Stringer EW lathe

[Rael KopingParticipant @raelkoping50776]

@IanT thank you very much for your prompt and encouraging response!

I actually went yesterday to take delivery of the lathe, and discovered that it comes with a box of assorted gears etc.

I will browse through the threads of this excellent group and hopefully figure out how to assemble it

First challenge though…I must still tell the wife that I have bought it, and she will have to park her car elsewhere as there is no more space in the garage!

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

The photos should give enough information for assembly.

The "assorted gears" are, or should be, the change-wheels; but note that they can't be set up for fine feeds. The EW manual (I have one of the lathes.co photocopies) stresses they are for screw-cutting only. If you need add further, or replacement, gears be careful to match the wheels by pitch and pressure-angle. Or use a set of its own and not mix them.

The lathe should be driven via a counter-shaft and hopefully what you have bought includes the original shaft, pulleys and frame. A third- or quarter-horsepower motor of about 1440 rpm, with a 3 or 4 : 1 primary pulley reduction, as I have on my EW lathe, is about right.

I would advise setting it up as original, certainly until having become experienced with it; and definitely before trying to modify it.

A tip regarding clamping anything to the saddle T-slots: they are fairly fragile so T-bolts are safer for it than nuts and studs, or use a T-bar with studs ensuring as with all T-nuts and studs on any machine, the studs cannot reach the floor of the slot.

As on other lathes, when engaging the back-gears and change-wheel, give them a slight clearance by nipping a piece of thin paper between the teeth while tightening the clamps.

Tooling? You will find as many arguments on this Forum about HSS / carbide inserts as there are insert types. I.e.. lots and lots, often based on the carbides' ability to run at very high speeds being translated into needing do that. I use both on my Myford and Harrison lathes, but really, stick with HSS (even high-carbon steel!) tools for the EW. They are low-cost, relative easy to sharpen to give very good results, and well suited to this machine's modest feed and speed limits.

[Rael KopingParticipant @raelkoping50776]

Wow, awesome advice @Nigel Graham 2. I seem to have the pulleys, but the shaft and frame are missing.

The saddle is currently clamped with nuts and studs, and I did get some HSS cutting tools to experiment with.

It did not come with a specific motor, but I picked up two in the shop to try…it should not be hard to get a 1/3 hp motor alternatively.

thank you – I am starting to feel a little less overwhelmed.

[Jamie McLaughlinParticipant @jamiemclaughlin98399]

Hi everyone,

Unfortunately, late last year I received some bad news – Alan Smith, a model engineer who was active on this forum previously and was a real evangelist for the EW Lathe, has passed. He was a friend and a mentor of sorts, and while it is sad for me and those of us who knew him he lived a very full life.

I just thought some of you might appreciate the news.

Jamie

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

That is sad news indeed, and I send my condolences. Thank you for telling us, Jamie.

''''''

It's reminded me too that I must get on and overhaul my EW lathe; whose spindle and headstocks are fairly badly worn. It is my first lathe, 18th Birthday present from my parents. Dad had bought it complete with all the Official Accessories except the change-wheel cover, from someone at work.

[Jamie McLaughlinParticipant @jamiemclaughlin98399]

Hi Nigel – Thank you. When you do overhaul the EW I would really love to hear about how you are doing it!

Alan set mine up before I purchased it from him, and it runs like a dream. I am missing a three jaw chuck (and backplate), the threading gear set and the vertical slide, so if anyone who watches this thread has any of those and are looking to get rid of them, I would very much appreciate it if you would let me know! I love this little lathe and it surprises me all the time how much it can do.

One of my dream projects is to make an automaton using the EW for the clockwork.

[Howard LewisParticipant @howardlewis46836]

The danger with using T nuts and studs is that of the stud passing bthriugh the T nut and trying to jack up the top ,of the T slot.

Casst iron being relatively weak in tension, it will break.

So T bolts are bthe safest way to go.

If studs and nuts are unavoidable, centre punch the underside ot the T nut so that the stud cannot pass through to contact the bottom of the T slot.

Don't know the EW, but being fairly old, trhe bearings may not be ideally suited for the speeds that optimise carbide tips.

So probably safest to stick with HSS tooling..

Also a short HSS toolbit will ,probably cost abouit the same as just one carbide tip, and can be reground several times after the shops are shut, and that was the last carbide tip you had in stock!

Howard

[Nigel McBurney 1Participant @nigelmcburney1]

My first lathe was an EW bought s/h some 60 years ago, in those days carbide tooling was not used very much if at all on small lathes,especially on lathes with plain cast iron mandrel bearings which had a single split with adjusting/clamping screw,and the lubrication was via simple countersunk drilled holes,no wicks or drip feed lubricators ,this type of bearing with crude lubrication is not suitable for high speeds,and in fact my lathe came with a lot of carbon steel tools,in fact my lathe had some scoring on the spindle yet no marks in the bearings,some advice from my employer at the time was dont buy any more carbon tools only use HSS and he also told me that poorly lubricated bearings usually result in damage to the steel spindle, At the time I was using a Boxford at work and soon found the EW a pain in the b/side as there were no half nuts,I was 19 at the time and never thought about doing the half nut conversions that have been done in recent years, finishing my apprenticeship and two job changes I bought an ML7 and cheerfully waved the EW goodbye,

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

The advice on T-nuts and bolts of course applies to any machine-tool but the T-slots on the EW's broing-table and vertcial-slide are quite fine. I have made T-bolts as a square of steel with a stud screwed into it right to the limit of the thread, then faced flush.

The bearings such as they are, are not separate components. The un-hardened steel spindle runs directly in the line-bored headstock castings. Similarly with the countershaft and its journals. Keep them well oiled.

There is nothing wrong with using carbide tips at fairly low speeds but HSS tooling is a lot more economical on light lathes running at modest speeds. In fact when the EW lathe was introduced a lot of model-engineers would have been using carbon-steel tools, sometimes made from worn-out files.

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I've a few tool-holders made from oddments of rectangular m.s. bar drilled to take little cutters ground from broken HSS tools and the like, gripped in place by grub-screws. Not a quick-change system but I can see a very simple and obvious way to make them such, using the top-slide edges to locate small fences milled in or screwed onto the blocks.

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If you have a vertical slide for your EW lathe, don't rely just on its single T-bolt.

I made a pair of substantial L-shaped blocks, in mild steel; one each side is then held to the boring-table by its own pair of T-bolts so the "L" legs act as back-stops to take the rotary load imposed on the assembly in use.

I square the VS to the table by lowering it below the table surface then gently pushing it back to the table while tightening its stud.

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