a boring table for this one.

Many pages ago someone wrote about building an electronic leadscrew rather than faffing around with additional gear chains, did anyone actually do this conversion in the end and have anything learnt?

Best Regards,

Chris.

[Paul White 3Participant @paulwhite3]

You mentioned in your posting the figment of an electronic leadscrew to the EW lathe.

I made and fitted an ELS to an old Dalton lathe. The result was all I could have wanted. The design was by Joe Noci , who was helpful in the extreme getting me through a whole, new to me , technology.

I have had the EW some 70 years since new. The cost of gears at the time of purchase was beyond me, lack of screw cutting capability had played on my mind over the years and with the success on the Dalton an ELS seemed the way to go.

I will send some photos.

Paul

[Paul White 3Participant @paulwhite3]

Photos showing arrangement of structure in fitting an ELS to the EW lathe.

Leadscrew end turned for connection to stepper bevel by use of a sliding single tooth clutch.

Stepper (nemo 23) assembled to recovered angle grinder casting into which suitable bevel gears have been fitted.

Stepper drive mounted and encoder with toothed belt drive from mandrel.

.

Sliding collar clutch for engagement of leadscrew to stepper drive. This arrangement keeps the carriage drive function as existing before ELS .

Control panel

[Jamie McLaughlinParticipant @jamiemclaughlin98399]

Hi everyone,

First post here. I am really happy that this thread still has life!

Last spring I purchased a gap-bed EW lathe from Alan S. here in Norway, with a back gear, 4-jaw chuck and OEM countershaft.

I just wanted to say I have joined the EW owners' club and I look forward to using and modifying this well made machine.

Everything is set up and working well, and I have added the QCTP that Ian uses at Alan's suggestion.

[Jamie McLaughlinParticipant @jamiemclaughlin98399]

This is my current setup, all ready to turn a bit of brass rod. I am currently waiting on a bench grinder purchase so that I can sharpen my turning tools. The bench is a modified EAA Chapter 1000 bench with 2×6 top and a 2mm steel plate bolted between the lathe and the workbench.

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

Nicely set up, Jamie.

One point to note… a contributor much earlier mentioned "self-act". The facsimile literature from Tony Griffiths stresses that the EW is not intended for that in its standard form. Its change-wheels are for screw-cutting "only", and theoretically only to TPI standards.

Yet it did me proud when I used it to make a special CO2 cartridge connector having a non-standard metric thread!

It also came into its own even before I'd mounted it on a bench with motor etc. I needed to make a strainer from PVC pipe, by hand-drilling over 100 holes, with a battery-drill, through a guide-block clamped on the cross-slide; and indexed for both radial and length by sighting to felt-tip pen marks on a large change-wheel.

Long prior to buying a similar QCTP set I made a set of tool-holders from m.s. rectangular bar, to take bits ground from broken or worn-out centre-drills and the like. Though not having the QCTP repeatability it still saves a lot of shim-shuffling at each change.

No-one seems to have the change-wheel guard on theirs. Nor does mine although I have all the rest of the listed extras. It could be that few people bought them new so the ones we find never had one in the first place!

Mine lives on a trolley made from angle-steel topped with a sheet of a very hard material rather like one of the Tufnol SRBP range, an off-cut from a laboratory bench at work. My 18th birthday-present and second-hand then, it too is intended as the "indoor lathe" when the nights are too dark and cold to encourage an expedition to the workshop; but the poor old thing needs some serious attention to bring it back into proper trim.

[IanTParticipant @iant]

Welcome to the EW Owners Club Jamie!

They are very good little machines and I'm sure it will give you very good service. Mine certainly has.

Also apologies to Paul – who posted a very interesting looking ELS mod to his EW (that no one commented on!)

I'm sorry Paul, it must have slipped past me or I would have congratulated you on your efforts much earlier. I will probably stick with my basic lathe but I'd be interested to hear how it's working out and what uses you have found for the ELS.

Regards,

IanT

[Paul White 3Participant @paulwhite3]

Ian, The reasoning in my having produced the ELS for the EW is the fact that I found the ease of changing between Imperial and metric when threading, and the ease of selecting any particular thread so appealing on my Dalton” fitted with Joe Noci’s designed unit, It just seemed natural to spread the capability to the little EW machine.

