Pennant lathe

[Ryan76]

Is anyone familiar with a pennant lathe ...? Is it hard to get accessories for them...what kind of colletts do they take....would anyone recommend getting one or not...? Im just starting to learn. Would anyone know where to get parts I.E.... Slide rests, tool rests...ect

Thanks 

Ryan

[wls1971]

There are not many about so little is know about them and what accessories where available for them, I think they where a very simple small lathe for the cutting of staffs, and pivots etc and seemed to have been supplied with a simple flip over tool rest and tailstock and center, you should be able to get 8mm collets but there is no information on what type fit it, any manufacturer supplied accessories would be nigh on impossible to find for it. The following sight has the most information that can be found on the lathe:

http://www.lathes.co.uk/pennant/index.html

[Ryan76]

Thanks it looks just like that one but its a "derbyshire pennant" As far as making staffs and pivots or even to practice what would I need just a running lathe and a t-rest...? All im looking to do is staffs and pivots. It comes with headstock, tail stock and bed can a t-rest be jury rigged to fit...? Or should i just stay away from it

[wls1971]

If all you want to do is practice then you would need a motor and belt tool rest, collets and graver, does it come with a draw bar ? 

Edited June 13, 2018 by wls1971

[TimpanogosSlim]

Got one of these off ebay, arrived today. Cheap. Including motor and a speed controller pedal that appears to double as a foot warmer. 

The wiring was extremely scary so i have removed it. I'm comfortable with minor electrical work so this will not be a big deal to replace. Considering doing it ritzy with modern reproduction cloth jacketed power cord. 

Mine seems to have a better-than-average quality of casting, and a more flamboyant Pennant logo. 

I've been stripping it down, cleaning parts with wd40 and rags, and reassembling with new grease and oil. 

These vary a bit, and mine doesn't have a hinged cover over the tailstock like most of them do. The tailstock housing is a single casting on mine. 

The headstock has cartridge bearings of type 201KLD. These are still available of course. That's 12x32x12.75mm. After cleaning one of my bearings is fine and the other isn't. I suspect that the one that isn't is the one that was on the business end. I'll probably just replace both. It would also be possible to replace these with 30202 tapered roller bearings which are 12x32x11.7mm. Probably want to fashion a dust cover to keep the swarf out. 

I've seen a few of these with a tiny jacobs chuck adapted to the tailstock and I'd like to do that. I know a machinist. Looks like the original dead center tail is on an 11mm shaft. 

Oh yeah, the pulley in the headstock was milled from what looks like Garolite-C. Phenolic resin and cotton. I'm told lots of pulleys on boats are still milled from a similar material. 

Unfortunately the seller took it upon himself to re-mount the flip-down tool rest on the table before packing it, and the actual tool rest itself didn't survive. The stem that broke off nearly clean is 6.35mm diameter so i am considering trying to file the backside flat, carefully mount it in a vise, drilling a shallow 1/4" recess, and having a friend braze in a replacement stem. Like many parts of this thing, it's cast iron. 

There's an odd mix of metric and SAE. For example, the shaft that connects the headstock through the table to the mounting foot has a metric set screw on the headstock end and an SAE set screw on the foot end. 

There are no country of origin markings other than the USA Made stamps on the bearings, which might not be original. Also not any markings other than the Pennant badge on the table. 

The machining seems pretty decent. But i think they machined almost everything in house. For example, the threaded rod for the clamp was obviously cut on a lathe, and they didn't bother to chamfer the ends. Any sane manufacturer in the modern era would have bought a case of long lengths of threaded rod and cut them, or simply ordered them pre-made at a specific length. 

I'll post pictures eventually as the project gets going. It came with only one collet - a Victor #16. It's an M8 thread and is a bit over 36mm in total length, so it would appear this lathe takes the shorter style of the 8mm collets.

 

[TimpanogosSlim]

To be honest the tailstock spindle might be closer to 7/16". Need to triple check.

[Plato]

18 hours ago, TimpanogosSlim said:

Got one of these off ebay, arrived today.

Any chance of a picture? 

[TimpanogosSlim]

6 hours ago, Plato said:

Any chance of a picture? 

Absolutely. But right now it is all in pieces. I will get puctures of the pieces tomorrow. Right now i just have a sad shot of the tool rest. 

[TimpanogosSlim]

First, the pictures from the auction. 

