Viceroy T.D.S 1/1 G.B - All finished

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dazz
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Viceroy T.D.S 1/1 G.B - All finished

Post by dazz » Thu 02 Nov , 2006 10:42 am

Hi

The lathe is now all assembled, positioned, levelled and ready for work. The aluminium splash guard (made by a previous owner) is fitted. It takes up very little real estate in my garage and workshop.

The as delivered photos in my first post, and the finished photos below don't show any significant difference on the outside. It's the things you can't see that make the difference. Now that all the gunge is cleaned out and fresh lubricants applied, it runs smoother and quieter. All the controls have a nice crisp action. With a little basic care and maintenance, I have no doubt that this lathe will still be good in another 27 years. I definitely think that the quality of the Viceroy has justified all the time and effort that I have expended. I'd never do this to a Chinese machine.

My only grumble is the rumble the Vee belt drive makes. The whole cabinet resonates and makes enough noise to annoy my wife and the neighbours in the quiet of the night. The low frequency noise propagates too easily. I have replaced the Vee belt but it is still loud.

I am starting to look at a VSD 3-phase motor, or a DC motor (ex-treadmill) conversion. Either option offers the possibility of eliminating the Vee belt drive by mounting the motor in the cabinet under the lathe and driving the link belt directly. This should reduce noise, vibration and provide a better quality finish.

It's likely to be some months before I have the time to complete this type of conversion. For that reason, this is likely to be my last post for a while. It's been fun and interesting completing the refit. I hope my posts have been interesting and useful to readers.
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Regards

Dazz

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Post by Denford Admin » Thu 02 Nov , 2006 14:50 pm

Looks good - aren't you going to paint it ? :wink:

Keep us posted and show us see what your making on it

Cheers

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Post by Mr Magoo » Mon 06 Nov , 2006 5:07 am

Nice work Dazz...

I've enjoyed watching the progress of your referb

Brought back some good old memories

:shock:

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dazz
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Location: New Zealand

Post by dazz » Tue 07 Nov , 2006 7:23 am

Hi

No, I won't be painting it. It's a matter of personal preference, and mine is to leave the paint as-is because its condition includes information about the history of this lathe. I'd equate this to antique furniture which is worth more if it retains its original finish and age induced patina, than good quality new, or refurbished furniture. I have no intention of selling this lathe, but I don't want to do anything that might devalue it.

As for making things, unfortunately, I don't expect to have too much to show in the foreseeable future. I have just signed up to work for a power generation company. I will be the project engineer/manager for the refurbishment of existing power stations, and probably the construction of a proposed new power station here in New Zealand. I won't have a lot of spare time but I will post updates on what ever I am able to do.

Thanks for the interest in my little lathe.
Regards

Dazz

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saddle feed stop

Post by penfold » Thu 15 Mar , 2007 13:34 pm

Could you post some pictures of the saddle stop? I can't picture how it works, but I'd like to make one for my own TDS1. Your story & series of rebuild pics has inspired me to get on with cleaning it up; I bought it in january last year but other than putting it in the shed and wiring it up, it has been neglected. :oops:

Cheers,
David

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dazz
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Hardware/Software: Viceroy TDS 1/1GB lathe, Imperial, stripped down and rebuilt.
Viceroy Taper/Tracer attachment, Shop made cross slide tracer attachment, VSD.
Location: New Zealand

Post by dazz » Fri 16 Mar , 2007 10:31 am

Hi

I have posted an extra photo in the Apron Reassemble posts. The lead screw handle disengaging bar extends from the tailstock end right across the saddle to the headstock side. Image 204 is right-way up with the bar removed. The machined flat on the top edge is where the bar sits. It fits in a gap between the apron and the bed. A stop is clamped to the bed where required.

The right end of the bar is Z shaped with a rack gear. This engages with the gear teeth on the handle. See image 192 to see all the parts. The bar is at the very bottom of the picture.

When the bar hits the stop, the right end of the bar rotates the lead screw handle as the apron moves toward the headstock. The limit adjustment pin sets the limits of the bar travel. When the handle rotates, it spreads the half nuts. It should only take about 6mm travel to disengage the half nuts after hitting the stop.

