|
Made by the "Alto Co. Ltd." in Japan or South Korea - and unknown in the UK - this little "precision" lathe carries a badge proclaiming "Precision Bench Lathe New Alto YD2500". Although having no hands-on experience with the machine, the writer thinks it might be around the same size as the high-precision Toyo ML1, i.e. a centre height of perhaps 50 mm (2 inches) and taking around 250 mm (9.8 inches) between centres. Most advertisements for used New Alto lathes appear on Japanese website and one example shown below is on top a Toyo box; hence, might the lathe have been made by the Saki Special Camera Mfg. Co. Ltd., the makers of the Toyo, or its successor?
The lathe appears to have been offered in two forms - as a plain-turning type and screwcutting. Common to all versions of the Toyo and New Alto was a leadscrew that ran down the centre line of the bed with the solid clasp nut directly beneath the saddle - an arrangement that ensured the shortest and most rigid path to the cutting tool. As the leadscrew nut was solid, on the screwcutting versions a dog clutch was used to engage and disengage the drive - on the New Alto the control for this was a dial low down on the face of the headstock.
Both had a flat-top bed, the top-surface ways being narrow strips slightly raised at the front and back. While on the Toyo the saddle was guided and well supported by full-height, square-section ways machined into both the front and back faces of the bed, the New Alto guides were of the narrow, square type as also used, for example, on Series 7 Myford lathes.
Presumably, to suit Japanese (and American?) electrical systems, the motor was a 100-volt, dual 50/60 Hertz type and controlled by a variable-speed and reversing control unit. This arrangement provided high and low speed ranges - the latter provided by a 2-step pulley on the motor and an intermediate, 2-step jockey pulley. It may also have been possible to reverse the intermediate pulley and so obtain two additional ranges.
From the various photographs of the lathe discovered, it seems that the lathe was supplied with a 3-jaw "ring-scroll" chuck, a 4-jaw independent chuck, a swivelling top slide, a rather large and crude machine vice, an indexing unit, a fixed steady, a 2-way toolpost and, for the tailstock, a drill chuck and rotating centre.
Like many small lathes, the New Alto was offered with a vertical milling column that, for reasons of economy, was designed to accept the entire headstock and its drive system. The headstock was secured to the bed and milling column by a single pin, formed, near its end, with a double taper. On the face of the headstock was a tapped hole, this likely to have taken a cap-head screw the end of which was shaped to engage the tapered pin and so lock the headstock and drive system into place.
Of unusually heavy construction, the column, instead of being fastened to the back of the lathe's bed - as was common with so many similar units from other makers - had to be bolted down to the bench. One hopes of course that the bench would have been a substantial one, with a thick and dead-level steel top. Perhaps an ideal solution would have been to mount the lathe and milling column on a surplus cast-iron surface plate.
Do you have a New Alto lathe - or another by the same maker? If so, the writer would appreciate hearing from you.
|
|
