Scully lathe - Bringing to life / help!

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Cutterwoller
Posts: 103
Joined: Wed May 03, 2006 3:32 pm
Location: London

Scully lathe - Bringing to life / help!

Post: # 39121Unread post Cutterwoller
Mon Dec 14, 2015 6:45 pm

Dear All,

I have a Scully machine which I have used in the past to cut masters with a grampian head and have done live recording with it. I also have a Westrex 3D head with 1574-D amplifiers. Iv finally gotten round to setting it up for stereo. (I usually cut on VMS70/SX74).

The lathe is the older Type-1 Scully. It has fixed pitch settings. The lead screw is driven by the turntable drive. Its of cast construction, not welded like the later 1950s ones.

I plan to mount a separate pitch motor to the hand crank. But will do so once its all set up. One thing at a time.

The mat is kinda shagged, dirty, hard, dry... and needs replacing. I will be laser cutting out a new one in the next few days.

What Iv done so far is...

- Repaired amplifiers and power supplies (these are now working)
- Tested head (coils are fine, will find out upon cutting if its all ok however)
- Stripped, cleaned and oiled the Scully lathe and made any needed repairs. Not that theres anything that can really go wrong with these.

Even tho I haven't put the new cork mat on yet, I have mounted the head and made some blank test cuts. As I am missing some parts (mentioned on the classified page along with some other needs), I haven't electrically lined up the head and cut tones/music with this head.

I have run into some confusion tho.

When I mounted the 3D head, it was to low and was sitting below the platter (coarse depth control set for maximum height). Iv studied photographs and can't work out why this is. When I put in my 2B head on, it sits in the right place. Most people who are using 3D heads seems to have a later style head mount but Iv also got some pictures of the older style head mount with a stereo head on. So I am guessing I may have the wrong mount? Any help would be appreciated.

When people originally bought 3D heads to put on their machines, did they have to buy/use a different head mount? Or, is the mount used for the 2B interchangeable with the 3D?

By head mount, I don't mean the long bar that is bolted to the actually head. I mean the part that this sits in and is bolted to the lathe carriage. In my case, its painted gloss black.

Some photos;
Scully 1.JPG
Scully 2.JPG
Scully 3.JPG
Scully 4.JPG
As a "quick fix", I moved the head mount up so it was sticking up from he lathe. This allowed to me make some cuts but is wrong I know.

If anyone can shed some light, that would be cool.

In one of the pictures, the depth adjustment can be seen. The handle has been snapped of at some point in history. If anyone has a spare laying around, let me know!

Cheers, Lewis (London)
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EmAtChapterV
Posts: 244
Joined: Sun Jan 06, 2013 6:49 pm
Location: Vancouver, BC

Re: Scully lathe - Bringing to life / help!

Post: # 39216Unread post EmAtChapterV
Sun Dec 20, 2015 1:11 am

I haven't set up a Scully myself, but from the pictures I have, I think it's a totally different mount - there should be more than enough room for the suction tube to come up between the head and the mount, and I don't see it or see how that would fit on your setup.

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