old round head student 6"

But does the above refer to the lathe or the owner

Cliff Coggin.

Reads like part of an ad in the personals column..."old round head student 6" WLTM universal tool grinder..."

Regards, Tony

There's no need for such Cavalier responses. :-)) Not that this one is any more help to the OP.

Henry

Patrick Hi, it is many years since I regularly took these things apart and poor health precludes me doing much research to remind me (sorry) but a couple of pointers from memory.

If it is a 6" Student with a "round head" it is a Mk1. The Mk2 had a square head; there was a "round head" Mk 1.5 but as far as I remember that was only on the early and much larger Triumph. In any case it was only the Apron that was changed to the Student/Master layout.

While Students were built on an assembly line which resembled a car factory, they were in fact built to order and could be different in detail and spec. On one factory visit (mid/late 60s) I remember a production fitter telling me that they didn't work to the "new fangled" (Ford used it in 1922??) JIT principle we were talking about (students at the time) but actually worked to JTL, after much scratching of our heads and a good deal of laughing on his part, he revealed it was the Just Too Late principle. Good old British mass production? He also told us to look out for black micrometer dials as that indicated a =93toolroom=94 selected machine, I did but never actually found one. Not surprising really as my experience was with machines bought for training use and thus down to the cheapest price.

Anyway back to the point, there is a difference in the aprons of gap and straight bed machines (if you find one =96 I=92ve only ever seen gap bed types) where the handwheel is on different sides, so to be sure, get your spares from a similar machine to your own. I'm sure many of the small parts are interchangeable anyway but at this distance can't remember specifics.

There were various motors fitted, single/two speed and a look at the speed range will give you a clue. It might also give you a clue to the year of your machine as I think early round heads could be 1000rpm and later ones 1200rpm. If you had a posh and rare two speed it would be

1500 ish. My first port of call for a new motor these days would be for at least a 2hp 3 phase driven from a VFD if you haven't got a 3 phase supply available. Much easier to install and you get the benefit of variable speed. All the roundheads I played with were fairly noisy so you might be able to pick the best running spindle gear train and save yourself earache.

Apologies for the limited help but at the moment it is all I can provide. They are good solid machines and spares should be available secondhand. Good luck and have fun.

Regards

Keith

PS If you haven=92t found it Tony=92s Lathe pages are a useful resource for these older machines:

I have never seen a black handwheel version of a Colchester anything,although I know they are supposed to exist.The story goes that they were standard models that turned in better than expected accuracies when being inspected so were given black handwheels and called the toolroom version. There was a 1.5 version of the roundhead Student.Hood in Arbroath has one.I seem to remember the electrical panel sticks out the front quite a bit.He may have a manual.

1200 rpm ones were available in 1964 as I went to a brand new tech which was kitted out with them. Mark.

Patrick/Mark

Had a very quick beer with a friend who worked on them longer than I did, he couldn't remember clearly but thought the roundhead with the "third shaft control" which

Patrick/Mark

Apologies for earlier mistake, I'm struggling with an unfamiliar and stupidly small pc to get access at the moment.

Anyway as I was trying to say, my friend thought the roundhead student fitted with the third shaft control was known as the Mk1.5, he seemed to think that the electrical control panel was different from the basic Mk1 and felt that this safety feature came into use about

1963-4ish -maybe a little earlier. He also could not remember any 1000rpm versions at our training shop but was regularly asked which speed when he ordered spares. As Mark says by the early 1960s Students appeared to be 1200rpm. Just to confirm how rare the black handles are he never saw one either despite installing many Colchesters of all sizes - although he did say a bit harshly that if he ever tried to fob off our toolroom with a Colchester they would have lynched him.

I also forgot to say that the Yahoo Colchester users group has a very useful download in the files section for Student owners.

Best regards

Keith

On 13 June, 11:38, wheelfelloff

Why ? I mean, I guess they are not accurate enough, but what specifically makes them unsuitable ?

in message

you on drugs?????????

well thank you for the very good feed back. got one or two silly ones. you info will help me in getting some spares, mainly the handle, half nut etc for screw cutting.

regards

patrick

wheelfelloff Wrote:

also very good feed back, i'm glad i joined this group and looking forward to my rebuild.

i have cleaned the bed up(no too bad really) i need to regrind the saddle using the part of the bed where the head is bolted to for a master.

regards

patrick

wheelfelloff Wrote:

John, I painted mine black but it didnt work its still crap ;-)

Seriously though they are not bad wee lathes, I used to think they were great until I had a go on a CVA and believe me the difference is night and day. Having said that my wee Student has done me proud and kept wages coming in and still does get used on occasion.

As for the differences, the apron is different from the Mk1 and so called Mk1.5 and according to Tony's site the gears were done on new machinery but as far as I know thats all the difference.

Mine, as Mark said , has the electrical box out front but this was an option, it has what they call Third Shaft Control, ie the lathe doesnt have the normal matrix clutch but instead has a disc brake on the motor. The Stop/Start/Fwd/Rev lever is on the side of the apron and the position in the head where the normal lever was on the standard version is blanked off. Mine has the two speed motor which means

1500rpm top speed as opposed to the 1200rpm of the single speed motors.

I have scanned the manual for it, the manual covers the colt, cub, dime and penny variants of the Student/Dominion. Unfortunately I scanned it in greyscale so it is 173megs but if anyone wants it and their ISP will accept a file that large I have no problem in emailing it.

Hood

Get a news reader rather than using the rcgroups leaches.

Learn to trim posts.

Don't top post.

Regards Mark Rand

John

With all this talk of black dials, what's the odds on a genuine :-) one appearing on stealers paradise in the next few months?

regards

Keith

hi again keith, there are some good 3 phase motors on ebay, what rpm should i be looking at

regards

patrick

wheelfelloff Wrote:

Yes thanks. How about you?

Cliff.

As a matter of fact Patrick you haven't joined anything here. This is Usenet to which anybody can subscribe.

Cliff Coggin.