Satisfaction.....

LOL, So compared with a Monarch EE 1000 @ 7" x 30" and 10,200 lb the CVA is a relative lightweight in more ways than one?

Best you rake your eye patch off, Charles, your partiality is showing. :-)

Tom

Tom, Never mind the size and weight Monarch's are ugly, they look like a roundhead Student, hawk - spit - ding.

-- Regards,

John Stevenson Nottingham, England.

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. .

I've always fancied a long bed Myford, do you think your spare 10ft would bolt straight on?

Peter

Ok, other than swing and bed length, what types of work would be more suited to the CVA, over, say a Holbrook. Smart and Brown or Hardinge of similar spec ?.

I guess that my argument is that CVA, Holbrook, Smart and Brown, Hardinge and others all built the same class of lathe, and despite the slight difference in capacity and weight (a red herring) they would all have been bought for and capable of, the same class of work. Looking through lathes.co.uk website at different machines suggests that there was a fair degree of competition between manufacturers of "toolroom class" lathes, so the differences in performance, repeatability, life and other parameters that define such lathes, is likely to be very small.

Not what I said. Would you use a dsg with a 12 foot bed to do small precision instrument work ?. It may be possible, but it's probably much easier on a machine designed for the purpose.

Perhaps we should start by defining what parameters are important for precision instrument or toolroom work ?...

Touche :-)

Yeah, but Monarch moved on from 1920, whereas Colchester...

Tom

Without wishing to stoke the fire, I guess if all you have is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail :-). Mosty engineering companies i've had anything to do with had a range of lathes to suit different classes of work.

but there's

Very good, but why do you keep a Bridgeport in a cupboard ?. Is it afraid of the light ?...

Chris

Whilst I will grant the advantage of somewhere to stand the teacup, I've always preferred round castings to square ones. A lot of the later square head type lathes look as if Hu Swung Lo has welded a pile of manhole covers together. A good compromise would be the Craven sliding bed lathe at work. It's a square head design, but all the corners have a nice 6" radius :-)

Mark Rand RTFM

No, its afraid of the DARK :-)

Perfectly respectable machines (and H&S inspectors) have disappeared without trace in that stable :-)

Mark Rand RTFM

Machine thicker washers :-)

Jim.

Chris

Since I started this I'll just put my thinking down now I'm less argumentative. I actually reckon that we're in agreement.

First point: I reckon the type and size of work defines the machine needed. I play with vintage cars and that means everything from valve guides to halfshafts may hit the bench. I don't think that I'll get into horology. This sort of work makes a generic "Student sized" lathe useful. It also fits in the back fo a double garage without being too greedy on space. I did once lighten and Austin Seven flywheel on a flat bed Drummond but it's not easy and is beyond the normal duty for the machine. I considered a Hardinge HLV when looking for a "new" lathe but considered it slighly too small for what I might want to do. Equally a 15" DSG would take up too much space.

Second point: Given this definition of the size of lathe the nature of the market for second hand machines means that higher quality machines don't command much, if any, premium these days. The dual benefits of the decline in the industrial economy and depreciation I suppose. Given my level of ability I'll never get the best out of my lathe and a lesser lathe would do just as well but it's nice to have one (see the first post in this thread). Therefore when the debate centres on "define tooroom requirements" I'm not in the discussion. I've never worked in a toolroom and doubt that I ever will. All that I know is when a vendor says "Tool Room Machine" that's the time to get suspicious and would refer anyone to Chapman's "Workshop Technology" Part 3 for some interesting background reading.

Finally: Stevenson needs all that extra TOS bed to keep the floor in place and Tim Leech is only trying to counter balance the weight of machines chez Stevenson in a "trans Pennine" pivot. He's stopping Skegness going underwater. And I'm glad that CVA made their version of the Monarch with the longer bed (30" vs 20") because that way halfshafts fit in nicely!

Charles

The big failing is that you can't get a Frazer Nash back axle up the spout. Still it's my only fault so far oh yes and the 2 MT tail stock. Why so small I wonder. I have also been surprised how much I use the collets to the extent I am considering a collet chuck for the Boxford. What are the negatives on the ER32 system?

