Back in 1980, before I emigrated to OZ, I bought a 1930 model Colchester Bantam lathe from a guy who did furniture restorations and wasn't into lathe rebuilding....cost me 75 pounds then complete with 3 jaw and all change wheels.......when I got it to OZ, and after reassembling it, I did a test and it had .013" wear on the bed from the chuck end up to the middle, impossible to run it that way or adjust the saddle gibs etc........so as a regrind was out of the picture I made a hand powered bed planer and recut and scraped all the ways in and refitted the saddle and tailstock, that took 2 months of every night doing 3 hours. I still have the lathe and being retired now 20 years use it regularly on and off.
Excellent video, i have a Chipmaster which has some similarities to your Bantam. To mount my lathe on the floor, i cut holes which matched large steel box section, filled them with concrete and mounted them to the concrete base below the wooden floor. I may have to take your excellent idea on the backlash as mine suffers also.
Really enjoyed your post-restoration, I guess you could call it. Not sure if you have the original restoration but I'll check that. I'm in the middle of restoring an older lathe myself (Denham Junior MKII) so am interested in how others are doing, or have done, their projects. The cross slide nut mod is a very interesting idea, although I have had to purchase an ACME thread and will splice mine together, as the wear is in both the screw and the nut. But will certainly keep that in mind.
Hi, I can't remember the exact figure, but the saddle, bottom of tailstock and bed was around 350/400 pounds. Which I think is pretty good considering the lathe is almost like new now :)
Good morning , and congratulations for the video, is really well done and complete: I have a question about the Colchester Bantam Mk1 lathe, I see that the lathe is separable from the base , it would be very convenient for me to place the lathe on the bench I have at home and which already supports a 350 kg heavy lathe (the table's capacity is 1000 kg), for the electrical part there are no problems, because I will apply an inverter and possibly a new motor, but I don't know if the lathe can be used separated from the base! May you confirm to me ? Thanks in advance for your reply, Alberto.
Hi, You can separate the two however the brake for the motor and the fwd and reverse switch goes through base. You'll have to come up with a suitable method to solve those. If you do mount it on the bench make sure you have a way to level the bed. This lathe absolutely needs to be level to get good results. The bed is not as stiff as i initially thought
@@vhospher6463 Ok perfect, brake Is not a problem, i make It by inverter now on My lathe, with fwd and reverse too! Thank you so much for your answer, now i try to find a Bantam on England But i dont know any good seller, do You know something? Thank you, Alberto 🇮🇹
Hi, I have a question regarding the lathe bed: you have completely disassembled the lathe , can you tell me, please, if it is possible to remove the screws that hold the bed to the stand together without disassembling anything else? ,thanks, Alberto
Hi Vhosher that sounds like the best path to take, can you tell me the one you got or which VFD to buy for the Bantam? Thanks for all your help and advice
I had a browse and i cant seem to find the one i installed. However most single phase to 3 phase inverters will be fine. I think mine is 2.2kw. You'll need to wire the switches of the bantam into this inverter so be sure to check you can remotely operate it. Ie i/o that allow you to go forwards backwards etc. Most of the cheap inverters have this and its normally as simple as hooking up the existing switches to the inverter
Hi after watching your great video l got myself a Bantam. Could you please tell me if the motor on yours is single or 3 phase ,as l need to convert mine to single. l need to know which motor to purchase? Again many thanks.
Thanks for the feedback. It is 3 phase, my recommendation would be to keep the original 3phase motor and fit a VFD (so you can run it on single phase) . This way ive gotten varible electronic speed control and i can run the lathe much faster than 800 rpm (original top speed) i beilive the bearings are the same between the high speed model and the low speed model (but dont quote me) I took the original motor apart, gave it a clean and fitted a VFD works really well
@vhospher, I have a lathe in pretty bad shape, It gives a similar 4 thou deviation over the first few inches! it's a large Harrison so probably worth keeping if I can get it reground. Could you give me the name of the company who did your regrinding please? Cheers!
@@johnlattanzio9859 hi this was the first thing i checked. The intial graph i show is after i leveled the bed. I tried putting in a twist in the bed to counter the wear but the regrind did a much better job overall!
