The wandering axeman: March 2013

Well it's been a while since I have posted. Work has been crazy since I have taken on a new role meaning little time in the garage and more time on the laptop late in the evening. Despite this, I have been doing my best to compile as much useful info regarding the Colchester Chipmaster as possible and putting it in one convenient location to save you - the savvy machinist - precious time.

Before we start, I want to clarify that I have used info from the Yahoo Colchester group (called ColchesterLathe-User) and various other sources from the net. All I have done is tried to put it all in one location for Chipmaster owners.

Which Oil for Colchester Chipmaster? An answer using Shell's catalogues.
Since buying my Colchester Chipmaster lathe, I have had the good fortune of needing to track down the appropriate oils that the lathe requires. According to the instruction manual that I have attached to this blog entry, the lathe requires the following oils:

Headstock: Shell Tellus Oil 15
Gearbox: Shell Tellus Oil 33
Variator: Shell Vitrea Oil 21

The naming conventions for Shell oils have changed a number of times. I have attached the appropriate documentd for you to follow the name changes yourself in the "Oils" section of this post. To save you the time though, I have done the work for you below:

Shell Tellus 15 -> Shell Morlina 10 -> Shell Morlina S2 BL 10
( First use the attached Shell document, then follow this link on page 18:
Shell lubricants document in Norwegian )

Shell Tellus 33 -> Shell Tellus 68 -> Shell Tellus S2 M 68
(First use the Shell document , then follow the link to page 20
Shell lubricants document in Norwegian )

Shell Vitrea 21 -> Shell Vitrea 22 / Shell Process Oil PB 33 -> Shell Morlina S2 BL 10
(First use the Shell document , then follow the link to page 18
Shell lubricants document in Norwegian )

From this you can see that the headstock and variator oil is now the same oil from Shell. This is also consistent with what Allspeed UK say who are the manufacturers of Kopp variators: Kopp Variator Oil

How Old is my Colchester Chipmaster?

This question comes up a lot and luckily, I have provided the following chart for you to check the age of your Chipmaster:

How do I Change Voltage From 440 to 230 3 Phase?

This diagram says it all really. If you have any issues, contact me as I have a hand drawn diagram that is more a representation of the actual wiring on the motor and shows the physical placement of the connections.