Victorian lathe rescue.

[t8hants]

Years ago, when my heart ruled my head, I saved this Victorian lathe from the scrap man. It is a unique Hodgson of Cleckheaton, lathes.Co had never heard of it before my example. It is a 6” x 32” over the ways, with gap. Most of the important parts seem Ok, but my lathe knowledge is from school and two weeks at apprentice collage as work experience. there have been several mods done over the years, so someone used it. I am out of my comfort zone on this one, but as most lathes are now beyond my limited pocket, I might as well see what I can do with the ‘in house’ model.

My plan, based entirely on ignorance is to eventually get a brushless motor to give me variable speed control, as at some time in its past the machine has had the flat-belt pulley removed and replaced with a twin V belt version and I don’t have a lot of room for a complicated system at the back. I am hoping some kind soul on here will agree to be my mentor, so I can bounce my ideas off them and be told why they won’t work and guide me through the electrical side of things as that is also a black art to me.

 

[MARK.B.]

Would be very nice to see that little beauty brought back to lifeplease post pics if you can

 

[dickm]

That comfortably pre-dates by a long margin the flat bed Drummond I once had, but it looks as if it will be a real beauty, with decent capacity, once you've cleaned it up. There's nothing very complicated about them; take lots of pics, soak everything in proprietary easing fluid, or diesel if that's what you've got, then dismantle carefully. Clean everything, start to reassemble and test for play at each stage. If any of the slideways are worn, you can even flat them with a scraper and lots of sweat!

 

[t8hants]

That comfortably pre-dates by a long margin the flat bed Drummond I once had, but it looks as if it will be a real beauty, with decent capacity, once you've cleaned it up. There's nothing very complicated about them; take lots of pics, soak everything in proprietary easing fluid, or diesel if that's what you've got, then dismantle carefully. Clean everything, start to reassemble and test for play at each stage. If any of the slideways are worn, you can even flat them with a scraper and lots of sweat!

My Father had a little Drummond, with the lead screw up the middle of the bed. Nice little machine, but I wasn't allowed to touch it. Once when much swearing could be heard coming from its direction my mum enquired what was wrong, dad couldn't get a tool to cut. Mum took it, looked at it, dressed on dad's small DE grinder, gave it back to him with it cutting like a knife through butter. Mum had learnt her lathe work during the war and I learnt years later was VERY good at it.

 

[Fergie 307]

Take lots of pictures when you take it apart. If you can lay out the parts in order like an exploded drawing and take a picture of that. You don't want to find yourself down the road in that, "where does that go" moment. A wire brush can be good for removing the rust, just remember particularly if you are using a powered wire wheel you need to take the edge off it. Run the brush against an old file, or a piece of scrap metal to dull the edge on the bristles. Then it won't scratch the surface, but has a more burnishing action. Also good to lubricate it, I use diesel, just a wipe with an old brush from time to time, can be messy but makes a big difference to the finish you get on the parts. Citric or Phosphoric acid are both good for removing rust from parts that can't easily be cleaned in other ways, or grit blasting for the parts that don't have important machined surfaces. Nice old machine will be good to see it brought back into use. And when you come to paint it, Paragon Paints do a big range of colours in very good quality machine tool paint. Good luck with it.

 

[Bradscopegems]

Sorry to be the negative voice, but I would think very hard before embarking on a refurb of this truly ancient lathe. Do you want to acquire a decent working lathe cheaply? If so, refurbishing this one is not wise. After you have cleaned off the rust and lubricated and reassembled, the lathe may not have the required rigidity to produce good surfaces and the bearings are likely to be worn. A suitable motor with speed control is not cheap. There seems to be no tailstock with the lathe, and making one from scratch is, I would guess, beyond your current machining capacity. The host of accessories that are now available for lathes are unlikely to fit: for example, you would have to make a special adaptor to fit a chuck on what looks like a non-standard splined spindle. An enthusiast with immense skill could no doubt overcome these difficulties, but it would need modern machines and much knowledge. If you need a mentor do not try to do this.
I suggest you clean it up, perhaps de-rusting electrolytically, use Isopon, suitable dark green paint and a lot of handwork with wet and dry paper and then put it on eBay: someone may buy it as a collectable antique for a pub decoration, and you can put the money towards a modern lathe. Some may sneer, but the value you get from an imported Far Eastern lathe purchased from Warco or another UK supplier is fantastically good for the price, and since it will have standard Morse tapers and other interfaces, you can add tooling over the years. I recommend 'Blondihacks' on YouTube for a nice friendly introduction to machining: the explanation of how to use a DRO is brilliant, and should be viewed by anyone reaching that stage of lathe sophistication.
Finally, do not even start to run that lathe without a metal cover over the gears. The open gearbox could be literally lethal.

