Got an old Sheldon 11X40 and need to replace the gib screws and lock nuts. The
1/4X28 screws are no real big problem but I have never seen any of the small cross-section nuts like the factory used. No room for standard nuts. Any ideas?
You mean thinner than the average nut? Or smaller across the flats?
The first two assume that the lathe works well enough to accomplish the task using it, or that you have another lathe.
1) Make them by drilling, tapping, and parting off from hex stock. 2) Put them in a hex collet with a depth stop and face them down thinner. 3) Put them on a mag chuck on a surface grinder and thin them down.Good Luck, DoN.
or 4) Go to the Sore and ask for "pal" nuts.
or 5) Go to the Sore and get 1/4-28 Nylok set screws swo you don't need the lock nuts.
1) take smaller nuts (say, 10-32) and drill and tap up to 1/4-28. 2) If it is thickness you are worried about, face down standard nuts by using a threaded mandrel to hold them. 3) Fabricate your own! That's what lathes are all about.
Jim
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Thanks for the ideas. The nuts need to be smaller in dia than standard nuts. The originals were longer in length and were round for half of the nut length. My problem is now that the lathe is out of service while I source a crossfeed screw bushing. Without it, there is no way to use the lathe to make repair parts. Guess I need two lathes?
Huh? You dont have at least two? Humph..what kind of hobbyist are you anyways? Dadgummed posers...
Gunner
"What do you call someone in possesion of all the facts? Paranoid.-William Burroughs
I guess the nuts were really locknuts for the individual gib screws.
Just go ahead and use the machine without locknuts on those screws, once you have the crossfeed bushing sorted out. Most smaller, cheaper lathes like the 9" SB don't even have locknuts installed from the factory, you just snug down the screws and leave them at that. So fix up the locknuts that way and then install them.
Jim
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One lathe is never enough. Neither is just one mill. Acquiring tools in this hobby is like drugs. You never have enough. I just picked up my fourth lathe and third mill. You can go broke saving money! Steve
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