[TimpanogosSlim]

[TimpanogosSlim]

I'm told that the Dumore motors (offshoot from Hamilton Beach) are pretty well regarded. A friend tells me he has die grinders and the like that came with a Dumore and the same style of speed control pedal and that it works fine. The speed controller is disassembled for rewiring. 

I ordered oldtimey twisted rayon jacketed power cord, 3 conductor, so i can properly earth things. I only have slight trepidation about removing the coil structure from the body of the motor but I am sure i can figure it out if i remain patient and analytical. I've never rewired an AC motor all the way to the brushes before but I've seen videos? AC wiring in general is old hat for me. You won't hear that i died of electrocution. 

The original description said that the "motor isn't froze up" and yeah it wasn't but the bearing cartridge on the brush end of the motor was much happier after i gave it some fresh oil. 

The motor is still untested but everything *looks fine. I have momentarily misplaced both of the DMMs that live on this workbench. 

I went ahead and ordered replacement bearings from a vendor on ebay and it did dawn on me that there might be a reason why all of the 201KLD bearings on the market seem to be NOS Fafnir parts (same brand as found on the lathe) but they don't seem to be extinct, and anyway if they become extinct it should be reasonable to replace them with 30202 tapered roller bearings plus maybe a pair of 0.4mm or so spacers. You'll just have to wash the swarf out of them from time to time, but at least you *can wash the swarf out of them, right? 

Debating whether to ask my machinist to give the knurling on the tailstock lock knob a chamfer, or whether i ought to, you know, get my lathe up and running and do it myself. 

Right now the plan with the busted tool rest is to file it flat and drill and tap to accept a 1/4" bolt that will be trimmed after installation. With careful enough clamping to my drill press it shouldn't be too sketchy of an operation. 

I have a slight concern where the indexing wheel spins right onto the spindle but the jam nuts fit so tight that i am concerned about damaging the threads. I've cleaned their internal threads with rodico. Might throw them in the ultrasonic as well but i wonder if there was a foil-thin edge to the thread that got folded over just from casual handling after i removed them? 

Edited February 13, 2022 by TimpanogosSlim

[TimpanogosSlim]

Minor updates. it's still not all back together - I had hoped that everything would arrive by today but the wiring for the motor didn't make it. 

Confirmed that it takes the *short collets with just the 45 degree taper. The smoothly dual tapered collets don't fit. Looks like longer single-taper collets will work ok with a spacer on the draw bar, though. 

The thread on the bottom of the foot is 5/16" 24tpi. My plan is to use a countersunk screw to attach it to a board, and ultimately that means I'll be picking up a screw at Fastenal next week that i ordered today because that's not a screw anyone has ready to hand you from behind the counter. 

 

[TimpanogosSlim]

It's a mystery to me why they no longer fit, but the jam nuts sure don't fit anymore. I unwisely tried to muscle one on - I am mighty - and it got about half way. I had to use my impact gun to get it back off. 

It appears that a machinist made them out of 5/8 hex bar stock. The outer one has an internal chamfer. 

My brother-in-law doesn't have the threading machine for his lathe. Tempted to buy him one. 

I couldn't find the combo thread gauge that came with my basic tap and die set, so i went out and bought full metric and imperial gauges.

The spindle here is 40tpi. The ID of the jam nuts is 0.404 inches according to my digital calipers. 

The engineering reference sheets say that 0.4040 is the standard hole size for 7/16-24 50% thread on steel and iron. 

So, it looks like I'm buying a 7/16-40 hand tap to chase the jam nuts so that I can completely reassemble. 

Another note - the exact thickness of the cartridge bearings and their proper seating in their milled seats is critical to being able to spin the indexing disc all the way down and then secure it to the jam nuts without binding the bearings. This also suggests that some shimming will be required for proper operation if other bearings are substituted. 

[LittleWatchShop]

The foot pedal is nothing unusual.  Typical sewing machine type.  Maybe the rest of the lathe is crap...as it appears to be.

Allen-Bradly foot pedals are continuous and also resistive, so heat is to be expected for either.

[TimpanogosSlim]

11 minutes ago, LittleWatchShop said:

The foot pedal is nothing unusual.  Typical sewing machine type.  Maybe the rest of the lathe is crap...as it appears to be.

Allen-Bradly foot pedals are continuous and also resistive, so heat is to be expected for either.

 

I've been around a lot of sewing machines in my time and never encountered one like this? Not that i can recall anyway. Not even mom's fairly early electric conversion singer. 

