Clausing topslide lock?

Could it be that the crossfeed nut is shot? That'd explain it sitting idle.

Pete Keillor

I should have been clearer. The feed handle is turning to a point where it becomes REAL tight in both directions. This is what makes me think it is locked somehow. Sorry about that.

When you say you loosened the gibs..exactly how did you do that? Does yours have a series of gib screws along the side of the slide, or a slotted screw head on both ends of the slide?

The two slotted screws are pushers. You loosen one, and push with the other, and visa versa.

Most of these types of gibs..not all..but most will have the gib comeing out (loosening) when the gib is pushed towards the operator. If you simply loosened the two screws...it aint gonna move if its a bit rusted in.

The second question is...how do you remove the power feed from the cross feed? It sounds to me, if its not a frozen gib, that you have the cross feed locked in.

Got a picture of the slide and apron? Some of those longitudnal/crossfeeds are not particularly intuitive if you are not familiar with this type .

Many of the Clausings use a single lever that is lifted to engage the feed. .However...it must be pulled out to the Right and lifte to engage the cross feed, and pushed in to the Left and lifted (or pushed down) to engage longitudnal feed. Its easy to not know which is which and be trying to move the master lead screw with the cross slide crank..which aint going to happen.

Gunner

"At the core of liberalism is the spoiled child - miserable, as all spoiled children are, unsatisfied, demanding, ill-disciplined, despotic and useless. Liberalism is a philosphy of sniveling brats." -- P.J. O'Rourke

Gunner, Thanks for the thoughts. It indeed does have one slotted screw on each end. It sounds like I need to loosen the feed handle one and tighten the other end to unlock the topslide. I'll give that a try. This Clausing has those push/pull knobs on the apron for controlling direction and a lever for engagement/disengagement of the cross feed.

Ok, cool. Yours is like my 6525 (13x36 round top). There is a detent in the apron that will sometimes hold the push pull knob and not allow it to be pulled in or out all the way. Hummm Im trying to remember if there is a screw adjustment for detent spring tension...no..cant remember.

Let us know what you find out. Pull the gib completly, then pull the slide off and clean everything really well. The gib should come out towards you and the cross slide should go off out the backside. Check the nuts etc.

If it still wont move, you will have to drop the apron, which isnt that big of a deal.

Gunner

"At the core of liberalism is the spoiled child - miserable, as all spoiled children are, unsatisfied, demanding, ill-disciplined, despotic and useless. Liberalism is a philosphy of sniveling brats." -- P.J. O'Rourke

I've seen several good posts, but one thing which I have not yet seen mentioned is the possibility of a taper turning attachment (a sliding block on an adjustable angled piece) being mounted behind the carriage. If that is present, and locked, then it will prevent the cross-slide from moving except by moving the carriage towards/away-from the headstock, depending on the angle that the adjustable piece is set to.

Only after all else is dealt with. You've got good advice on that part of things.

There are several optimum angles -- to be discussed when I get into the letter-designated paragraphs below.

My own preference is to mount the toolpost so one dovetail is parallel to the lathe bed, and the other is parallel to the chuck face. This means that:

1) You can turn with a properly oriented tool mounted on the dovetail closest to the chuck. (My favorite for the moment is the BXA 16N holder which has mounts for two carbide inserts, one in turning position and one in facing position. (You don't say which size of Aloris toolpost you have, so you may need a different size of the 16N. (The 'N' is for "negative rake", and I usually use inserts with a groove which makes them into positive rake cutting with a negative rake holder.) Anyway, the 16N (or plain 16, for positive rake tools) is a very rigid toolholder for inserts. Much more rigid than a combination of a tool holder and a bar for the insert tooling. (It is useless, of course, for HSS tooling, unless you can find a matching HSS insert -- which I have not yet seen.) 2) You can just as easily face by shifting a tool holder to the dovetail closest to the centerline of the lathe. 3) A carbide insert external threading tool will be in the right orientation to work without adjustment in the turning dovetail described in (1) above. 4) A boring bar will be parallel to the axis when mounted in the facing dovetail. 5) A carbide insert internal threading tool will be in the proper orientation when mounted in a toolholder in the facing dovetail.

All of this without having to disturb the setting of the toolpost itself.

Note, however, that you *will* need to re-set the post whenever you change the angle of the compound. Common settings for common operations are:

a) Handcrank 29-1/2 degrees to the right of cross-slide for normal 60 degree threading.

b) Handcrank 29-1/2 degrees to the left of cross-slide for internal 60 degree threading.

c) Handcrank 14 degrees to the right of cross-slide for external ACME threading.

d) Handcrank 14 degrees to the left of cross-slide for internal ACME threading.

e-f) Handcrank 27 degrees to the right or left of the cross-slide for external/internal Whitworth (55 degree) threading.

g) And whatever feels right (45 degrees, 60 degrees, or whatever for chamfering the edge of a workpiece.

For all of those except perhaps (g) above, you will want to re-set the toolpost after shifting the compound. But some chamfering can be done with a properly-oriented tool edge -- ideally one which is set up for the toolpost to be in the normal parallel to chuck face and axis position.

Good Luck, DoN.