That's a lovely grind job but I'm really quite surprised they didn't at least relieve the middle 30% and flake the underside of the saddle, ground to ground will wear terribly in the longterm. you should think about getting one of the local scrapers to bed that saddle in for you. I'm not sure where you are in the UK but I believe Matt look is in Derbyshire and if that's some distance from you he could likely at least point you in the right direction to someone local. ua-cam.com/users/lookcreationsvideos
Thanks so much for the reply! I wasn't aware of the need to scrape in the saddle. I will need to move the lathe at one point, re level the bed and potentially scrape in the headstock. I may contact matt at the time so it can all be done together. Thanks again!
@@vhospher6463 the headstock should only need to be scraped to bed it in or correct the inclination upwards or downwards, you mentioned shimming it which would be far from ideal. On most small bench lathes I scrape the bottom of the headstock to make up for wear on the tailstock and then scrape the tailstock about 0.0005" higher than the HS centerline with a slight inclination towards the operator depending how much deflection I can measure under load. The saddle should almost certainly be scraped with relief in the middle 30% of the flat and V way, ideally the cross slide should be inclined to face 1 thou concave over about a 12" diameter but most people don't even bother.
Raise your cut insert ten thousands above center will push on the insert , WHICH WILL APPLY PREASURE on the way furthest from you. Lower your insert 10 thousands below center and will APPLY PREASURE ON WAY NEAREST TO YOU .To figure out which way side giving you the biggest error.
This is the first lathe restoration video I have seen that was actually worth it.
Looks like a nice comprehensive regrind
Modifying the cross slide nut to remove backlash is genius 👌
Thanks for the idea!
Back in 1980, before I emigrated to OZ, I bought a 1930 model Colchester Bantam lathe from a guy who did furniture restorations and wasn't into lathe rebuilding....cost me 75 pounds then complete with 3 jaw and all change wheels.......when I got it to OZ, and after reassembling it, I did a test and it had .013" wear on the bed from the chuck end up to the middle, impossible to run it that way or adjust the saddle gibs etc........so as a regrind was out of the picture I made a hand powered bed planer and recut and scraped all the ways in and refitted the saddle and tailstock, that took 2 months of every night doing 3 hours.
I still have the lathe and being retired now 20 years use it regularly on and off.
Excellent video, i have a Chipmaster which has some similarities to your Bantam. To mount my lathe on the floor, i cut holes which matched large steel box section, filled them with concrete and mounted them to the concrete base below the wooden floor.
I may have to take your excellent idea on the backlash as mine suffers also.
Excellent work. Great tip on splitting the cross slide nut.
Very nice work!!!
Great looking machine
Don’t make excuses for what your doing good work 👍🏻
Really enjoyed your post-restoration, I guess you could call it. Not sure if you have the original restoration but I'll check that. I'm in the middle of restoring an older lathe myself (Denham Junior MKII) so am interested in how others are doing, or have done, their projects. The cross slide nut mod is a very interesting idea, although I have had to purchase an ACME thread and will splice mine together, as the wear is in both the screw and the nut. But will certainly keep that in mind.
Nice work young man. I shall subscribe!
Hi. how much cost to regrind your bed and was it a wet grinding or dry. Cheers
Hi, I can't remember the exact figure, but the saddle, bottom of tailstock and bed was around 350/400 pounds. Which I think is pretty good considering the lathe is almost like new now :)
Good morning ,
and congratulations for the video, is really well done and complete: I have a question about the Colchester Bantam Mk1 lathe, I see that the lathe is separable from the base , it would be very convenient for me to place the lathe on the bench I have at home and which already supports a 350 kg heavy lathe (the table's capacity is 1000 kg), for the electrical part there are no problems, because I will apply an inverter and possibly a new motor, but I don't know if the lathe can be used separated from the base!
May you confirm to me ?
Thanks in advance for your reply,
Alberto.
Hi,
You can separate the two however the brake for the motor and the fwd and reverse switch goes through base. You'll have to come up with a suitable method to solve those.
If you do mount it on the bench make sure you have a way to level the bed. This lathe absolutely needs to be level to get good results. The bed is not as stiff as i initially thought
@@vhospher6463 Ok perfect, brake Is not a problem, i make It by inverter now on My lathe, with fwd and reverse too! Thank you so much for your answer, now i try to find a Bantam on England But i dont know any good seller, do You know something? Thank you, Alberto 🇮🇹
@@ab-shop i dont know any sellers unfortunately. I would have a look on ebay, they pop up now and again
@@vhospher6463 ok i Will try!! 💪😁 thank you!!