It's quite tricky to set up. It only works in one direction which is fine if you don't cut left hand threads.

Good luck with your refurbishment. I am no expert, but have no regrets about the effort made on my lathe. It will easily do another 20 or 30 years work.
Regards

Dazz

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Re: Viceroy T.D.S 1/1 G.B - All finished

Post by Greg » Thu 22 Jul , 2010 11:32 am

Hi Dazz, what a work of art. I am now cleaning mine, thanks for the inspiration. Did you post or find any links on how to adjust spindle bearings? Did you ever find a good way to clamp a plate onto the saddle, so that you could mount items to be borred? Thanks. Greg - North Shore, Auckland

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dazz
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Re: Viceroy T.D.S 1/1 G.B - All finished

Post by dazz » Thu 22 Jul , 2010 12:07 pm

Hello

No I didn't find a reference to adjust the bearing pre-load. I devised my own method which is documented on another topic. The worst you can do is wreck the bearings. They are used on Cessna undercarriage and are readily available in Akld.

The lathe came with an extra cross slide with Tee slots. It looks a lot like the Myford version. It is not as big as the Denford boring table, but entirely adequate.



Regards

Dazz
Regards

Dazz

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dazz
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Viceroy Taper/Tracer attachment, Shop made cross slide tracer attachment, VSD.
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Re: Viceroy T.D.S 1/1 G.B - All finished

Post by dazz » Sat 26 Sep , 2015 9:08 am

Hi

Attached is an updated photo of the lathe.
It how has a:
  • shelf,
    electronic variable speed drive,
    bigger 1.2kW motor
    magnifying light,
    adjustable feet and,
    a lot more tooling
Attachments
Photo 1 Lathe (709 x 854).jpg
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Dazz

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Re: Viceroy T.D.S 1/1 G.B - All finished

Post by JohnPDownunder » Tue 01 Nov , 2016 12:52 pm

Hi Dazz,

It is good to see the old T.D.S 1/1 GB lathe has landed in good hands and you have done an excellent job of refurbishing it. I see you have manufactured a number of components on it that look very well made also.

I have just joined the forum after being retired for a few years now and silly me thought I would see what Denfords are doing these days. I served my apprenticeship there in the mid 60's when it was all Centre Lathes, Wood Lathes, Pedestal/Bench Drills and Sharpedge Machines. We used to manufacture a new Lathe every 3-4 days including the hand scraping and frosting of the lathe bed, Head Stock, Saddle, Cross Slide, Top Slide, Tailstock shoe etc and assembly and aligning all the finished components to make the fully assembled and tested lathe ready for despatch. We even wired up the motors and No Volt/overload starter and door switches, 1 man 1 machine till completed.

Now I see it is all CNC Machining Centres and 3D Printing machines still designed for the education field so that has been a lot of progress in the last 46 Years since I moved to Australia.

As I believe you have already found the Viceroy Lathe is a very capable machine for its capacity and with normal maintenance including a few squirts of oil in the lube points if using the machine daily it will serve for many years to come.

Good luck with your future projects, I have enjoyed looking at your work.

Regards, John P

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Re: Viceroy T.D.S 1/1 G.B - All finished

Post by Pete. » Tue 01 Nov , 2016 17:52 pm

Hi John, and welcome.

Thanks for posting, you just answered a question I had been asking myself this week. I just got a 5" Educator which is still faintly showing the half-moon frosting on the tops of the flat ways and I was wondering if that was 'factory' or done later by someone.

I don't know the official designation and it has no plate to tell me but it's a centre lathe with change gears for screw cutting and no powered cross slide. Do you know what the model would be?

Pete.

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dazz
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Viceroy Taper/Tracer attachment, Shop made cross slide tracer attachment, VSD.
Location: New Zealand

Re: Viceroy T.D.S 1/1 G.B - All finished

Post by dazz » Wed 02 Nov , 2016 3:24 am

Hi John
Thanks for the feedback.
I has proven to be a superb machine and one in this condition with so many factory accessories is incredibly rare in NZ.

