Tapering and runout on a SIEG C1 lathe

Hello all,

I have a SIEG C1 Micro Lathe

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which I bought from Axminster a year ago, although the lathe itself doesn't see heavy use (perhaps, say, once a month?).

Recently, I've discovered 2 problems while turning. The first is that my work is tapering, with the diameter being larger near the chuck. I've run a clock along a test piece and have found that there is a

0.15mm deflection across a 55mm length, giving a 0.3mm change in diameter. The second is that if I place the clock on the work near the chuck and rotate the chuck, I find I'm getting deflections between 0.03 and 0.15mm, but they don't seem regular - the needle looks like it's deflecting randomly.

To take these measurements, I put a 10mm diameter, 100mm long mild steel rod in a 4-jaw chuck with about 60mm protruding and got it running roughly true. Then I started taking light cuts across the protruding length (touching on and feeding across). A clock was then used to take the readings.

The lathe itself is just sat on a stand (seen here

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is not fixed to it at all.

I can't say for sure when these problems started to happen, because it's only recently that I've started to actively watch out for them. I have a hunch that the tapering started quite recently when I removed the lathe's 3-jaw chuck to try out the 4-jaw chuck that I had just bought. But as I said, I really couldn't say for sure.

As a novice, I'm not sure whether these defects are ones which I can fix myself or if they're serious problems with the lathe. I was wondering if I could get some advice regarding these issues?

Thanks

--Amr

Reply to
Amr
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but is not fixed to it at all.

All your symptoms could be caused by the 4 jaw chuck being loose on the spindle, or the jaws being loose in the body of the chuck. Put clock (I assume that this is a dial indicator) on the chuck and see how much you can move it left/right and up/down, repeat with your test bar. 10 mm is kind of small, does your 4 jaw hold it tighly?

Carl Boyd

Reply to
Carl Boyd

Hi Carl,

Thanks for your reply. I've done the suggested measurements and have found that the chuck doesn't move left/right at all, but moves up/down by about 0.01mm. Same with the test bar at the end, except it's up/ down movement is 0.02-0.03mm. The chuck does seem to be holding the work tightly - doesn't seem to be any play. How does that sound?

--Amr

Reply to
Amr

Snip

Amr

Can I suggest that your post would be better directed to

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The guys there use similar machines and will happily discuss this problem and any other that you may have.

Reply to
Richard Edwards

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