vicmarc mechanical variable speed

[woolclasser]

last weekend i picked up an old vl200 for a good price and when i got a chance to look at it properly today i realised that the lathe had a mechanical variable speed unit.a few questions, are they noisy in operation, what maintenance is required and how slow can you get the speed down to.
cheers
jim

[dai sensei]

Send a PM to SWINO (Todd), he is taking one up to Vicmarc to get fixed this week and gets all the Gold Coast Club lathes (12 large Vicmarcs) serviced by them

[turnerted]

G'day
I have one of these.Minimum speed is about 200rpm. Most of the noise you get is from the belt drive. There is a grease nipple on the speed changeing mechanism. Don't attempt to change speed unless the lathe is running. If using the lathe flat out, slow the speed down before stopping it. I discovered a few days ago that it doesnt like starting flat out, it tripped the cutout on the powerboard.
I bought mine second hand about 10 years ago and it does a lot of work and very happy with it.
Anything else you want to know about it just ask and I'll try and answer.
Ted

[woolclasser]

thanks for that guys, thats what i was looking for. Neil i'll follow that tip up with swino
cheers
jim

[Mobyturns]

Still very very good lathes. Hope you get lots of joy using it & it won't let you down. Strong as. Just need a little knowlkedge of how to use the mechanical VS correctly. A mate picked up an old Vicmarc 850 a while back, still a great lathe. Note there is a VL250 mec VS for sale in the market place (no connection to seller).

[rsser]

Yeah, a forum member here bought 'The Wolf's' old MVS 300 that'd done plenty of heavy work.

I'd crawled over it with stethoscope and dial gauge and couldn't find anything of concern.

[woolclasser]

Yes I am glad that i got it. have spent the last two weekends cleaning up the twenty years of grime that education dept machines acquire and am just waiting for a sparky to arrive in the near future to tidy up the electrics and then i can replace my old woodfast. Should be a bit of difference.
jim