Home Made Quick Change Gearbox

[Walter]

Very nicely done, man, it's stuff like this that makes this board so nice.

[j king]

That is cleaver. My first lathe was an Atlas...No qc box. I hated that. always changing for feeds besides threading.

I went and made a qc box for it. Here is the pic.Then went and redid the rear cover.If someone didnt know it how it was suppose to look they would never know.Came out good.I tend to get carried away at times.It was fun to build.Sold it several years ago..





Jim

[Black_Moons]

Wow nice work im impressed. I wish my lathe came with a nice hinged door.. as is, it uses 2 lame studs with knurled handles.. sometimes the studs come out with the handles, and its somewhat diffacult to get the cover back on... plus it has an interlock so you can't even run the lathe with it uncovered, and the interlock is behind a high speed gear so you would'nt dare manualy override it.

[John Stevenson]

Quick changes boxes can be a blessing in disguise depending on what you do.
Years ago I bought a brand new ML7 lathe and manages to but just the bare accessories to make it work like motor , 3 jaw and 4 jaw chucks [ no joke ]

I would have liked a QC box but it was well out of my range. So for years I wished after one and one day found a clapped out lathe but with a decent gearbox, bought it and transferred everything over.
Went to Myfords and bout the metric conversion kit which consisted of a new quadrant and extra gears.

Woo Hoo job done, before as I was small part jobbing I was having to swap gear trains very regularly, problem now was it instead if swapping 3 or 4 gears for a metric thread I now had to change everything and when in metric you had no fine feed.

I now spent more time swapping whole kits over than just 2 or 3 gears.

In my case it was the worst thing I ever did.

BTW is a south Bend Heavy Ten QC gearbox worth £60? , about $90 ?

http://www.homeworkshop.org.uk/latest.html post # 1395

Usual no connection to seller.

.

[DICKEYBIRD]

Put a flip cover on it with the full change gear table on it plus your quick setup pics, and you'd have a heck of a clever deal.

In fact, find some extra gears, and leave a couple or three of them set up for your most common needs, and you're REALLY going.

I was already there with your 1st suggestion and am almost done with a hinged lid with the gear change chart attached to the inside but you and T/M's suggestion about extra gear carriers is KILLER.

I think the Grizz 9x lathe has the same gears and their parts are reasonably priced as well. When I get some extra cash, I'm going to get an extra gear carrier setup and a few extra gears. That way I can keep it already setup with my most frequently used threading combination and have it ready for, ahem, Quick Change use without messing with the fine feed setup.

[DICKEYBIRD]

Okay! Finished the box lid to keep out the crud. Made it from some scrap pine and 1/4" ply....mitered joints and a rabbeted groove for the top to sit down into. A bit of stain, hinges, clasp and a couple pieces of chain and voila!

The change gear chart is tiny so I scanned it at high resolution, cleaned it up in Photoshop and blew it up to 8x10 and laser printed it. I put it in a plastic sheet protector and stuck it inside the lid.

Now to procure another set of gear carrier parts and I'll be set.

[Teenage_Machinist]

I am not sure but I think I could get the gears for my lathe. I am seriously planning to make a separate gear carrier for fine threading, quick swap.

[Your Old Dog]

Damn neat job! Wish you luck with it.

[wierdscience]

I like it,has to be better than getting a headache looking at the lathe sideways for a half hour.

[DICKEYBIRD]

Alrighty then! I just got off the phone with nice Ms. Valerie at Grizzly and I ordered complete gear carrier set up with all the bits & bobs plus a 120T and 127T gear....all for $68.70 plus shipping & handling. At this point I don't know if I need to order any duplicate gears so I'll work up a few combinations once the stuff gets here and see what's what.

They had 'em all in stock and the brown truck oughta be here in a couple days; Springfield is only a few hundred miles away.