Early Harrison L5 serial number and headstock oil

V

Vegg

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I got a very early harrison L5 for free, in good shape and I am starting to use it at the moment. I have 2 questions about it.

The first question is one I stumbled upon when trying to find the build year. I was trying to figure this out with the serial number of the machine, but this is where my question starts. It's a weird serial number and I can't find anywhere what it means. It clearly says 'Lasso' and 4469 at the tailstock side of the bed. Also F /I\ H on the other part of the bed at the tailstock side. foto's attached where you can (hopefully) see it. Does someone recognise this? I already found the list of serial numbers on lathes.co.uk , but it's not in that list.
20240511_220456.jpg20240511_220525.jpg20240511_220539.jpg


My other question is about the oiling of the headstock of the lathe. I filled the headstock with a generous layer of hydraulic oil that I had laying around. The problem is that when the lathe is turning the oil comes seeping out of the right side of the lid that is put on the headstock. You see in another picture I attached (from lathes.co.uk) that the headstock is 'round' and that the oil follows the inside of the lid, and than seeps through it at arount the sides of the spindle shaft. Could this be because my oil is to thin or do I have a more serious problem?
harrison early.gif
 
Could the other mark besides the serial number be an inspector's mark?
 
Some of the old lathes use 90 weight gear oil, BUT Be darn sure you read a manual for it because quite a few lathes that were designed for light wt circulating oil have been ruined by using 90 wt gear oil because they are a splash system and 90 WT DOESNT SPLASH TO THE TOP AND LUBRICATE THE SPINDLE BEARINGS.

Find out the proper oil to use for your machine.
 
Yeah the problem is that I don't find a manual for the early L5, only for the newer MK2 models. The headstock of these newer models are different than the headstock on the early model, so I don't know if it uses the same kind of oil.
 
benmychree said:
Could the other mark besides the serial number be an inspector's mark?
Click to expand...
I don't know where the lathe originally came from, but when I picked it up it was in a basement of a house, so it would be weird if there would be an inspector to check it. But it is totally possible that before it ended up in the basement it was somewhere else where it would need to be inspected. (It probably sat in the basement for a long time, because there wasn't a way to get the lathe out of the basement without taking it apart, so it is possible that the house was build around the lathe).
 
Maybe the below links will help.

HARRISON LATHES
http://www.lathes.co.uk/harrison/

HarrisonLathe
harrisonlathe.groups.io

main groups.io Group

This Group is for sharing information about Harrison lathes and provides supplementary details on Harrison products to add to that on Lathes.co.uk/harrison/ which you should initially read fully. Please add information to the Files and Photos sections for permanence, rather than just including...
harrisonlathe.groups.io harrisonlathe.groups.io

Harry
 
Yeah I already searched through those sites, sadly I couldn't find any info that would help me further. Thanks anyway!
 
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