MOWRER WW LATHE TOOLS: New Stand for Watchmakers Lathe

I've been wanting my lathe bed to sit higher from the table surface since I got my watchmakers lathe. Anyone who owns one knows that it's a tight fit underneath to reach the nuts and connectors for mounting all the lathe's various accessories and its even more inconvenient when there's sharp shavings down there from the work you are doing. I got tired of pulling metal splinters out of the back of my hand and decided to design new pillar-stands for the lathe.
Below is the results.

Custom lathe stands for the watchmakers lathe

I decided to start with brass and make them fairly monolithic for stability and vibration dampening. After laying out the design, I started the process of machining away the excess material.

Layout and initial machining for Watchmakers lathe stands

Once the basic machining was done there was a fair amount of hand work.

Draw filing pillar surfaces

Since I was going to go through all the trouble of machining and finishing the pillars I also decided to include a mounting slot system on front and back that would accept a standard 1/4-20 bolt. I plan to add an adjustable rail along the front to hold gauges for reading out movement of the cross slide. I'm also going to use the mounting system to hold a full width swarf tray that will be removable for easy emptying. This will also act as the mounting surfaces for the custom threading attachment I have well under way.

Fully machined lathe stand ready for radiusing and edge breaking

1/4-20 bolt slot designed for stand for watchmakers lathe

1/4 bolt slid into mounting slot on watchmakers lathe stand

Ready for mounting accessories! Can't wait!

Because the pillar vertical radii blend into the larger radii that flare to the base and top, it required filing those radii into the part.

Filing radii onto the vertical pillar corners

I'm very pleased with how the parts turned out as well as how they look. I can't wait to start making the accessories that will attach to these pillar stands!

New pillar stands on the watchmakers lathe

accessory mounting slots visible on watchmakers lathe stands

watchmakers lathe stand in brass

New Watchmakers lathe stands

Enjoy and cheers, Kevin

IMPORTANT please read

Important Change Notice!

Hello friends and visitors. I am taking a temporary hiatus from offering the parts shown in this blog on shapeways. I have had many inquiries and a lot of effort has gone into preparing the parts for sale. Unfortunately, 3D printing of parts one at a time is not as cheap as mass market bulk castings.

There is not enough demand to have the parts bulk cast and doing so would also mean a change of material from the wonderful Bronze infused Stainless Steel.

The metal printed kits come in well under the cost of purchasing completed new parts from the likes of Levin and such but are significantly more expensive than the lower functionality antique items on Ebay.

I have found that the market is generally at the lower end of the spectrum.

I am presently reworking how I might be able to bring the costs down on the parts somewhat and will notify you through this posting when they are ready for kit purchase.

Thanks and cheers, Kevin

WELCOME

Hello Blog visitors and welcome to my blog about the adventures of creating high quality, new tools for the antique WW watchmakers lathe. Nearly a year ago I acquired an 8mm American Watch tool company lathe from a local antique store. It was not in the very best of shape but I am someone who loves to rescue machines of quality and bring them back into service. I am also an inventor and an artist and this beautiful little lathe captured my interest.

Once I'd managed to carefully bring it back to working condition, I decided I wanted to have certain functionalities for it to solve some of it's challenges in doing the kind of work I wanted to use it for. It worked so well for very small brass parts and removal of very small amounts but I wanted to do this kind of high accuracy work on some longer and more robust pieces of material.

What began as a project to make a superior steady rest has turned into many other tools adding various functions and abilities to the lathe.

The results are chronicled throughout this blog.

I hope you enjoy the process posted here.

Cheers and enjoy! Kevin Mowrer

MOWRER WW LATHE TOOLS

New Stand for Watchmakers Lathe

No comments:

Post a Comment

Tool Grinding attachment for watchmakers lathe

Search This Blog