Lathe Features?

[adamsgt]

Bought a used lathe last year, a 12 X 36 "Rutland" made in Taiwan 1993. Seems to be in reasonable shape. During a luncheon discussion on chambering on Friday our best gunsmith recommended using about 50 rpm in backgear to chamber. I can't seem to find a backgear feature on my lathe. As near as I can tell I have two speed ranges that can be accessed via a two step pulley coming from the motor.

The chart in the skimpy users guide shows that the lowest speed available is 70 rpm.

I can't find any controls that would let me engage a backgear mode. The users manual does discuss this but I don't seem to have any of the controls they talk about. Also, there doesn't appear to be a simple way to change the belt to the other speed range. Don't know if the previous owner decided they didn't ever want to use higher speeds but I would have to remove a thick post holding the motor bracket down to change the belt.

One other thing I can't find is a carriage lock. I see a bolt on other lathes that tightens down but, so far, the only way I can find to lock the carriage is to disengage the leadscrew and engage the half-nuts. That leaves the carriage with a little lateral play.

Any thoughts are welcome.

 

[slugger]

There is no back gear on that lathe- most of the imports I have looked at don't. The only gearing is your change gears for driving the feeds and thread rod.

You will have to either get a VFD to slow it down, change pulleys on the motor drive or use 70 rpm.

 

[MColeman]

To each his own but I regularly chamber at 260 rpm with great success. Seventy is plenty slow enough.

 

[liljoe]

The carriage lock on my Jet is a socket head screw that is on the right side of the apron next to the cross slide. Wondered what is was for a while and did a little looking underneath. Its a pain to have to tighten and loosen, I have been thinking of another way to do this.

Joe

 

[adamsgt]

Thanks for the responses guys, I don't feel quite so stupid now. I thought better of asking this question on Practical Machinist because they seem to think you get what you deserve if you use Chinese iron.

The pulleys are set for the low speed range now so I'll leave them that way.

Thanks Mac, I thought 70 rpm ought to be plenty slow enough.

Joe, I have a socket head screw in the place you describe on my lathe but it didn't seem to do anything when I ran it in or out. I heading for my shop in a few minutes and will play with it some more. Perhaps there's a part missing. Don't know how or what that carriage lock is supposed to engage to lock the carriage. Can't imagine that the screw would just butt against the ways.

 

[liljoe]

Mine is just threaded into a piece of metal that sandwiches the carriage and the ways together. Rather a crude idea, but it does work.

Joe

 

[Ron of Va]

I searched and searched for the Carriage Lock on my Grizzly G4003G lathe. I finally had to call their tech support and asked. They told me it was the cap screw on the front right hand side of the carriage. And so it was.

I snapped some photos during my DRO installation and it is the first one I could find showing the bolt clearly.

 

[nemo999]

That lathe is a gear head and doesn't come with a backgear. Just the two speed pulley. 70 RPM is not bad, just might have to be a little quicker on the draw until you get used to it. Backgears are usually found on older lathes like the Southbends. You can always put in a VFD drive if it's 3 phase and slow it down all the way if you want.

 

[frwillia]

My lathe is much like yours and about the same vintage. Mine happens to go to 36 rpm but you won't have any trouble with 70 rpm. It will work just fine, and for the record, that is the lowest speed on the smaller Grizzly gunsmith lathe as well, and lots of folks use one of those with great results. The general type of lathe you have is actually quite good for home hobby gunsmith work.

The carriage lock bolt on mine is right where it is on Ron's - it operates a clamp that comes up from under neath the edge of the ways and clamps the carriage to the ways.

Your lathe should work quite well for gunsmithing. You can cross drill the back of the spindle like this:

I made brass tips for the bolts:

Some folks use copper and say it will grip better, and it might, but I had brass so that's what I used.

Make a cross slide stop to use for threading like this:

The cross slide stop is very handy because it returns the cross slide to the same place after you retract it to clear the threads on the return and thus allows the depth of cut to be set with the compound.

I took the cross slide off and pattern drilled it in the mill so I could mount things like a rear tool post on it.

