Thread: A Hercus owners register??

HI Brett try turning a bar say 12 inches long between chuck and tail stock centre.On my 1975 old school lathe i can take a cut say in 3or4 places anlong the bar between centre and chuck, my sizes wouldnt vary more than a .0015 from one end to the other on the same setting.

Hi

just a quick one , where do i sign up ,you could include a "parts for sale and wanted" section

adrian

[email protected]

seems like a good idea, I have just picked up a c class (C5843) in working order and would like to register with you. I'm new to lathe work so can't contribute much to the conversation at this stage but I'll be watching all posts for useful information.
I'll be busy refurbishing for some time and doing lots of reading.
Mal

Hercus register is a great idea, mine is a restored 1965 AR serial no 11226, it is a great little lathe and has done heaps of work over many years, sometimes more than it was originally designed for, but with care, came through with flying colours.
I am hoping someone might be able to help me with a copy of the original imperial thread chart that came with the lathe, showing gear sizes on the stud gear, screw gear and lever positions on the quick change box. I have all the info & gears for metric but nothing for imperial, - cheers - Mike

[quote=nickeng;884401]Hercus register is a great idea, mine is a restored 1965 AR serial no 11226, it is a great little lathe and has done heaps of work over many years, sometimes more than it was originally designed for, but with care, came through with flying colours.
I am hoping someone might be able to help me with a copy of the original imperial thread chart that came with the lathe, showing gear sizes on the stud gear, screw gear and lever positions on the quick change box. I have all the info & gears for metric but nothing for imperial, - cheers - Mike[/quote

Hi Mike,and welcome to the Register, when I started doing the Register I never thought we would get this far.
Are you chasing the original brass plate or just a copy of the gear setup ???

I have my brass plate off the gearbox and could scan it and send you a copy but I think the Hercus book of Turning has all the information I Think ??

if not let me know and I will scan the plate and send you a pic

Welcome No 41
all the best Derek bitza500

[quote=bitza500;884553]

Originally Posted by nickeng

Hercus register is a great idea, mine is a restored 1965 AR serial no 11226, it is a great little lathe and has done heaps of work over many years, sometimes more than it was originally designed for, but with care, came through with flying colours.
I am hoping someone might be able to help me with a copy of the original imperial thread chart that came with the lathe, showing gear sizes on the stud gear, screw gear and lever positions on the quick change box. I have all the info & gears for metric but nothing for imperial, - cheers - Mike[/quote

Hi Mike,and welcome to the Register, when I started doing the Register I never thought we would get this far.
Are you chasing the original brass plate or just a copy of the gear setup ???

I have my brass plate off the gearbox and could scan it and send you a copy but I think the Hercus book of Turning has all the information I Think ??

if not let me know and I will scan the plate and send you a pic

Welcome No 41
all the best Derek bitza500

Thanks for the offer to scan your brass plate Derek, since I originally joined up in the forum I have managed to nut out, with the help of an old parts book, that if you have a quick change gearbox, which came with all Type A's,then all the gears you need for imperial screw cutting are 20 & 40 for the Stud gears, 80 for the idler & 56 for the screw gear. The rest is taken care of by the gearbox, it's been so long since I did any imperial screwcutting that I had completly forgotten the set up, most of the time the lathe just sits with the Metric configuration, that seemed to suffice for just about everything that I have needed, until now. Anyway, thanks again for the offer, Maybe I have helped some other poor soul, struggling to work out the gear settings for a quickchange box, - Mike

my Hercus 9" has a serial number A6121 how old does that make it?

Late 1957 vintage

al

Hi All,

New to this neck of the woods, althought have been on the Michael Storer Wooden Boats one since beginning of '09.

My Hercus is ex UNSW Dept. Mech. Eng., acquired from EMCO just before they went into voluntary liquidation in Feb/March '08.

It is also now in a large number of bits :).

Quick summary: A-series 9 ", serial # A9424, circa 1956.