At any rate, levin or boley it aint, but at least one user reports that it's a perfectly usable machine: 

https://mb.nawcc.org/threads/pennant-lathe.84405/

[LittleWatchShop]

Here is one of mine.

Q.E.D.

[LittleWatchShop]

Moreover, unless you use a triac, variac, or PWM controller, resistive is all you have left. Modern motor controllers use PWM but these watchmaker lathe motors used resistance. P= (i^2)/R

Edited February 22, 2022 by LittleWatchShop

[TimpanogosSlim]

On 2/21/2022 at 6:57 PM, LittleWatchShop said:

Moreover, unless you use a triac, variac, or PWM controller, resistive is all you have left. Modern motor controllers use PWM but these watchmaker lathe motors used resistance. P= (i^2)/R

I guess i should clarify that it's likely that the pedal on my mom's electric conversion Singer is probably resistive in nature. But that was a backup sewing machine, and the rest of them were electronic, even back to the 70's. She doesn't go cheap on those machines. 

It was new to me, new for the element to be on edge with vents. The only markings i can find on it are "115V" stamped on the vent side, and "NM" on the ceramic insulator. 

The rayon jacketed twisted wire i bought turned up finally, so i've wired up the pedal properly earthed. Still waiting on a new rubber grommet for the motor housing. And i am going to have to fab up a tool to pull a rough bearing off of the motor spindle. Couple pieces of angle iron, some nuts and bolts, etc. The bearing on the brush end of the armature is gonna buzz, get hot, and cook its oil if i don't replace it. Already sourced a high quality replacement. 

I suspect that i could cobble an electronic speed control pedal from the guts of a Harbor Freight router speed control unit and a modified electric piano expression pedal. But there are enough unknowns in that project that if the resistive control works well enough i will just use it until and unless it ends up not working. 

[LittleWatchShop]

That is a Mercury foot pedal you have.  I have a couple.  I don't like them because of the granularity--yours offers seven speeds.  The Allen Bradley pedals are continuous...but also resistive.  I show an image of the underside.

Edited February 23, 2022 by LittleWatchShop

[TimpanogosSlim]

Motor is back together and working well. Backburnered the bearing replacement for now. I have the replacement, will keep it handy. 

Designed and printed a strain relief to fit the replacement grommet, which has a 3/8 ID instead of 1/4. 

The leather belt is of course older than dirt and it just breaks. Someone mentioned using a 3d printed belt and i think that's a fine idea. Just have to generate the shape in openSCAD and print it in TPU. 

Not my best or worst paint job. I might go back into it this summer, do the sketchy bearing at the same time. It comes apart easy enough. 

[LittleWatchShop]

2 hours ago, TimpanogosSlim said:

3d printed belt

Probably referring to me.  I did not 3D print my belts (I have many), but merely used TPU filament and made a belt.  Melted the ends together with a match.  I used 3mm TPU filament.  Works great and cost pennies (if you have the TPU on hand already).

[TimpanogosSlim]

1 hour ago, LittleWatchShop said:

Probably referring to me.  I did not 3D print my belts (I have many), but merely used TPU filament and made a belt.  Melted the ends together with a match.  I used 3mm TPU filament.  Works great and cost pennies (if you have the TPU on hand already).

My TPU is all 1.75mm. 

So yeah, probably hexagonal or octagonal (or heptagonal!) cross section here. 

Hexagonal looks something like: 

inside_radius=90;
belt_width=3.3;
$fn=1024;
    rotate_extrude(){
        translate([(inside_radius+belt_width), 0]){
        circle(belt_width,$fn=6);
        }
    }

I'm sure there's a way to make a flat side of a heptagonal extrusion lay flat, but at this late hour I'm not interested in finding it out. My belt will be waiting on the printer in the morning since i already had TPU loaded. 

Edited February 27, 2022 by TimpanogosSlim

[TimpanogosSlim]

I forgot that the size of the circle is a radius so knock that in half. 

 

[LittleWatchShop]

13 minutes ago, TimpanogosSlim said:

I forgot that the size of the circle is a radius so knock that in half. 

 

Happens to me in FreeCAD all the time.

[TimpanogosSlim]

Data point - the Nice Ball Bearing Company ball thrust bearing on the clamp for the tip-over tool rest suggests that my Pennant was made between 1916 and 1950, when the Nice company was absorbed into SKF. 

https://www.workshopoftheworld.com/nicetown/nice.html

My gut feeling is that the wrinkled black finish suggests 1940's? But wtf do i know. 

Edited February 28, 2022 by TimpanogosSlim