Thread Cutting Problem

After owning the lathe for a couple of months an getting used to it I decided it was time to attempt cutting threads, I'd watched loads and loads of YouTube videos on the subject and felt I'd got the basic idea so it was time to give it a go.

I'd bought a quick change toolpost which would allow me to swap the cutting tools without having to shim my tools for their different heights, I went for a Myford type from Warco but it needed a 11.2mm stud whereas mine was only 10mm so it was just the project I needed to try out turning a new toolpost stud to fit.

After changing the gears to get a 1.5mm pitch I found that whenever I engaged the leadscrew it would force the reverse tumbler gears out of mesh without even trying to make a cut...... not good!

After a phone call to Warco and a discussion with the technician I decided to see how difficult to turn the lead screw was and yes it was very difficult to turn, not really possible with my fingers even with the gear removed from the end.
I removed the two cap screws from the right hand bearing and it sprung away from the lathe bed around 10mm, hmmm! I thought I'd found the problem, the leadscrew was not parallel to the lathe bed, something at the other end was out of true.

After removing the leadscrew and inspecting the left hand bearing I noticed that there seemed to be a clash between the bearing and the bracket that hold/adjusts the 'B' and 'C' gears.

Yellow line showing the foul

I removed the bracket completely and enlarged the hole where the clash occurred with the bearing.
Still with the bracket removed, I re-fitted the leadscrew and checked how free it was with both bearings re-fitted, it was still a little stiffer than I thought it should be but easier than with the bracket fitted, whenever I tightened up the right hand bearing it was stiffer to turn so I added a thin shim under the left hand bearing and then it ran freely using my fingers when both bearings were fully tightened down.

After re-assembling the bracket and gears I then aligned the apron by loosening the cap screws and engaging the half nuts then re-tightening, when you engage the half nuts the leadscrew should not move significantly side to side, if it moves upwards the you may want to place a shim between the apron and the cross slide.




The other thing I did was to improve the locating of the leadscrew direction lever, as it had slipped out of the detent so many times it had worn a groove in the casting so I drilled a 3mm hole slightly above the original detent. ****Be careful when drilling into the casting, the drive belt runs under that part of the casting ****

I then turned down part of the plunger to give it a 3mm (just under) parallel section that would go into the new hole and secure the direction lever in place.

The plunger still has the tapered point so it will still work with the other two detents.

Following these refinements I successfully made an new stud for my quick change toolpost, I also thought the lathe was a bit quieter as well.

New stud for my new toolpost

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Which one, Where from?

So, once the decision was made to buy a lathe the next step was to research what was available within my budget and where would be best to get it from.

The second decision to be made was to buy new or second hand.

There are a few well known makes of lathes out there like Myford, Drummond etc. Myford lathes

Myford ML7 Lathe

seem to be one of the more common makes on the second hand market.
After looking through quite a lot of adverts for second hand lathes I decided that I didn't really have the experience needed to be able to look at a lathe and decide if it was OK or not and, even second hand, the cost was often more than the cost of a budget mini lathe.
Another thing to consider was the distance you may need to travel to pick up the lathe and don't forget, they are quite heavy.


Anyway, I decided to buy a new one and this would need to be an online purchase as there aren't any suppliers anywhere close to me.

Based on my web research it looks like the main contenders in the budget lathe market come from China made by a company called SIEG.  There are 3 main spec's of lathe, C1, C2 and C3, the C3 being the best spec.

These lathes are sold in the UK by distributors and there also some customised versions badged as their own brand.

The cost varies between £350 - £600 for one of the mini lathes, here are some of the places I looked.
www.arceurotrade.co.uk
www.warco.co.uk
www.axminster.co.uk
www.ebay.co.uk

The one I went for

I eventually bought mine from Warco.co.uk, (link) mainly because it came with a slightly better spec. than some of the others and also the price included courier delivery.

Having had the lathe for a few months I did come across a few quality issues that needed addressing and this is where I found out what a good company Warco was to deal with.
Whenever I had an issue with anything Warco always had someone ring me back to discuss the issue and then sent out new parts straight away, this was quite a pleasant surprise because my experience in dealing with most companies, when things go wrong, is usually a nightmare.

I will be going over some of the issues and solutions in later posts.

The First Entry

Having had a blog for my interest in electronics and the Arduino open source project for some time I decided to start a new blog to share my experiences with my new lathe, purchased in 2014, rather that confuse my existing blog.

Let's get one thing out in the open at the very beginning, I'm not an expert tool maker or an experienced hobby engineer I'm an electronics engineer with an interest in making things and a lathe is now part of my toolbox.

There is already quite a lot of information out there for lathes but most of it seems to be for larger/ older  lathes, way over my budget and probably too big to fit in my garage.

What I'd like to do is create some entries describing the process of how I went about buying a budget lathe and then moving on to the things I learned from reading other peoples blogs and many visits to YouTube which helped me improve both my lathe and my understanding of the lathe.

As you may be aware from reading my other blog, I'm not a prolific blogger and there may be quite some time between blogs.......