@@ab-shop bello il restauro
Hi,
I have a question regarding the lathe bed:
you have completely disassembled the lathe
, can you tell me, please, if it is possible to remove the screws that hold the bed to the stand together without disassembling anything else?
,thanks, Alberto
Hi you can. But you will also need to disconnect the fwd, backward leaver arm. This is easy to do though
@@vhospher6463 Perfect, you said me what i want to hear!! 😀 Thank you! Finger crossed to find one Bantam 💪😅
Hi Vhosher that sounds like the best path to take, can you tell me the one you got or which VFD to buy for the Bantam? Thanks for all your help and advice
I had a browse and i cant seem to find the one i installed. However most single phase to 3 phase inverters will be fine. I think mine is 2.2kw.
You'll need to wire the switches of the bantam into this inverter so be sure to check you can remotely operate it. Ie i/o that allow you to go forwards backwards etc. Most of the cheap inverters have this and its normally as simple as hooking up the existing switches to the inverter
@@vhospher6463 Thankyou so much for all your help and advice.
Hi great video i have been looking for a company to re-grind my lathe bed in the UK wondered if you could share the information. Kev
www.unislidegrinding.co.uk/
Thats the place i used. Hope it helps :)
Hi after watching your great video l got myself a Bantam. Could you please tell me if the motor on yours is single or 3 phase ,as l need to convert mine to single. l need to know which motor to purchase?
Again many thanks.
Thanks for the feedback. It is 3 phase, my recommendation would be to keep the original 3phase motor and fit a VFD (so you can run it on single phase) . This way ive gotten varible electronic speed control and i can run the lathe much faster than 800 rpm (original top speed) i beilive the bearings are the same between the high speed model and the low speed model (but dont quote me)
I took the original motor apart, gave it a clean and fitted a VFD works really well
hello, may I ask what is the Cross Slide Leadscrew Nut modification for?
Hi, its to reduce the backlash
@vhospher, I have a lathe in pretty bad shape, It gives a similar 4 thou deviation over the first few inches! it's a large Harrison so probably worth keeping if I can get it reground. Could you give me the name of the company who did your regrinding please? Cheers!
Hi Matt,
If you email Matt at Slidewayrepaircentre@gmail.com. They are based in Nuneaton.
Hope this helps!
Have you checked to see if the lathe is leveled? since your getting runout on the first 4 inches it may not be sitting on a flat and level surface
@@johnlattanzio9859 hi this was the first thing i checked. The intial graph i show is after i leveled the bed. I tried putting in a twist in the bed to counter the wear but the regrind did a much better job overall!
Hi could you please tell me which model of Colchester Bantam you have. Many thanks
I beilive its a MK1. 800rpm.
2:48 i got back injury from doing things like that
I can see the lathe was ground on a Churchill so I’m guessing unislide
That's a lovely grind job but I'm really quite surprised they didn't at least relieve the middle 30% and flake the underside of the saddle, ground to ground will wear terribly in the longterm. you should think about getting one of the local scrapers to bed that saddle in for you. I'm not sure where you are in the UK but I believe Matt look is in Derbyshire and if that's some distance from you he could likely at least point you in the right direction to someone local.
ua-cam.com/users/lookcreationsvideos
Thanks so much for the reply! I wasn't aware of the need to scrape in the saddle. I will need to move the lathe at one point, re level the bed and potentially scrape in the headstock. I may contact matt at the time so it can all be done together. Thanks again!
@@vhospher6463 the headstock should only need to be scraped to bed it in or correct the inclination upwards or downwards, you mentioned shimming it which would be far from ideal. On most small bench lathes I scrape the bottom of the headstock to make up for wear on the tailstock and then scrape the tailstock about 0.0005" higher than the HS centerline with a slight inclination towards the operator depending how much deflection I can measure under load. The saddle should almost certainly be scraped with relief in the middle 30% of the flat and V way, ideally the cross slide should be inclined to face 1 thou concave over about a 12" diameter but most people don't even bother.
Raise your cut insert ten thousands above center will push on the insert , WHICH WILL APPLY PREASURE on the way furthest from you. Lower your insert 10 thousands below center and will APPLY PREASURE ON WAY NEAREST TO YOU .To figure out which way side giving you the biggest error.
Oh great. Ill give that a go!
Seria bueno este video pero en espanol
stiations??? I think you mean stRiations lol