You could make one of these to adapt a dial indicator to the tail stock ram:

I found it to be very useful when I cut my first and only ... so far) chamber.

Have some fun making yourself a spider chuck like this:

The spider chuck is optional, but they work great. I used 3/8-24 socket head cap screws in both the spider chuck and the cross drilled spindle.

Then stick a barrel through it like this:

And have at it! Trust me this, none of this tooling is rocket science and making it is fun basic machine work. Think three times, measure twice, cut once, and enjoy it forever.

Fitch

 

[adamsgt]

Joe when I went back to my shop I discovered I was mistaken. I don't have any screws on the carriage near the ways as shown in your picture. Maybe the carriage lock is with the back gears, on some other machine. The one you describe sounds just like one I've seen people make for the 7 X 10 mini lathes. I'll keep searching around the lathe and see if I can discover where it's hiding.

Fitch that end of the spindle looks just like mine. Did you have any issues in drilling and tapping the holes? I had thought about doing that but bought a piece of 3" diameter aluminum pipe to use for an outboard spider. Haven't done it yet so I can still go either way. I also bought an extra D1-4 back plate to make a bedside spider. Butch Lambert sent me a nice chunk of aluminum to add to it. If he reads this he's probably wondering why I haven't got off my butt and made it already. Your other pics show a lot of good ideas. I will shamelessly copy your threading stop. I see you've also got a micrometer carriage stop.

You also mentioned drilling the cross slide:I took the cross slide off and pattern drilled it in the mill so I could mount things like a rear tool post on it.I have a 10 X 54 knee mill so I could do the same but could you expound on your use of that? Like, what is and how do you use a "rear tool post"? Also, what are the dimensions of the hole pattern you drilled?

I've got three new Krieger barrels sitting on the shelf, but they are staying there until I use up the cast off barrels I've got for practice.

 

[frwillia]

Fitch that end of the spindle looks just like mine. Did you have any issues in drilling and tapping the holes? I had thought about doing that but bought a piece of 3" diameter aluminum pipe to use for an outboard spider. Haven't done it yet so I can still go either way.

I made an aluminum spider for the back end of the spindle first.

One day when I took it off I noticed the dimples on the spindle from the set screws that hold it in place. They were perfectly located, so I center punched them and drilled the spindle itself. It allows me to do a barrel over an inch shorter than I can do with the aluminum attachment. The attachment works, but I don't use it anymore.

I also bought an extra D1-4 back plate to make a bedside spider. Butch Lambert sent me a nice chunk of aluminum to add to it. If he reads this he's probably wondering why I haven't got off my butt and made it already. Your other pics show a lot of good ideas. I will shamelessly copy your threading stop. I see you've also got a micrometer carriage stop.

It's from my 9" south Bend. I made a new clamp foot for it and used a longer screw. I move it back and forth between the two lathes as needed.

You also mentioned drilling the cross slide:I took the cross slide off and pattern drilled it in the mill so I could mount things like a rear tool post on it.I have a 10 X 54 knee mill so I could do the same but could you expound on your use of that? Like, what is and how do you use a "rear tool post"? Also, what are the dimensions of the hole pattern you drilled?

The holes are on a 1" grid. I don't remember the size of them. I keep them filled with setscrews to keep the chips out when I'm not using them.

I frequently use a dial indicator on the cross slide. It's crude but it works like a charm. If the DI runs out of range, I just move the magnetic base.

I've got three new Krieger barrels sitting on the shelf, but they are staying there until I use up the cast off barrels I've got for practice.

Roger that.

Fitch

 

[Jay Idaho]

A new gunsmith that I knew was upset that his import would not go slower than 70 rpm. I helped him mount another motor off the back of his lathe. A small pulley from that motor to the larger pulley on the original motor resulted in very slow speed options. The original motor was not powered when in this mode, it was simply a jack-shaft.
The gunsmith later discovered that he could cut chambers just fine at speeds between 120 and 200 rpm.

