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My Cowells ME lathe

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raynerd:
I was just updating my blog and did a post on my cowells. I know I`ve posted some pics on the other thread but this keeps it specific to Cowells and allows me to update progress as I do have quite a few additions and modifications to make to this lathe.

This actually is a very early cowells. In fact, after a couple of brief chats with the director over at cowells, he is pretty sure that this is one of the first cowells just after the transfer from Perris lathes. The big give away is the absence of the cowells casting "stamp" on the bed. In actual fact, my lathe is likely to be a Perris made bed sold under the new name of Cowells. All fairly immaterial since the design has not changed.

The lathe came with very little in the way of tooling and accessories but for the price I could afford, I'll have to add these as I go.  Cowells is still going strong and so all parts are readily available, but sadly at a price! -  check out their website for more details.





The lathe came with a 3 jaw chuck but no key and despite all the strong words flung at me over in the "finding a chuck key" thread, I'm really really still struggling sourcing a key! I`ve had an opportunity to take it to rdg and one other local tool shop and neither could help.



I have also added an ER16 collet chuck since it is a good scale size for this lathe and I already have a set of collets.



The standard ME lathe came with the change wheel set for the auto traverse gearing but not with the suitable gear cutting change wheels so obtaining these was first on my "to do" list. I now have a full set of gears including some teeth count that should give me imperial BA threads on this metric lathe.

Blank gears:




The cut gears, including the extra few...





The tail stock is a zero morse taper. I was lucky enough to pick this threaded original cowells arbor and original cowells sold chuck off eBay very reasonably priced.



 I'd like an independent 4 jaw as soon as I can afford one. Secondly and perhaps less urgent would be a quick change tool post but I am considering making this. For completeness, I'd like a fixed and travelling steady at some point.

Really enjoying it so far.

Swarfing:
Chris if you can cut those gears you can surely make a key for that chuck? start with a MOD profile if the lathe is metric and give it a go? make it out of plastic first for a trial fit.

raynerd:
lol... Paul, after the thread where I got a right pasting, let's leave the chuck key. I`ll get it sorted!!  :lol:   EDIT: Inciddently, I believe it is a Toyo chuck originally sold by Cowells with their ME model lathe. It looks very similar to the current 3 jaw Proxxon chuck but it seems like they don`t sell the key alone!

I didn`t cut the gears. I cut the blanks and they were hobbed for me.

Swarfing:
Ok fair enough, beasley tools in Swindon came up trumps for me with weird key i needed for my pillar drill. They had a few oddments so might be worth giving then a call. Don't expect them to know what you are talking about so get some measurements ready

Rob.Wilson:
Very nice looking lathe Chris  :thumbup:

Whats your reasoning behind getting another smaller lathe ?  clock making    :thumbup:


Rob

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