Today

What Lathe do you have?

Why worry about backlash? You are not CNC. Just checked and I have

0.5mm on the cross and 1.5mm on the top (actually that is a bit much!) but can happily machine to good accuracy.

Its not the allen heads that are the problem its getting at the locknuts. I must make a tubular spanner with concentric allen key to make adjustment easier

That reminds me I noted that the threads on my crosslide screw looked a bit "bronze coloured oily" Need to take a look.

Installaed Ubuntu to take a look at EMC2. Linux has definitely (thanks Charles) come on in the last few years. Finished my toolholder and fell asleep in the chair!

Yep just come back to it in 150 years.

Richard

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Put the iron outside for at least 3 months. You need to be patient! Peter

sorted.

Today - travelled 100 mile round trip with the big Ifor Williams to pick up two pig arks for the weaners I'll be fattening in the spring. Got back, shifted 14 ton of road planings with the 3cx into the hole that is the roadway to the wifes greenhouses, or will be when Hansons deliver another 8 cu M of RC40 concrete next Monday - now what happened to that workshop I was putting back together ??? In fact I've now shifted 9 trailer loads of small stuff out of storage and 'just' have the six big machines to get back - (manual Bridgeport, CNC Bridgeport Interact, J&S 540, J&S 1300, EDM machine, & Colchester Master) - hopefully just a couple of trips with LeRoys big lorry when I'm released having finished doing jury service third week in November.

AWEM

Chinese minilathe.

Fairy nuff - though eventually it'll be cnc'd, and eventually is getting closer. It isn't just slop though, it's feel as well, and wow, the difference is huge.

Also, while it's quite possible to do work more accurate than the slop on a slide (and any old machinist will say this is the way it should be done), you still have to always adjust up one way - if the slop is less than any accuracy you'll ever want, you don't have to do that.

(dons flameproof coat)

On minilathes, it's the allen head grub screws - trust me! Either they strip, or they're sloppy and hard to adjust accurately.

Also there's plenty of room to use an open-end spanner on the nuts.

-- Peter Fairbrother

So, a nice restful day then.

-- Peter

Now I understand the comment about the Allen Screws

Richard

In article , Peter Fairbrother writes

The attraction of that sort of job is that you can feel the benefits every time you use the tool - most satisfactory !

What make is the lathe ?

Re-made some fiddly bits for my 'Lady Stephanie' which hadn't survived a long period of knocking-round the workshop. Did some experiments looking for something to dissolve oil residue off delicate steel components of same - looks as if table salt dissolved in distilled vinegar will do it, but I'm running some more tests before I risk ruining anything important.

This has two definitions :-

1) Castings bought on impulse at an exhibition years ago but not yet machined, aka 'ageing under the bench'.

2) The sort of ageing that Myford do with lathe bed castings and the like, where they rough-machine them oversize and then bury them (I think ?) for six months for the stresses to work themselves out so as to preclude distortion on finish machining.