I think it's limitations are there specifically so you can't do overloaded and rough arsed jobs on what is primary a tool room lathe.

I do have a 2MT tailstock and a 3MT tailstock barrel for mine.

Only limitations on the ER system is that the Yanks never invented it. They are still stuck with 5C's and the wimpy 110 volt R8.

BTW Arc Euro now sells a 5C to ER 32 adaptor that fits spindle noses and the generic spin indexers so you can get the best of both worlds.

-- Regards,

John Stevenson Nottingham, England.

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Only problem is that ER32 only goes up to 20 mm :-(

Mark Rand RTFM

generic spin

I know, I know and he's you sitting on 7 tonne of 21mm stock :-) There's limits on everything, Myfords go up to 5/8" but you can't get long lengths in...

-- Regards,

John Stevenson Nottingham, England.

Visit the new Model Engineering adverts page at:-

generic spin

I plan to make a D1-3 ER40 chuck, one day when a few more jobs have been ticked off the list. I reckon ER40 is the logical ER size for that size of lathe, unfortunately ER40 stuff always seems to be a lot dearer than 32. Luckily I do have the collets already.

Tim

generic spin

Aksherly, for me, it's more a case of sitting on 90 5C collets in real and foreign sizes and no ER collets. Think I could bore out the ML7 mandrel to fit?

Mark Rand RTFM

the generic spin

lengths in...

Mark, I'm a bit like that but I'm at a bite the bullet moment cos now I like to use collets I have three machines with a 2MT fitment on them so..........

John, the "potential over load argument" was the conclusion that I came to also. Is your 3MT tailstock barrel one of your own making or was it a standard "extra"?

the generic spin

lengths in...

I believe later versions of the Monarch 10EE had a 3MT tailstock. My old 17" DSG has only a 4MT tailstock taper, whereas the TOS SN40 which it replaced had a 5MT despite being a 'smaller' lathe. Bl**dy nuisance, as I had got kitted out with plenty of 5MT stuff :-( I've kept the TOS tailstock quill, it's a bit bigger OD than the DSG so I can turn it down to fit, snag is it's also quite a bit shorter so that'll reduce the nice long tailstock travel on the DSG.

Tim

I think we are in agreement, not so much argumentative, more like prodding a bit :-). I ran classic cars as main transport for years, though never had to make the sort of spares that needed a lathe. For half shaft and brake drum type work, I would have thought a good strong, honest Colchester or other geared head machine would be more suitable. The sort of lathe you can throw rough hard work at every day without complaint. I would almost feel guilty about doing sort of work on a precision lathe, almost like sign of disrespect. It may be able to handle it, but I would know that it was not designed for it, Usually, you can have strength or high precision, rarely both at once, unless you pay aerospace prices.

The work here is primarily electronic design and prototyping and rarely need machine tools for work, but when I do, the bias is always towards small instrument type work - good finish / small shafts and bushes in a variety of metals, including stainless, turning internal and external flanges on 50mm metal / polycarbonate tube etc. There also quite a few "what if" type design projects that a reasonably well equipped workshop expands the scope of. Long bed length might be usefull occasionally, but most work would fit in the first 12" or so of bed length, so long bed length just takes up too much room in an overfilled workshop. Ideally, would have something like a Pultra for the really fine work, but cost considerations dictate compromise.

A good compromise would be a late Smart & Brown model A, but there's a nice looking CVA on Ebay right now at a silly start price that the vendor says "has just been used for turning the bottom off candles". (Don't ask :-) Looks in potentially far better shape than the one mentioned above, but again, most of the accessories are missing.

Engineers are often frustrated perfectionists who want to work with the best tools - engineering integrity they can respect, not be constantly reminded of limitations, so they strive to get the best for the class of work they do. There's also the closet elitist in us that must be accounted for :-). Engineering is always a devils compromise between cost, performance and reliability - pick any two...

Chris