I have mostly used it for making tools. If I had done an apprenticeship, it probably would have been tool making.

I don't know exactly how old my lathe is but I guess it is possible that you could have built it.

Dazz
Regards

Dazz

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Re: Viceroy T.D.S 1/1 G.B - All finished

Post by JohnPDownunder » Wed 02 Nov , 2016 11:01 am

Pete. wrote:Hi John, and welcome.

Thanks for posting, you just answered a question I had been asking myself this week. I just got a 5" Educator which is still faintly showing the half-moon frosting on the tops of the flat ways and I was wondering if that was 'factory' or done later by someone.

I don't know the official designation and it has no plate to tell me but it's a centre lathe with change gears for screw cutting and no powered cross slide. Do you know what the model would be?

Pete.
Hi Pete,

Thank you for your welcome it is appreciated.

I think the lathe you have will be the T.D.S 1 L/S (Lead screw) if my old memory is still working. There are photos of these in the archive photos on this web site to check if this is your model.

The frosting (or curling as it was sometimes known) was done by hand with the same scraper or a slightly more curved scraper we did the flattening/levelling of the bed and other slide ways with.

This was done after the bedding of the vee's and flats using a bedding level or strong back with shim steel strip to check bend and twist and flatness of surface, we used Engineers Blue (an oil based marking Blue) to give a tell tale impression on the mating surface. The marking blue was applied as a thin coating to the level and when the level was pressed and slid against the surface being scraped it would highlight the high spots on the surface being scraped and we would then scrape the high spots to give a flat surface and keep repeating this process until there was about 85%+ coverage of small high spots to give a bedded and flat surface. This finished scraped surface was then "Frosted" with the scraper pushing the scraper forward and slightly rotating the scraper to give the curled scraped finish. The first pass was approximately at 45 degrees to the longitudinal axis of the slide and the second pass was at approximately 45 degrees in the opposite direction. The finished cross curling gave the "frosted" look to the slide ways but this was not simply for looks it actually broke up the original flat surface to produce small cavities in the surface for oil to be retained in for slide way lubrication. This was done originally by hand so there was never two identical finishes but eventually we were supplied with an electric scraper with Tunsten Carbide replacement blades to quicken both the original slide way scraping but we were also able to use it for the frosting process and this quickened manufacturing considerably.

During assembly the mating surfaces of the saddle and tailstock shoe were bedded using the scraped bed as the master to ensure correct bedding together of the surfaces of these components to the bed.

We used the frosting process on the face of the Head stock purely for looks rather than a plain polished or painted surface.

Hope this helps with some details of the original processes of manufacturing.

Cheers, John P

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Re: Viceroy T.D.S 1/1 G.B - All finished

Post by JohnPDownunder » Wed 02 Nov , 2016 11:42 am

dazz wrote:Hi John
Thanks for the feedback.
I has proven to be a superb machine and one in this condition with so many factory accessories is incredibly rare in NZ.

I have mostly used it for making tools. If I had done an apprenticeship, it probably would have been tool making.

I don't know exactly how old my lathe is but I guess it is possible that you could have built it.

Dazz

Hi Dazz,

We never knew for sure where the finished machines were going except the ones for Export were mostly going through our distributing Agent in the relative country. Some were specifically for a client of the agent and configured with requested accessories but these mainly consisted of the usual 3 and 4 jaw chuck, face plate, travelling and fixed steadies, Tool posts and tool holders, Knurling tools, fixed and revolving centres etc.

Machines for use in the UK and Ireland were mainly ordered for Education and Tech colleges but also by individuals and these were the ones with more specific accessories like the Taper Turning attachment and Milling attachment etc. as well as the standard range of accessories.

Whilst I was in the Lathe Fitting shop there would have been around 8 skilled tradesmen and about 3 or 4 Apprentices going through all the time. Tried to keep the ratio 1 tradesmen with 1 apprentice most of the time. I ended up with an apprentice working with me during my last few years before I left for Australia.

