Ward No1A lathe

[Thomas CarterParticipant @thomascarter99715]

Hi everyone, Im new here. Yet to start doing any model engineering, although I am doing a maintenance engineering apprenticeship here in New Zealand.

I recently came into a Ward No1A lathe in very good condition, looks like its hardly been used. Im currently setting it up and swapping out the motor for a single phase one, but I also want to change the oil in the gearbox. It says to use an acid free mineral oil of medium fluidity. So far Im leaning towards an ISO 46 or ISO 68 hydraulic oil but does anyone here have any better suggestions?

Also any further information on these lathes, things to look out for, tips and tricks, manuals etc would be greatly appreciated

Cheers

Thomas

[Thomas CarterParticipant @thomascarter99715]

[Ady1Participant @ady1]

bumpy wumpy

[Andrew TinsleyParticipant @andrewtinsley63637]

Lathes.co.uk list the Ward lathes. I think the 1A is from the 1940s . Not many people on this site have a capstan lathe, so you may be have some difficulty in finding someone who can help.

Best of luck,

Andrew.

[Robert Atkinson 2Participant @robertatkinson2]

ISO42 or 68 is pretty standard and shoud be OK.
Have you considered a VFD rather than single phase motor?

Robert.

[colin branniganParticipant @colinbrannigan54160]

Many years back we used a straight mineral oil for all machine gearboxes including 1, 2, 3 and 7A Ward capstans probably an SAE 40 oil, it all came from a 1000 gallon tank with a label on it saying General Lubricating Oil.

Nice to work on, well nicer than Herbert capstans, that's only my opinion. most had War Finish tags on them, they were still running when new company management decided to shut the machine shop and contract it all out that was 1990ish.

Colin

[Thomas CarterParticipant @thomascarter99715]

Cheers guys,

I had thought about a VFD, that was going to be my first option until I found that the motor could only be run on 400 – 440V, our standard domestic supply is 230-240V so that was no longer an option. A single phase 3hp motor will be fine and easy enough to get here.

Theres no war tags on my lathe, looks to have been purchased new here in NZ and forgotten about. Looks to have barely been used. The previous owner bought it off an old engineering firm that was shutting down in the 1990s, and he barely used it at all. Once I get a 3 and a 4 jaw chuck for it Ill be away. Will make a morse taper tool holder for the turret, will bore it with the tools in the chuck so that it is concentric to the spindle bore. Ill upload some pics once I convert them to JPEG

[Ady1Participant @ady1]

Nice

[Ady1Participant @ady1]

Going by the handle sizes the turret was very reliant upon manpower grunt

maybe you got a better feel for the cut with direct drive

[Thomas CarterParticipant @thomascarter99715]

[Martin Johnson 1Participant @martinjohnson1]

Some people would view it as an instrument of torture, watch "Saturday night and Sunday morning" if you dont believe me. I can remember that by early afternoon the coolant fug over the capstan shop was so thick you couldn't see the far end.

Despite that a really useful and versatile tool. In later years many spares orders for 1 off were turned out on capstans – easier to set a capstan than disrupt a run on CNC lathes.

Enjoy, but not by chasing production bonus.

Martin

[brickyParticipant @bricky]

I bought a Ward 2A as it was availiable ,to turn the rear wheels on my 2" Burrell as the ML10 I had at the time couldn't acommodate them.It had a 5Hp single phase motor on it and when switched on, one had to creep the clutch in otherwise the whole house would shut down. When I had finished with useing it I advertised it in the local paper and a local firm came to try it,They bought it for what I paid for it 400gbp .I left them to load it on their lorry and we got a phone call as they were loading from a firm in melton who wanted it and wanted to give substantionally more than I had just sold it for.I had to tell them that it had gone.This was in 1986 so there must have been a use for it.

Frank

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

It's a capstan lathe, ideal for certain types of repetition work, where up to six different cutting operations are performed in sequence by rotating the capstan. They're really for churning out multiple copies of the same part in a jiffy, but can be used conventionally too.

Things to watch out for: these are production machines, likely to have been worked hard. Bed wear is to be expected, because most saddle movement occurs near the chuck, where it develops a trench that eventually upsets accuracy. The saddle grinds out a sloping cavity in the bed, and sinking into it alters the cutter height.

