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Woodhouse & Mitchell
and Town Woodhouse
7-inch Junior Lathe
An Operation & Maintenance Manual with Illustrated Parts is available for this lathe. Email for details

Marketed with both Woodhouse & Mitchell and Town Woodhouse badges, the 7-inch Junior was very much the baby of the Company's range with the brochure entry adopting a rather patronising tone - as though such a small machine was really rather beneath them. However, while Woodhouse and Mitchell were better known for their much larger lathes (and Town Woodhouse for their radial-arm drills) the junior was exceptionally well specified and built to a very high standard using high-quality materials. The bed, massively strong and diagonally braced between the walls for added strength used a combination of flat and V-ways with the saddle guided on a large V at the front and a flat at the rear. Separate rear V and front flat guides were provided for the tailstock. As standard the bed was provided with a detachable gap piece but, even without removing it, work up to 1" thick could be to be machined on the full diameter of the faceplate; with the gap piece out the thickness of work on the faceplate could be increased to 8 inches. The majority of lathes were supplied with a 36" capacity between centres, but longer beds giving 45", 54" and 72" between centres were also available, though the 72" version is very rare.
8 spindle speeds were provided, in geometric progression, and the customer could choose from five ranges, though others, unadvertised, may have been available. All were rather slow by today's standards but perfectly suitable for the standard cutting tools in use at the time and ideal for amateur or general repair-workshop use today: 30 - 437 r.p.m.; 30 -900 r.p.m.; 44 - 640 rpm;  50 - 750 r.p.m. and 60 - 874 rpm. The main spindle was made from a heat-treated, high-carbon steel-tubular forging machined and ground-finished. It was bored through to clear 1-inch, threaded 2.5" x 4 t.p.i (and tapered inside 1 in 12 to hold an adaptor with a No. 3 Morse taper) and ran on "selected" high-accuracy taper-roller bearings. All the sliding change gears within the headstock were made of heat-treated nickel steel with the spindle gears and clutch in high-tensile cast iron with the shafts of high-carbon steel. The feed-reversing mechanism to the feeds and screwcutting gearbox was carried within the headstock (where it benefited from a constant supply of oil) and incorporated a "one tooth" clutch so that the reversal of feed during screwing maintained screwcutting pitch relationships.  The drive to the headstock was by either a single or double V-pulley from a foot-mounted motor fastened to the back of the headstock foot - the double pulley being a late replacement and obviously intended to give some reserve of capacity when the machine was being used hard. An oil-immersed, multi-plate clutch was fitted inside the headstock and controlled by a conveniently placed lever just below and to the left of the gap in the bed.
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Woodhouse & Mitchell/Town Woodhouse "70 Junior" circa 1955. Later versions had the option of a full cabinet stand that has been found constructed in both heavy steel plate and cast-iron

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Provided with two T-slotted wings towards its tailstock end and a single towards the clutch, the saddle was guided on a front Vee and a rear flat.
Of double-wall design the apron contained gears of heat-treated nickel-steel with high-carbon steel shafts and a phosphor-bronze worm wheel to pick up the drive from the separate power shaft. Both the sliding and surfacing feeds were controlled by single-lever operated tumbler arrangement with a cam-locking action -  interlocked, of course, with the clasp-nut engagement handle to prevent inadvertent simultaneous engagement and the resulting mechanical marmalade. The rack was of high-carbon steel, and the pinion which engaged it of heat-treated, nickel chrome-molybdenum steel.
The basic machine was fitted with a simple 3-speed gearbox on the end of the leadscrew giving a choice of three sliding and surfacing feeds for each setting of the changewheels (with feed rates of: 0.030", 0.015" and 0.007" inches per revolution). To guard against over-enthusiastic use by inexperienced apprentices (or impatient piece-work operators) a pre-loaded slipping clutch was fitted to the feed shaft. The set of changewheels provided for cutting all standard English threads together with a 127T metric translation wheel
A Norton-type, quick-change, screwcutting gear box was available at extra cost and this gave 32 feeds and threads - and was supplied complete with additional changewheels for generating metric pitches.  The leadscrew was properly mounted in tension with ball thrusts at each end and cut to give a pitch error which did not exceed 0.002" in any 12 inches. A rather fine touch - and very unusual - was the provision of an additional support guide for the leadscrew immediately before it passed thorough the clasp nuts, a fitting designed to reduce both bending stress and wear A thread-dial indicator was part of the standard specification.
With a 3-Morse taper spindle, the tailstock was the only part of the lathe to show any evidence at all of cost cutting, being provided with loose (self-hiding) spanner to lock it to the bed. A built-in, lever-operated cam-action cross-shaft would have been much preferable and could be provided - but at extra cost. 
Equipment provided with lathe when new was basic: stand with suds tray, a 4-way toolpost, a small faceplate, drive plate, travelling steady, a set of spanners and changewheels. Additional accessories such as chucks, a fixed steady, larger faceplate, taper turning attachment and electric coolant pump and suds tank could be supplied at extra cost.
Following the example set by the Company's larger lathes, the "Junior" was made entirely of controlled-quality materials and constructed to Schlesinger limits of accuracy. All levers and handwheels were chromium plated and, to complete a sound, English-built job, the lubrication points were fitted with dirt-excluding nipples. 
Many years ago a friend of the writer found a "Junior" tipped upside down in a scrapyard. Although rusty and looking thoroughly dishevelled, the quality of construction was such that only a careful clean, adjustment of clearances, replacement of the odd broken handle and replenishment of oils was needed to put it back into daily, productive use.

Woodhouse & Mitchell/Town Woodhouse "70 Junior" circa 1957