During my time building the lathes, Denford's produced a new brochure for the then new T.D.S. 1/1 GB (Gear box) Lathe and they used one of my finished machines for the Photos for the brochure, so if you have seen the original brochure you have seen one of my finished machines in glorious Black and White photography (I think it is in the archives on this Forum). I was given an original photo of the machine which I think I still have somewhere. ( I still have my original hand scrapers which I brought with me in 1970 and a few other hand tools that have not been used since arriving so are probably well and truly rusty in the old Tea Chest they traveled in)

You probably have not seen one but we did produce a long Bed version of the lathe with a 36" centre distance (against the standard 24"). These were not often produced and only to order, mostly for the UK but a few were sent as export machines. These were a bit of a problem with twisting in the bed if they had not been weathered for long enough outside to go red rusty and normalize correctly before machining, I remember a few beds being scrapped after machining because they twisted so much after being un-clamped off the Bed Mill there was no chance of straightening them by scraping the bed, so back to the foundry for melting down for new cast iron castings although I think it was called "Pig Iron" and used as an additive to a new batch of Cast Iron.

If I can help with anything that may still be in my memory banks (although I have probably forgotten more than I remember) just ask.

Cheers, John P

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Re: Viceroy T.D.S 1/1 G.B - All finished

Post by Pete. » Wed 02 Nov , 2016 11:48 am

Thanks for the input John.

I have a Biax scraper of my own, but not a flaker. The scrapers are hard enough to find but the flakers are hens teeth in the UK. The flaking on my machine was certainly done by hand.

Pete.
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Re: Viceroy T.D.S 1/1 G.B - All finished

Post by JohnPDownunder » Thu 03 Nov , 2016 10:53 am

Pete. wrote:Thanks for the input John.

I have a Biax scraper of my own, but not a flaker. The scrapers are hard enough to find but the flakers are hens teeth in the UK. The flaking on my machine was certainly done by hand.

Pete.
Hi Pete,

Yes the Biax was the Electric scraper we eventually started using for the Frosting (Flaking is a term I do not remember but it was 50 Years ago!!! probably the term the American manufactures used originally)

Before we got the Biax machine we did the Frosting by hand, obviously we got better the more we did and when the apprentices were still learning there was a lot of practice on scrap beds and slides before being let loose on a customers machine, We had a Master of Apprentices in our shop who used to over see the quality of work going through.

The bump/pull method of frosting was not done during my apprenticeship but I suppose it comes down to the methods used by each manufacturer and there skilled tradesmen.

The frosting on the machine used for the Gearbox lathe brochure photos was all done by hand before we first tried the Biax machine. I still have a slight bend in my right hand middle finger from holding the handle of the scraper, fortunately I haven't had to do any scraping for the last 45 years so it hasn't got any worse.

You should get a standard hand scraper (or make one from an old file) and practice on some old cast iron that you can file a flat area on and have a go. There are a number of Videos on YouTube about scraping that give you a good idea of what is generally necessary to produce the frosting especially the bump/pull method and then re do the slides on you lathe to make it look nearly new again (you don't have to fully scrape the bed just the frosting) Look at: Scrapefest 1, Scraping a Bridgport, K & J Scraping Training Video and others

Cheers, John P

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Re: Viceroy T.D.S 1/1 G.B - All finished

Post by Andy B » Thu 03 Nov , 2016 20:32 pm

Hi John,

Welcome to the forum from me too, and thanks for passing on a few tales and some experience.
What can you tell us about the procedures for setting / checking alignment of saddle to centres, and squareness of cross-slide to spindle, etc?
Did you basically rely on the machining to be right, and scraped to give a truly flat & mated surface? Or did you have to do much scraping to get the alignment in spec too?
I've never seen an inspection sheet for Denford machines, although I do have a copy of the one for my Tom Senior mill.

