Swedish Lidkoping turret lathe rebuild

[WillyK]

Lidkoping CR1 turret lathe,
addressing Scandinavian members of CNCzone (and of course all others)

I've recently bought a rather old turret lathe. Quite naked, but what's there is in good condition. Cheap, about 0.2 £ per kilo, guessing 400-500 kilos.
From other objects on the internet market it seems to be the stem (bed, headstock/spindle/chuck and revolver stand of a CR1 model) , some photos encosed.
The latest history is being used for wood turning and thus very stripped down.
My intension is to rebuild it into a working metal lathe. Its heavy and thus very stable, bearings and slides feel smoote and precise, no feelable slack, so far not measured.

I'm searching for information about it. Coming from Sweden, Lidkoping is not in the middle of the European marked, but does anyone know any source of info about the CR1?
Websites? e-mail addr? Good links that could supply new links? etc etc. Metal workshop clubs, CNC-clubs etc in Sweden?

My project is to rebuild it into some kind of mixed support/turret/milling lathe with focus on good economy, not nessecarily top presicion, for hobbyist workshop.
Having good knowledge in electronics and computing it will definately grow into the CNC-world,
or better: enter the CNCzone(!)

[BYTHEBOOKBOB]

Dear Willy,

Check with Tony Griffiths, tony@lathes.co.uk I know he has an Operation & Maintenance Manual. English and German text. £55.for a LIDKOPING Turret Lathe Type CR-4.

Perhaps he can help you. While you are at it, check out his web page, http://www.lathes.co.uk/ He has assembled an amazing wealth of information on hundreds of machine tools. Good luck!

[WillyK]

Thanks for quick reply!
Been there - seen it!
I've searched lathes.co.uk (found CR-4, probably much younger) and emailed with Tony yesterday:
"Your lathe is certainly unusual" and a Company in Sweden has been the result so far.
So I'm hoping for CNCzone members........
By the way, I said focus on economy, £55 is slightly less than what i paid for the lathe, but if CR-4 and CR-1 have som similarity, of course I'll need a copy.

Willy

[WillyK]

Added som photos

Status: Disassembled. Initial cleaning, rust protection and some measuring done.
Gathering parts and materials, informatiion.

Project ideas:
- Recursion. I've read somewhere that "the lathe is the only machine being able to make a replica of itsel". I'll try to live up to that phrase, ie. if possible
the machining will be perfored with the Lidkoping. (Being aware that the cost will be staying on the presicion given by the status of the Lidkoping, which however seems to be fair enough). That could be compensated by using my Emco Compact 5 (< 1 hr operation time) for parts of smaller size.
- Low cost. Hobby project that will hardly generate any business.
Machining inhouse or buying low cost second hand parts. As Lidkoping is very uncommon, parts will probably have to be adaptions of parts from other mainstream brands.
- High level intetions: Normal cross slide / top slide and tailstock configuration
while maintaining the initial turret properties against short and thick workpieces . Positioning a milling spindle on top of bed, turning it into a combined lathe/milling machine.

Some measures
Weight guessing about 500 kilos, giving sturdiness and stability potentials.
Footprint 1500 *300 mm
Bed 1000 mm long, about 800 mm available travel (z-axis)
Chuck 280 mm, swing over bed 180-190 mm
Revolver base travel about 360 mm (x-axis) or more correct +-180mm

Planned functionalities:

1a. Restoring minimum turret function, ie. using the revolver base as cross slide, adding a simple platform, top slide and toolpost to the turret spindle. OK for short parts with high diameter, obvious limitation is longer parts but thats not important initially. Top slide will be purchased 2nd hand, supplying iniital dialed lead screw presicion.
Results: Outer and inner turning, boring and kone boring. (limited lengths)

1b. Lead screws in z- and x-axis. Probably purchased 2nd hand, at least cross slide lead screw (Harrison or similar)
Results: Simplified operation and improved presicion.