Long summary: 9 " A-series with "American" toolpost, imperial threading gearbox, powerfeed cross-slide & clutch on saddle apron, a few changewheels, tumbler reverse, 3-jaw scroll and 4-jaw ind. chucks (latter in rough cond'n), solid ground spindle bearings, no centres (got new ones for t-stock from Mick Moyle who also had some faceplates and some dogs which I hoovered up), grey in colour, bed dinged a bit around chuck area (forgot to take our keys out eh, boys & girls? ;), "H" drive unit with guards, lathe serial # A9424, circa 1956 (according to Steve Durden), 1/2 HP 3p "Cadet" motor, whole assembly mounted on original McPherson(?) cabinet and tray.

Replaced insertion rubber under cast "feet". Had a "fun" time dismantling saddle without breaking anything (but all still OK). Trying to decide whether to paint before re-assembling or just whack (so to speak) the whole thing back together without paint. Will probably replace 3p motor with 1HP 1p (or get an inverter).

Current machining is done on a Taig II micro-lathe and (manual) Taig micro-mill, plus heavy duty JET drill press.

Originally Posted by AlexN

Hi All,

New to this neck of the woods, althought have been on the Michael Storer Wooden Boats one since beginning of '09.

My Hercus is ex UNSW Dept. Mech. Eng., acquired from EMCO just before they went into voluntary liquidation in Feb/March '08.

It is also now in a large number of bits .

Quick summary: A-series 9 ", serial # A9424, circa 1956.

Long summary: 9 " A-series with "American" toolpost, imperial threading gearbox, powerfeed cross-slide & clutch on saddle apron, a few changewheels, tumbler reverse, 3-jaw scroll and 4-jaw ind. chucks (latter in rough cond'n), solid ground spindle bearings, no centres (got new ones for t-stock from Mick Moyle who also had some faceplates and some dogs which I hoovered up), grey in colour, bed dinged a bit around chuck area (forgot to take our keys out eh, boys & girls? , "H" drive unit with guards, lathe serial # A9424, circa 1956 (according to Steve Durden), 1/2 HP 3p "Cadet" motor, whole assembly mounted on original McPherson(?) cabinet and tray.

Replaced insertion rubber under cast "feet". Had a "fun" time dismantling saddle without breaking anything (but all still OK). Trying to decide whether to paint before re-assembling or just whack (so to speak) the whole thing back together without paint. Will probably replace 3p motor with 1HP 1p (or get an inverter).

Current machining is done on a Taig II micro-lathe and (manual) Taig micro-mill, plus heavy duty JET drill press.

Hi Alex and welcome to the Hercus Forum your rerial number dates it 1964 going by the Hercus Document that Drummond gladly passed on to the register

I have emailed Steve Durden to try and find out some more of the History but he is very slow in returning emails so will just have to wait

So welcome you are number 42 on the register

all the best Derek

Does that mean I'm 41 or haven't I been counted? serial number A6121 No you missed me

Hi Derek,

Thanks for the warm welcome :). 1964 makes more sense given the condition of the machine and its apparent provenance (assuming that UNSW had it from new).

#42 eh? Nice number, in a Hitchhiker's sort of way.

Cheers,
Alex.

Originally Posted by glenn k

Does that mean I'm 41 or haven't I been counted? serial number A6121 No you missed me

Hi Glenn, sorry due to the messy paperwork I had forgotten what number I was up to
You are Number 43 the latest recruit into the Hercus Forum
I had 1 person written down and not put a number down so I stuffed up Sorry

As for the gouge marks does it now make more sense how it happened ????
as without the way felts it lets the swarf underneath the bed
and if the steel felt holder was damaged and just kept rubbing along the bed until someone took the felt and plates off which just made the carraige slowly get harder as the swarf builds up under the carraige

So you are offically Number 43 as I do not add 1 name at a time as it is a mess now and am trying to find a way to be able to have all the members on one list and not scattered

Let me know what you find when you get the carraige off

all the best derek bitza500