 

[t8hants]

Sorry to be the negative voice, but I would think very hard before embarking on a refurb of this truly ancient lathe. Do you want to acquire a decent working lathe cheaply? If so, refurbishing this one is not wise. After you have cleaned off the rust and lubricated and reassembled, the lathe may not have the required rigidity to produce good surfaces and the bearings are likely to be worn. A suitable motor with speed control is not cheap. There seems to be no tailstock with the lathe, and making one from scratch is, I would guess, beyond your current machining capacity. The host of accessories that are now available for lathes are unlikely to fit: for example, you would have to make a special adaptor to fit a chuck on what looks like a non-standard splined spindle. An enthusiast with immense skill could no doubt overcome these difficulties, but it would need modern machines and much knowledge. If you need a mentor do not try to do this.
I suggest you clean it up, perhaps de-rusting electrolytically, use Isopon, suitable dark green paint and a lot of handwork with wet and dry paper and then put it on eBay: someone may buy it as a collectable antique for a pub decoration, and you can put the money towards a modern lathe. Some may sneer, but the value you get from an imported Far Eastern lathe purchased from Warco or another UK supplier is fantastically good for the price, and since it will have standard Morse tapers and other interfaces, you can add tooling over the years. I recommend 'Blondihacks' on YouTube for a nice friendly introduction to machining: the explanation of how to use a DRO is brilliant, and should be viewed by anyone reaching that stage of lathe sophistication.
Finally, do not even start to run that lathe without a metal cover over the gears. The open gearbox could be literally lethal.

As best I can tell at this moment the spindle nose is in 1,3/8" BSW, not common, but not that rare. I would make my money back by simply scraping the stack of change wheels as they are phosphor bronze and huge. As best I can tell a reasonable Warco starts at about £800. My lump is paid for and I have a selection of 1 or 2HP standard motors to get it turning before I consider more technically advanced options. Living on the IoW all machine tools go for a premium, because they have to be dragged across the Solent, which also puts up the price of the Warco or any used lathe of similar ilk. I am not throwing hundreds of pounds at the old lathe at the moment, I doubt whether it would even be dozens. My thoughts are a slow refurbishment, see if I can get it spinning without too much complicated counter-shafting and then I will be able to see how good or bad it is. Like most lathes of the period there are no indexing collars on the cross-slides and there is some backlash, but its not as bad as on the Mk1 Zyto lathe I have inherited, but that is a very delicate little machine.

 

[Fergie 307]

If your aim is to get a working machine, then start by having a good look at the bedway and so forth, and see how worn it is. You can soon clean up the various sliding parts to get a good idea of how badly worn it is. Likewise the bearings. Can't tell from your pictures what bearings it has, but will not be a big issue in all probability. If they are race bearings then replacements will be fairly cheap. If it has phosphor bronze bushes, then they can be replaced, although they are often perfectly ok even on machines as old as this. Have a look on lathes.co.uk, a mine of information. No reason at all why it shouldn't be perfectly useable, but you need to be the judge of whether it will do what you want. I very much doubt you will have any issues with rigidity! As for the Chinese machines, they are only good value of you have not got the time or knowledge to source, maintain or repair a decent old machine. If you look at their machines in the £4-5k region then if you know what you are doing, or can get someone who does, you can buy a good old M300 or similar for that money. Might be cosmetically challenged, so not as pretty as your shiny new Warco, but will run rings round any of their Chinese machines in terms of accuracy, quality and pleasure to use, and will still be going strong long after the Warco has worn out. I was amazed by how much backlash they have, and this on a machine on their stand at a show, where you would have thought they would have shown the best they had. Bottom line is if you buy from Warco or similar then you are getting a machine made in China, and shipped around the world, and sold to you at a handsome profit for say £4k. Makes you wonder what it actually cost to make? Buy a twenty year old Harrison or similar and you are getting an industrial quality machine, which will have cost it's original owner the equivalent of over £20k. The materials used are of better quality, the attention to detail in the design is superior, and the build quality is in another league altogether.

 

[dickm]

My Father had a little Drummond, with the lead screw up the middle of the bed. Nice little machine, but I wasn't allowed to touch it. Once when much swearing could be heard coming from its direction my mum enquired what was wrong, dad couldn't get a tool to cut. Mum took it, looked at it, dressed on dad's small DE grinder, gave it back to him with it cutting like a knife through butter. Mum had learnt her lathe work during the war and I learnt years later was VERY good at it.

Love that tale! Guess your dad's machine was the round-bed version. My Drummond was a hardly used flat-bed which I spotted in the conservatory of the house next to the one from which we were buying a car for Mrs M. and it was certainly more accurate than the beat up ML7 with which I foolishly replaced it!
In response to another comment from the OP, lack of graduations needn't be a complete pain. If you are working precisely, you'll need to be measuring regularly and wouldn't just bung on an extra 5 thou on the graduations! But if you want to graduate the handles, you'll probably find one of those lovely change wheels has the right number of teeth (or a multiple thereof) to use for indexing. Did that with an old, unbranded pre-war beast on the request of the guy who bought it off me.
Assume the OP's machine has a tailstock. Missing that would be a real pain.