There's a suggestion of bed wear in the photo, might just be grubby:

How much bed wear matters depends on what the lathe is used for. In a production setting, the lathe would be taken out of service as soon as it failed to meet tolerances (which could be slack or tight). Depending on the economics, the bed might have been reground (only possible a few times), the machine moved to less demanding work, or scrapped.

In their day capstan lathes were usually worked to death, but CNC changed the rules of the game. CNC meant that many manual lathes and mills were either sold in good nick, or became second-fiddle for short simple production runs were setting up CNC wasn't worth the effort. So used much less heavily than in the past. As time passed, setting up CNC got slicker and quicker, making it ever less likely that a capstan lathe would be thrashed. Eventually the shop might decide they needed the space more than the machine, and a capstan lathe in good order would become available for far less than it cost new. The condition of a second-hand machine depends on its history.

The amount of wear can be gauged with a straight edge, but I think using the lathe to cut metal is a better test. A manual operator can often adapt to the shortcomings of a badly worn machine and still do good work. Slight or moderate wear may not matter at all because home-workshops rarely work to tolerances.

Dave

[RainbowsParticipant @rainbows]

Having something with the work envelope capacity of a 7×14 mini lathe but the depth of cut capacity of a Colchester Mastiff sounds like an unusual but enjoyable time.

[Thomas CarterParticipant @thomascarter99715]

I got very lucky with this one, theres next to no wear in the bed. What you see in the photo is just oil. Theres no tight spots, backlash is next to non existent. There is even a good deal of the original paint left in the swarf tray! I would guess that it spent most of its life in the back corner of a workshop gathering dust instead of being used and abused

[JAParticipant @ja]

Thomas

What an interesting lathe. I have never used a capstan or turret lathe although fellow apprentices who could not budget their money got employement on nights at such lathes (invariably they were chucked off the apprenticeship at the end of their first year).

Use the hydraulic oils you suggest. There is also ISO 32 which may be easier to get than ISO 46. I think the ISO 68 should be a sticky slideway oil. I guess you are wise enough to avoid car/motorcycle olis of any type.

My feeling is that you are on your own. However one forum member, Andrew Johnston, is well experienced at using industrial machine tools. Looking at your photographs and http://www.lathes.co.uk it appears not to have a lead screw. If so this will limit the use of the lathe. I hope I am wrong.

All the best with the lathe

JA

[BazParticipant @baz89810]

JA most capstan lathes used Coventry dieheads in the turret for threading, if a rolled thread was required something like a Fette rolling head was used.

[Thomas CarterParticipant @thomascarter99715]

Yea there is no lead screw but thats ok. Ill be able to work around that. If I need to cut threads Ill get a coventry box or use a tailstock mounted floating die nut holder. I also have access to a proper centre lathe at work if I need it. I should be able to do most of what I want or need with it though. Ill be able to just use a range of different turning tools and high speeds to get good finishes on turned parts. Im going to fit a DRO to it at some point just to help make it easier to do accurate work fast

[JellyParticipant @jelly]

Posted by Thomas Carter on 14/04/2023 21:28:41:

Yea there is no lead screw but thats ok. Ill be able to work around that. If I need to cut threads Ill get a coventry box or use a tailstock mounted floating die nut holder. I also have access to a proper centre lathe at work if I need it. I should be able to do most of what I want or need with it though. Ill be able to just use a range of different turning tools and high speeds to get good finishes on turned parts. Im going to fit a DRO to it at some point just to help make it easier to do accurate work fast

If you fit a DRO, consider fitting a 3-axis display and two read heads onto the z-axis scale (which might entail buying an additional short scale just to cannibalise the read head), so Z1 is the carriage position and Z2 is the turret position.

By giving yourself a separate z-axis readout for the turret you will both:

• Make it easier to use it accurately for one-off jobs without having to set the stops/tool positions
• Make it easier to set the stops/tool positions for any parts you do want to make multiples of, because you can use the DRO to directly measure without needing to make setting gauges or use stacks of gauge blocks

Reducing the amount of time and effort to set up the machine to do multiple parts could be a bit of a game changer for a hobbyist.

This said I am not sure turret position stops are universal, the one turret lathe I have run had a bar along the back of the bed with 4 adjustable length stops on it, which could be indexed to engage (or not engage) with a dog attached to the turret.

My toolroom lathe has two similar attachments (for carriage and cross slide) and they're a godsend sometimes, even with a DRO fitted.

[Author]

Posts