Fitting the unit to the EW gave several other advantages – a variable speed feed, the ability to engage and disengage the threading function without having to fit a split Leadscrew nut.

With most of the uses the machine is put to being the production of single items this enhanced capacity has certainly eased the use of the EW and makes the lathe a more enjoyable tool to use.

[IanTParticipant @iant]

I can certainly see the attractions Paul but I'm already struggling with my current TUIT list!

Nice job though…

Regards,

IanT

[Jamie McLaughlinParticipant @jamiemclaughlin98399]

I really like the ELS system you have fitted to the lathe, Paul!

I am interested in clockwork (mainly for automata) and am wondering if anyone has any ideas/suggestions for cutting gears using the EW. I know that I would need an indexing head of some kind to bolt to the cross slide, as well as cutters for the teeth.

Any suggestions would be really helpful.

Regards,

Jamie

[Andy CarlsonParticipant @andycarlson18141]

Posted by Jamie McLaughlin on 02/09/2021 07:49:57:

I really like the ELS system you have fitted to the lathe, Paul!

I am interested in clockwork (mainly for automata) and am wondering if anyone has any ideas/suggestions for cutting gears using the EW. I know that I would need an indexing head of some kind to bolt to the cross slide, as well as cutters for the teeth.

Any suggestions would be really helpful.

Most people do gears like that but you need several cutters if you want a range of gear tooth counts…

… you could also do it like this …

[Jamie McLaughlinParticipant @jamiemclaughlin98399]

Oh yeah, I know that I would need several cutters, and am fully willing to go that route – I don't think that that Myford hobbing solution is something I can manage, although it is still very interesting!

All I have is an EW lathe and a cheap drill press. I have considered a bench mill but that is a future purchase after some home renovations. Those renovations, thankfully, will result in a good increase in shop space as the laundry facilities in my home will be moving out of the workshop.

[Justin Bennetts 1Participant @justinbennetts1]

Hello folks !

It's the original Justin here👍

My little EW lathe is still going strong and

I use it weekly.

I will post some pics up (upside down)?

Keep up the good work!

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

IanT-

Will PM you.

I've just been browsing through this thread and saw an information offer you made but for some reason I didn't take up!

[Rael KopingParticipant @raelkoping50776]

HI Chaps

This is my first post, and I would appreciate some advice.

I just bought a little Stringer EW model A. I bought it blind on-line.

It is covered in dust, and has no motor.

I am an absolute novice, and wanted to use it to learn a little about turning metal and cutting threads.

This model has no gears.

I am in South Africa, so these machines are a rarity.

I am wondering if it is possible to still upgrade the machine (purchase change gears, or have them cut or 3-d printed)?

Equally, as a total novice, am I biting off more than I can chew? I am considering selling this lathe on, and waiting for one which is already set up to cut threads..

Frank opinions appreciated

[IanTParticipant @iant]

Hello Rael,

The EW is a small but sturdy lathe, that is capable of very good work. It is not that difficult to make a countershaft and to add a motor to one (I did this for mine when first acquired – see my Album). So I'd suggest you try to get your EW up and running and to try some basic turning with it. If nothing else it will give you a feel for lathe work and may also help you decide what sort of machine work you'd like to do (assuming you haven't settled on that as yet).

For much 'modelling' work, you won't really need change gears, as small screw threading is mostly done using taps and dies. If you do need to screwcut then you wll need a gear quadrant and gears – but they don't need to be original EW ones per-se. Provided that you can tie the heastock to the leadscrew via a gear train, then you can screw cut – although the EW may not be the ideal machine for some work. I use a mandrel handle to screw cut some threads on mine, partly because I've not fitted a dog-clutch to the leadscrew and partly because it is more easily controlled.

Martin Cleeve wrote many ME articles on 'improving' the EW and I'd be happy to let you have scans for your personal use. You may find some inspiration within them. Please PM me with your email if you'd like them.

Regards,

IanT

Edited By IanT on 01/02/2022 14:13:18

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