Hi All
I'd be grateful for some advice.
As a novice at lathe work I thought that I might have a go at milling in the lathe so in my usual cheapskate fashion I decided to see if I could make a vertical milling slide by marrying an old lathe cross slide to an angle plate.
I've got to the trial assembly stage and I've found that when I tighten down the angle plate to the cross slide the cross slide gib needs readjusting - it becomes slacker. After a little bit of fiddling I conclude that either the cross slide or the angle plate isn't flat and tightening them down is opening the dovetail in the cross slide.
I suspect the angle plate (it was only £3) but I can't reliably detect a problem with a straight edge. If anything it is slightly concave (though less than 0.001") and I would have expected a bulge to open the dovetail in the cross slide.
I've put a couple of pictures to show the general arrangement here
I'd be grateful for any suggestions - especially ones that don't involve spending lots of money.
Russell (aka Cheapskate)