 

[Big Al]

The speed one chambers with is directly proportional to the comfort of the lathe operator. When a fellow starts out doing chambering work, slow has a lot of appeal and rightly so. As time goes by and the number of jobs you have under your belt increases, it's natural to want to get more aggressive. It all ways starts with the question, "could I get a better finish at higher speed"?

I think this is common for all of us.

 

[adamsgt]

Went back to my shop today to have some lunch and take one last stab at finding a carriage lock. Took a bright led flashlight and looked all around but couldn't find anything. There was a cap screw on the far side of the carriage but previous attempts to tighten or loosen it did not affect the carriage. So, I decided to loosen it all the way and found that it supported a rectangular block of metal that could engage the bottom of the outside rear way, except that it didn't. Having nothing to lose, I removed the screw and block and noticed a ridge of thick gunk along it's surface. Had the thought that this might have caused the block to not engage the bottom of the way. So with a razor blade and cleaner I proceeded to clean up the block.
While I was doing so, my fingernail caught an edge on the surface and on closer inspection I saw that a flat a few thousandths deep on part of the surface. The light bulb was beginning to flicker. In this configuration there was no way the block could hold the carriage. As the hole in the block was off-center, turning it around wouldn't work either. However, if I turned the block upside down and re-installed it, the other totally flat side would now engage the underside of the way and lock the carriage.

EUREKA, I AM SAVED, I NOW HAVE A CARRIAGE LOCK.

Don't know is the machine was made this way or was modified by the previous owner or is just wear. Any thoughts on why you might not want to have the capability to lock the carriage?

The more I think about it, I'll bet it's just wear.

 

[jackie schmidt]

Jerry

Back gear is a term that is not normally used with a gear head lathe. That is a term that is used with belt driven lathes that have an actual drive pin that is dis-engaged so that the spindle can be driven with a set of external gears, usually mounted on a pivot.

Many Gear Head lathes do feature a low and high range. But this is a distinct lever that you change. The low range generally has heavier gears for more torque transfer.

Your lathe has a three lever system, but not a true "backgear'.



Incidentally, those little Rutlands are quite nice.......jackie

 

[nemo999]

Have some fun making yourself a spider chuck like this:

Do you get enough grip with those 4 brass headed screws to do a complete cutoff and crowning?
Looks easy enough to make with any suitable backplate.

 

[frwillia]

Do you get enough grip with those 4 brass headed screws to do a complete cutoff and crowning?
Looks easy enough to make with any suitable backplate.

I did my cutting on a bandsaw. I've not tried to part anything off that was held in the spider chuck. After cutting, I aligned it in the spindle and crowned it.

When I set it back I cut the old chamber off with the bandsaw, then faced it, chamfered it, threaded it, reamed the chamber and polished the chamber with it in the spider. I have the same size screws on the spider on the other end of the spindle so there are really 8 brass tips available to provide drive torque.

I take light cuts and it works just fine.

Fitch

 

[beachlynn]

rutland 2649-1190 manual

Bought a used lathe last year, a 12 X 36 "Rutland" made in Taiwan 1993. Seems to be in reasonable shape. During a luncheon discussion on chambering on Friday our best gunsmith recommended using about 50 rpm in backgear to chamber. I can't seem to find a backgear feature on my lathe. As near as I can tell I have two speed ranges that can be accessed via a two step pulley coming from the motor.

The chart in the skimpy users guide shows that the lowest speed available is 70 rpm.

I can't find any controls that would let me engage a backgear mode. The users manual does discuss this but I don't seem to have any of the controls they talk about. Also, there doesn't appear to be a simple way to change the belt to the other speed range. Don't know if the previous owner decided they didn't ever want to use higher speeds but I would have to remove a thick post holding the motor bracket down to change the belt.

One other thing I can't find is a carriage lock. I see a bolt on other lathes that tightens down but, so far, the only way I can find to lock the carriage is to disengage the leadscrew and engage the half-nuts. That leaves the carriage with a little lateral play.

Any thoughts are welcome.

This is an old thread but here goes. I need a manual for a Rutlkand 2649-1190 that I inherited. My friend says he can get it working if I can find a manual. Any change of a scan of the manual
to my email???