2. Cross slide and tailstock. The revolver base travels 350 mm in a dove-tail
on the main slide/"saddle". Replacing the revolver stand with a cross slide table supporting the top slide from 1a, and adding a tailstock. 2nd hand tailstocks seems available at fair costs. Cross slide dove-tail will probably be milled inhouse, using the bed/main slide as primitive coordinate table, provided part of the 800 mm travel of z-axis has sufficient parallellism and presicion, I'll probably need about 400mm, ie. half of z-axis somewhere, to be tested/measured.
Results: normal lathe config, swing 190 mm, dock/dock about 800 mm

3. Placing a bridge with milling spindle on top of the lathe bed, with sufficient travel in all 3 axises (initially at least z and y). Probalbly using the revolver spindel already there (photo), having a MK5 (or MK4) morse taper kone. Must test for acceptable presicion.
Results: milling, cylindrical workpiece between docks or general ones fastened to T-slots on cross slide table, ie. say 300*800 mm coordinate table. Maybe both short and long cross table?

1b-3. CNC-motorizing along the way, not certain yet, manual machining will do
initially, but I've noticed posts recommending CNC as soon as possible. Building experience on the fly. CNC-software: low cost spec leans towards some Linux solution, time will show. Steppers: I've lots in my drawers and can probably live with low speed, at least untill I get bored. Mecanics: recursion principle (or Compact 5).

These are my hopefully realistic ideas, please wish me good luck.
You'll get more photos along the way.
Willy

[WillyK]

Turning long thin workpieces will be piece of cake:
A limitation of < 70 mm diameter on long workpieces is hardly any limitation
at all, I've done of lots of lathing until the diameter of long items exceed 70 mm!!

The KISS: Unscrewing the spindle bearing unit inside the turret base opens a
70 mm CENTERED boring through the base.
All I need will be:
1. The tailstock
2. Attaching a suitable cross slide to the 200 mm diameter vertical surface
on the base. That surface of course having perpenicular presicion versus z-axis and next to top surface properties, just some minor wear.

Spinoff 1, The obvious position of this "cross" slide will be sufficiently away
from all fragments and dirt, probably on top, sliding vertically down against workpiece.
Spinoff 2. Most important! Implemented robust, this slide will of course be
the column of my planned milling unit on top of lathe, at least when milling cylindrical workpieces between docks. Having a weight of 34 kilos this turret
base will be lots of iron for stability. And best of all ... it's already there.

I have a new vertical milling slide (from Chronos UK), for sure a candidate to become this "cross slide" unit, at least as prototype.

Spinoff 3. Traveling steady: The 200 mm circular surface also just invites for
a steady, 3 rods attached radially to the surface with 120 deg. between them, the cross slide lifted sufficiently from the same surface, to give space for the steady components.

Project comment. Now the preproject activities has reached some degree of maturity. The recent observatiions have turned the turret properties of the Lidkoping from being limitations that had to be compensated for, into potentials of rigidity and flexibility. I've been a bit not openminded,
thinking that turret lathes are for industrial serial production. That misunderstanding is now history.

This is becoming fun: for "a few bucks" i now look forward to getting 30 cm
times 100 cm lathing capabilities with about half a tonn of rigid stability. Our car (Corsa City) is heavier, but hardly very much!
The presition has to be checked, bought a magnet mounted .01 mm gauge clock to day, but I'm not at all afraid of becoming disappointed.
Again, this is for hobby machining, not industrial production, so even some lack of precision could be coped with (sorry, haven't bothered looking up in dictionary untill now. Now I finally got this spelling right.) I've surely lots of other misspellings, but we're concerned about CNC, not linguivistics, aren't we?

I'll be "in business" - or better "in workshop" - simpler, earlier, and cheaper than imagined a few days ago.
My sole "problem" is that it took about 2 days to see this KISS, but that I can live with.
Willy

[WillyK]

I've been reading other threads to build knowledge on implementation of turrets, a few interesting links:
http://www.cnczone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=51688 (thanks a lot Guldberg of Denmark!)
http://www.doriantool.com/img/get_ca...al_Turrets.pdf

Done some CAD of parts to machine a simple, but sufficient turret solution.
Purchased some suitable metal scrap for this purpose. This is like
bootstrapping: you ned a minimum plattform to get into business, and then in turn become able to go on machining additional parts.
So far I'm not there, BUT: to day I located the misplaced small StickIt with the phone number of the seller: ......
...... and luckily, he could probably help getting hold of some of the stripped down - and thus missing - original parts (like the 8 station turret and (?) associated mechanics, and probably
some of the threading transfer parts.
Seems promising, and my plans will be changed accordingly!!

Power: I have a 3 phase motor with lots of power for this purpose, will
most probably buy a frequency power controller for this motor.
Intermediately spindle power will be a zero-cost washing machine motor
run by a TDA1085C speed controller (remember my low cost focus!)
Willy