Pultra 10 8mm acquired, (needs motor)

[tcolgate]

I impulse bought a lathe! It seems to have a good selection of collets. No face plate or jawed chuck (or gravers, or motor!). Looking at prices for motors, I think I did OK, got it for just under £400, it does need a bit of a clean.

I've never done much metal work, and never used a lathe. Any tips on:
- what else might I need to get started
- sources on tutorials and tips (there's stuff on youtube obvs, but book advise would be nice too)
- any idea what the things pictured in the main area of the box are?
- any clues as to what the other smaller parts pictured in the box are?

My only real immediate use is maybe for holding parts for polishing, but I was thinking that a reasonable first projecct might be making a staking set punch grabber for a small Favorite set I got (the mini one with 4mm punches, it has no grabber and they are super fiddly)

[oldhippy]

Get yourself a  sewing machine motor and foot control it is ideal for a watchmakers lathe. That is what I had. 

[tcolgate]

It arrived!

There's quite a lot of work needed to clean it up I think. But it has collets that will hold all of my punches, stakes and stumps. I'm hoping it'll be good for making tools for my jeweling set (maybe, one day, even the missing face plate from my favorite? might be asking a bit much?).

  It's the original pultra geneva bar (without the t-slot and flat that some of the 10s came with), which I think means I have less options for using other pultra lathe tools (like the cross slides). Hopefully in time I'll find a few bits that will work.

  Once I've got it up and running and gotten a bit of practice without losing any eyes or anything, I'd like to have a go at:
- Making the missing brass stump from my Favorite jeweling set
- See if I can unblock a couple of my staking set punches
- make a brass (or maybe delrin?) pusher for setting seconds hands
- stretch goal: make a punch grabber for the tiny Favorite set

I also wondered about getting a 3 jaw chuck and trying to cut some brass or delrin "robur" style dies for the small high-dome watch crystals I've had to fit recently (the ones I have are garbage, but also I probably just need to practice using them properly).

I'd really love a draw bar with a collet taper for the rear tail stock. I have lots of thoughts about making screws and tapping threads.

First things first though, I think I need an industrial size tank of wd40.
 

Edited November 6, 2024 by tcolgate

[tcolgate]

Just wanted to mention that the eBay vendor is providing some great after-sales support! Seems to be a professional clock repairer. I don't think he has ever used the lathe, I think it has just sat around in his workshop for a long time

[tcolgate]

Got the headstock apart (it was a bit gummed up, but no hammer required). Here it is soaking up some wd40.

[tcolgate]

The pulleys had a lot of rust. Had to resort to some courser sandpaper, and brought it down to some finer ones. I don't think the surface finish of the pulleys is super critical (compared to the other parts).

  Looking a bit better. I'm going to run what I can through the ultrasonic 

 

[tcolgate]

This seems to be a right of passage, but proper lathe job 1 might involve making a part of 2 to fix the lathe.

  If you look at the image above, there a knurled ring on the right (not cleaned yet) that covers an oiling hole. There should be one on the opposite side too. The knurling will be a stretch, but at some point I should try and make a replacement.

The other thing is that I thing the arm for the index registration is supposed to have a pin on it to lock to the index positions. That's probably the easier job.

 

 

Edited November 8, 2024 by tcolgate

[tcolgate]

Stripped the lathe down, precleaned, ukltrasonic'd, and reassembled. Collets etc and base still left to do.

[tcolgate]

Collets are cleaned. Just the base.  tailstock tools and a couple of small bits to go

 

[mbwatch]

On 11/8/2024 at 12:54 PM, tcolgate said:

This seems to be a right of passage, but proper lathe job 1 might involve making a part of 2 to fix the lathe.

Just as it is with 3D printing today. Spend half your time making more parts to improve the tool. What's old is new is old again, it was ever thus.

[tcolgate]

I gotnit a crossslide!