Buying a lathe

[michael weaver]

Well, here it is. I spent last night tearing it down, cleaning everything, oiling and setting it up on the borel base. I haven’t turned anything on it yet but I bought some stock brass to get started….unfortunately the brass doesn’t fit any of my collets. So, I have to just sit here and look at it the rest of the night.

[chris mabbott]

Michael, you’re not gonna use that nice shiny lathe and get it all dirty are you 😯
I’m in the same boat, I have a marshall all shined up and waiting to go, but I have to service my motor first, when I have the chance..

A lot of people prefer the dull finish to their lathes because of reflections, but I laaav the shiny chrome finish, must be my raven part showing..

Chris

[david pierce]

Mike,
That is a beautiful machine. If you have a precision Swiss design dial indicator put the probe in the collet taper and check the runout. To check the tailstock alignment put the indicator in a chuck and run a sweep around the tailstock shaft.
david

[david pierce]

Mike,
That is a beautiful machine. If you have a precision Swiss design dial indicator put the probe in the collet taper and check the spindle runout. To check the tailstock alignment put the indicator in a chuck and run a sweep around the tailstock shaft.
david

[michael weaver]

Thanks fellas! David, you are speaking a different language to me. I did put a collet in and ran the tailstock to it and the point lined up perfectly with the middle of the collet. The only thing I have as far as measurement devices is a digital caliper and an outside diameter starrett micrometer that measures to the 1000th. I don’t own an inside micrometer. Can any of what you mentioned be achieved with what I have?

[michael weaver]

Chris, the funny thing is that I have a polishing cloth sitting next to it. I literally keep going over and polishing it like a classic car. I have it sitting in my living room so I can look over at it. These machines are a work of art.

[david pierce]

Michael,
Tmac ran an earlier post of his milling machine and one of the pictures showed an indicator of this type. They are used a lot in machine work for lining things up and centering. At this stage it will not be an issue but checking the equipment in this way will indicate if the machine is capebable of doing high precision work.
david

[tmac1956]

Michael:

The dial indicator can be obtained pretty cheap. ENCO has them for about $25.00 including a magnetic base. You basically set up the dial perpendicular to the head stock, adjust the dial so the its touching the part that you wish test, set the dial to zero, and rotate the headstock to see what the maximum/minimum variance is – that’s called the run-out.

I hope this helps!
Tom

[michael weaver]

Perfect! Thanks Tom I will go look right now.

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