Andy

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Re: Viceroy T.D.S 1/1 G.B - All finished

Post by JohnPDownunder » Sat 05 Nov , 2016 6:40 am

Andy B wrote:Hi John,

Welcome to the forum from me too, and thanks for passing on a few tales and some experience.
What can you tell us about the procedures for setting / checking alignment of saddle to centres, and squareness of cross-slide to spindle, etc?
Did you basically rely on the machining to be right, and scraped to give a truly flat & mated surface? Or did you have to do much scraping to get the alignment in spec too?
I've never seen an inspection sheet for Denford machines, although I do have a copy of the one for my Tom Senior mill.

Andy

Hi Andy,

Thank you for your welcome, it is much appreciated. The questions from you guys on the forum are making the old grey matter work overtime again, so it can't be all bad!!!

A good starting point for you to look at and download for reference, is the Dr Georg Schlesinger information for Testing of Machine Tools. Link is http://totallyscrewedmachineshop.com/do ... inger).pdf

( Edit-- For some reason the link is not working so go through Google for Dr Georg Schlesinger and you will find reference to the web page shown and the PDF of his Machine Tool Testing )

Pages 53 to 56 of the PDF are relevant to precision centre lathes
This used to be the bible all machine tool manufacturers built their machines around and was a world standard especially during my time as a Machine Tool Fitter. There are far more sophisticated methods these days for machine testing using lasers etc but in the good old days this is what we did.

Denford's used these standards and we had a specific test certificate for every machine that covered all the relevant tests for the particular machine being tested. During final inspection of the machine the individual tests for accuracy were carried out and the results recorded on the test certificate showing the accuracy achieved and all had to be within the tolerances nominated for each test. If any test was not within tolerance it was reworked (usually by scraping mating surfaces as needed to bring the test into tolerance, when all was correct the certificate was signed of by the Fitting Shop Foreman or senior tradesman. The certificate was included in each machines instructions and packing lists when despatched.

To specifically answer your question regarding the cross slide alignment to the spindle axis we had precision ground test mandrels that located in the 3 morse taper spindle bore and from this mandrel we could test with a DTI the spindle run out, alignment of the spindle to the bed axis, alignment and movement of the saddle both over the top of the mandrel and along the front of the mandrel. We also had a precision faceplate that went on the spindle nose and could test the cross slide movement across the face of this faceplate to ensure the movement gave the correct concave movement to the centre of the spindle, if it needed adjustment either way, we would scrape the dovetails on the saddle where the cross slide located and adjust the movement accordingly.

A quick face machining test on the actual machine is all that is needed to prove if it machines concave or convex. Use a work piece of around 75mm dia (or bigger if you have something) and using a centre drill in a drill chuck in the tail stock, drill a centre hole to clear the work piece centre area, only needs a few mm deep, then take a face cut using the cross slide and run the tool into the centre hole. You can then check the machined face with a small straight edge, if the straight edge rocks it has machined convex (bad) if it only touches on the outside edge it is concave (good) you can possibly check the amount the face is concave using either marking blue to see the contact points, a light from underneath to see the amount of the concave machining (don't want to see much light) I believe the tolerance was 0 to 0.02mm concave over a dia of 300mm so you would hardly know it was concave but the work piece would not rock if tested on a precision marking out or test table (hence the reason to clear the centre of the work piece with the centre drill so you can test it for flatness.

Hope this helps you.

Cheers, John P

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Re: Viceroy T.D.S 1/1 G.B - All finished

Post by Hans » Tue 07 Nov , 2017 9:26 am

Hi there,

I've got the very same Lathe.

Unfortunately the leadscrew and screw cutting screw have both stopped turning, I guess I must have sheared off the lead screw pin, but have no idea where this is located, or the best way to repair it. Can anyone offer any guidance please?

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dazz
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Viceroy Taper/Tracer attachment, Shop made cross slide tracer attachment, VSD.
Location: New Zealand

Re: Viceroy T.D.S 1/1 G.B - All finished

Post by dazz » Tue 07 Nov , 2017 10:29 am

Hi
From memory, the shear pin can be found on the gearbox input shaft. This is on the left hand side under the hinged cover. Remove the twin gears to access the pin. If I am wrong, just let me know.

Dazz
Regards

Dazz

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