 

[t8hants]

Love that tale! Guess your dad's machine was the round-bed version. My Drummond was a hardly used flat-bed which I spotted in the conservatory of the house next to the one from which we were buying a car for Mrs M. and it was certainly more accurate than the beat up ML7 with which I foolishly replaced it!
In response to another comment from the OP, lack of graduations needn't be a complete pain. If you are working precisely, you'll need to be measuring regularly and wouldn't just bung on an extra 5 thou on the graduations! But if you want to graduate the handles, you'll probably find one of those lovely change wheels has the right number of teeth (or a multiple thereof) to use for indexing. Did that with an old, unbranded pre-war beast on the request of the guy who bought it off me.
Assume the OP's machine has a tailstock. Missing that would be a real pain.

No it was a little flat bed like this one, a 1906 model It has a tailstock, its just not in the picture.

 

[dickm]

Not seen that little beauty before. Amazing the variety of excellent machines Drummond made. When you think that Myford, who swallowed them up, really only made two basic models in half a century.
Glad you have the tailstock; that WOULD have been a fabrication nightmare!

 

[t8hants]

Love that tale! Guess your dad's machine was the round-bed version. My Drummond was a hardly used flat-bed which I spotted in the conservatory of the house next to the one from which we were buying a car for Mrs M. and it was certainly more accurate than the beat up ML7 with which I foolishly replaced it!
In response to another comment from the OP, lack of graduations needn't be a complete pain. If you are working precisely, you'll need to be measuring regularly and wouldn't just bung on an extra 5 thou on the graduations! But if you want to graduate the handles, you'll probably find one of those lovely change wheels has the right number of teeth (or a multiple thereof) to use for indexing. Did that with an old, unbranded pre-war beast on the request of the guy who bought it off me.
Assume the OP's machine has a tailstock. Missing that would be a real pain.

The bearings are gun metal rather than roller, this is a close up of the headstock. It also has two arms which face rearwards to mount a some sort of support for the spindle for back pressure when cutting, but the original was missing and all I got was a rusty piece of 3/8 plate across it. It seems to have been a feature on lathes of the period.

 

[Fergie 307]

There's usually a thrust washer behind the index on the front of the spindle. I can see a bronze washer between the index and the front of the headstock, that's probably part of it.

 

[WoodMangler]

My very first lathe looked a lot like your Hodgson, but with an R D Melhuish label. I found a picture of mine in an old Melhuish catalogue of 1893, so definitely Victorian. I believe Melhuish was to a large extent a 'badge engineer' - perhaps Hodgson was too, and both lathes came from the same actual manufacturer ? (probably not Taiwan though ). Mine was treadle powered, and I made my first steam engine (a Reeves 'Trojan') on it - it's how I learned about the importance of keeping tools sharp... It finally went to a local chair-bodger, who wanted it to make some brass bits on some of his products - and it was already 100 years old by then !

 

[t8hants]

My very first lathe looked a lot like your Hodgson, but with an R D Melhuish label. I found a picture of mine in an old Melhuish catalogue of 1893, so definitely Victorian. I believe Melhuish was to a large extent a 'badge engineer' - perhaps Hodgson was too, and both lathes came from the same actual manufacturer ? (probably not Taiwan though ). Mine was treadle powered, and I made my first steam engine (a Reeves 'Trojan') on it - it's how I learned about the importance of keeping tools sharp... It finally went to a local chair-bodger, who wanted it to make some brass bits on some of his products - and it was already 100 years old by then !

George Hodgson was a large maker of spinning machines and weaving looms winning gold medals for their designs. My guess is, this lathe was made in house for their own use, which is why nobody has ever heard of it and I seem to have the only known example, but I am sure they copied a design they liked or were already using.

 

[Sandyn]

What a fantastic machine. Well done for rescuing it. It's the same pic as on Lathes and co website, so I guess you have already spoken to them. Will be interesting to see your restoration.

 

[EdToo]

I'm in a similar situation to you. I recently bought a Selig Sonnenthal that looks very similar to yours. It was in a rough shape with siezed parts, bad paint job and missing teeth on the feed screw. It was treadle powered but the treadle had been removed some time in the past and it must have been powered by something behind it as there is evidence of belt rubbing on the back gear spindle.

My plan is to power it with a treadle mill motor. I got a complete treadmill on ebay for £25. It contains a second motor to raise the running platform angle that I might use to turn the lead screw.

 

[t8hants]

A very similar machine and about the same size and it too has the 'outward mounted thrust bearing' of the period. You must keep me and the others informed of your progress and the success of using the treadmill motor. Pictures and write up please, pictures and write up.

 

[dickm]

Just watched the video of that little Drummond and was surprised to see it used a V-belt drive. Would have expected flat belt that early in the century. Did wonder if it was a conversion, but there probably wasn't room for a triple flat-belt in the headstock.

 

[t8hants]

Just watched the video of that little Drummond and was surprised to see it used a V-belt drive. Would have expected flat belt that early in the century. Did wonder if it was a conversion, but there probably wasn't room for a triple flat-belt in the headstock.

Converted from leather round belts like treadle sewing machines use.