Denford Software & Machines

Firstly I'd like to say hello to you guys as I'm new on this forum. I found it very very helpful when gathering information on Viceroy TDS 1/1 GB lathe. A friend of mine showed me numerous photos of the Viceroy lathe his friend is going to sell. The first issue is the price he is quoting for the lathe - arond GBP 830 not including transportation (300km in one way). It is not cheap I think... I've read all the posts about this model and she's ideal as for my purpouse - introdution to model engineering. Is't weight is ok, swing over bed (5") and the distance between centers (by the way is it 20'' or 24''?) are also ok as well as MT3 tapers in both spindle and tail stock. Not mentioning about auto feed in both directions! Unfortunatelly I don't have much choice when looking around for this model (or other with similar capabilities) as I live in Poland and Viceroy, MyFord, Boxford, etc. lathes are pretty rare here. I don't need to add that taking a trip to the Great Britain to collect some lathe is not economic (even if I get one for free:))

I think I'll jump into the car, take some tools and go to see that lathe. Can you guys advise me what to look at during inspection?
What really worry me is the bed ways condition - do you also see rust on the ways near the spindle? Also dove tails on both cross slide and compound rest doesn't look well:/ As you can see it is metric version but I have a question on cross slide and compound rest lead screws - are they metric or imperial? Dial scales says 2.50mm per revolution - it is pretty close to 10 t.p.i. lead screw (or 20 t.p.i. when talking about work diameter change per rev). So automatically I'm asking what about that missing 0.04mm (diff between 2.54 and 2.50)?

The lathe is sold as is - without additional accessories though I can see 6 change gears under the end drive cover - the 7th one is mounted on the gear train. I'm aware that steady and follow rests are near impossible to get on auctions and too costly because of shipping cost though rests are something I can cope with. But faceplate is very handy and it is not included:/ I've seen somewhere that there is some problem with spindle thread so it might be a problem to make my own faceplate and it is also hard to find accressory for TDS 1/1. The same about conversion set for imperial threads cutting.
What you guys think about that particular lathe?

Thanks in advance for all advices!

/Wojtek

Bogus105 wrote:Firstly I'd like to say hello to you guys as I'm new on this forum. I found it very very helpful when gathering information on Viceroy TDS 1/1 GB lathe. A friend of mine showed me numerous photos of the Viceroy lathe his friend is going to sell. The first issue is the price he is quoting for the lathe - arond GBP 830 not including transportation (300km in one way). It is not cheap I think... I've read all the posts about this model and she's ideal as for my purpouse - introdution to model engineering. Is't weight is ok, swing over bed (5") and the distance between centers (by the way is it 20'' or 24''?) are also ok as well as MT3 tapers in both spindle and tail stock. Not mentioning about auto feed in both directions! Unfortunatelly I don't have much choice when looking around for this model (or other with similar capabilities) as I live in Poland and Viceroy, MyFord, Boxford, etc. lathes are pretty rare here. I don't need to add that taking a trip to the Great Britain to collect some lathe is not economic (even if I get one for free:))

I think I'll jump into the car, take some tools and go to see that lathe. Can you guys advise me what to look at during inspection?
What really worry me is the bed ways condition - do you also see rust on the ways near the spindle? Also dove tails on both cross slide and compound rest doesn't look well:/ As you can see it is metric version but I have a question on cross slide and compound rest lead screws - are they metric or imperial? Dial scales says 2.50mm per revolution - it is pretty close to 10 t.p.i. lead screw (or 20 t.p.i. when talking about work diameter change per rev). So automatically I'm asking what about that missing 0.04mm (diff between 2.54 and 2.50)?

The lathe is sold as is - without additional accessories though I can see 6 change gears under the end drive cover - the 7th one is mounted on the gear train. I'm aware that steady and follow rests are near impossible to get on auctions and too costly because of shipping cost though rests are something I can cope with. But faceplate is very handy and it is not included:/ I've seen somewhere that there is some problem with spindle thread so it might be a problem to make my own faceplate and it is also hard to find accressory for TDS 1/1. The same about conversion set for imperial threads cutting.
What you guys think about that particular lathe?

Thanks in advance for all advices!

/Wojtek

1)The first issue is the price he is quoting for the lathe - arond GBP 830
Looks not a bad Viceroy. You would be lucky to get a really good one, and if you did it would be more expensive.
On Ebay in the UK I would expect this to go for between 5-600 pounds. More from a dealer.

2)What really worry me is the bed ways condition - do you also see rust on the ways near the spindle
I'm sure the bedways will be fine. Don't forget the near side Vee is only used for the saddle and the centre one only for the tailstock. How often do you have the tailstock that close to the chuck ?

3) So automatically I'm asking what about that missing 0.04mm (diff between 2.54 and 2.50)?
Don't understand the problem. Its a metric lathe, work in metric and everything is fine.

4) But faceplate is very handy and it is not included:/ I've seen somewhere that there is some problem with spindle thread so it might be a problem to make my own..
Faceplates are available on Ebay for about 50 Pounds.(don't know about post to Poland though !)

5)The same about conversion set for imperial threads cutting.
There are conversion change wheels available. Or else you can bodge a "nearly right" screw thread which would be OK for a short thread. i.e I did a 7/16 UNC thread and it worked fine on my metric Viceroy.
There is an Excel spreadsheet in the data stickies somewhere which gives you a help with this.

Les.T.

Thank you for reply.

2) good point!

3) i was wondering what kind of lead screw is used, say for compound rest. I thought it was 10 t.p.i so dial show only some approximation (2,50mm instead of 2,54mm per rev) but that would be stupid:)

4) it sounds not bad, thanks!

5) now i recall i've seen that XLS file already, thx!

I found very interesting question on TDS 1/1 GB on YouraT's thread:

viewtopic.php?f=50&t=3752

What do you guys think about it? Some pictures from Dazz shows that there are only 4 capscrews ( circled red in pic) that bolting headstock assembly to the lower part (bed?). Is this possible? How about alignment? Any setpins?