Member postings for Pete

Center drill a steel or aluminum bar of whatever you have around. A couple of inches in diameter and 8"-12" long would work well. Center drill each end.Then take a lump of any steel you have handy 1"-2" in diameter and roughly 2" long. Turn half the length down by around 1/4" smaller in diameter and do a good facing job where that step is. Reverse that in the chuck jaws and turn a 60 degree point on it. (30 degrees per side as a normal fixed center would have) Now DO NOT remove that from the chuck until the next test is complete since the center tip is now as concentric as the lathes bearings will allow. That turned step goes against the face of the chuck jaws and prevents it from being pushed back in the chuck. Set your previously center drilled bar up between that headstock center and the tailstock center. Add a drive dog at the headstock end and let one of the chucks jaws drive it.Turn the length of the bar until it fully cleans up and measure each end with a good micrometer. This removes any chuck jaw holding inaccuracy and will produce a proper example of what the lathe can actualy do under cutting conditions. But only if your tailstocks side to side alignment is properly set to the headstocks center line.

You have to eliminate as many variables as possible or cutting tests are meaningless. As each part of the lathe is tested and verified as correct that's one less variable you can eliminate. By doing the proper tests you can then access exactly where and what any problems might be. Turning between centers is the most accurate way of holding and turning any shaft type work as long as it's diameter is large enough to prevent bending. As a bonus it allows work to be turned end for end put back in the lathe and still be accurately centered. If the tailstock is properly aligned and your turned test bar has less than the .003" taper your seeing then the faults lie elsewhere.

Given the age of your lathe I'd expect your tailstock is worn especially at the front where it slides on the ways. However it takes a great deal of wear to show very much change on the parts diameter. George Thomas and a few others have clearly showed that by simple math.

An impressive and extremely heavy duty lathe for there size. Anythings possible of course, but after seeing those pictures from KWIL's link (thank you) I'd be even less concerned about that crash shifting the headstock just as Hopper said. And I think much the same as he does about spending the money on those test bars. First they have to be made very well with as close to zero runout as possible. Getting that accuracy no matter where there made costs a great deal of money.Then the spindle taper has to be in perfect condition or the tests don't mean much. I have some and have learned that for what they cost the return wasn't worth it. They are handy for checking and aligning a tailstock not so much for a true C/L with the headstock, but for the tailstock being angled off side to side or pointing up or down hill. But even that can be done without having one.

Your Lang lathe certainly has the quality to justify a proper rebuild. If you ever decide to do so it's best not to chose to have the grinding done by price alone. The shops that do know what it takes to correctly align and regrind a lathe bed will charge accordingly. As Hopper said sorting out your headstock bearing clearance should be the next step. With that .003" clearance it's impossible to judge how much the bed wear is causing a taper in the workpiece and how much the excessive bearing clearance is. Logic and some guessing suggests it could be causing most of that .002" taper. It is a very heavily built lathe, but even so it's not impossible for the bed to twist and on an uneven floor, even more so if it's been bolted down without being sure it's level or not twisted in all directions. That could have happened at any time before you bought it. The lathe carriage then wears to the beds position and the bed can also take on a permanent twist over time. If so it needs to be shimmed and gently forced back into to being true.

I'm not familure with a Lang lathe, but they all work much the same. .003" seems high though. For the adjustable type preload you slowly tighten, run at top speed for 20 min. to 1/2 an hr and check the headstock temperatures with your hand. Keep adjusting until the headstock starts to warm.Proper preload is very close to being correct at quite warm but not so hot you can't leave your hand on it for some time. A bit subjective but that's what most of the recomendations I've read have to say. You might find ground shims at a good bearing supplier and add, subtract in various combinations until it's correct.

Likely that's a 4 1/2 to 3 morse taper. Fairly common on a lot of lathes in the 5 MT size and not usually too tough to find by contacting a few machine tool suppliers. Memory if it's right then the Colchester Chipmaster used it as well. It usually takes a fairly serious crash to move a headstock on a well built lathe, but possibly that was enough.

I'll try to shorten this as much as possible but..................

What type of tool was used to turn that 6" long piece down. To test like that you need to start with ultra sharp HSS since carbide takes a lot more pressure to make it cut unless it's one of the specialty tips meant for aluminum and has lapped edges. That pressure can change your results because it pushes the bar away instead of cleanly cutting it.With that very sharp HSS tool you then take a clean up cut with tailstock support. Remove the TS support then take a very light cut with that same very sharp HSS tool. .001" - .002" depth of cut. The general rule for cutting without tailstock support is 3-1 so your 2" diameter x 6" long just fits the rule.

Another test is a long heavy bar 2" + in diameter and again a light HSS cut along the whole bar until it cleans up and using tailstock support. Carefully measure that with an accurate and trusted micrometer at the tailstock, middle, and headstock end. More places is even better. Both these tests will give you some starting numbers. And the tailstock may well be slightly off center from the headstocks C/L. But you'll have the start of a good test bar.

Bearing checks and adjustments as mentioned by someone else should be done. Once your confident there well adjusted and in good condition then the bed has to be checked for twist. Getting it leveled with a high precision machinists level is the easiest method. The actual level isn't really important but you need both ways in the same plane with no twist. Given the ratio between what's happening at the bed mounting feet and the tool tip .001" at the bed foot can make .003" or far more at the tool tip. Actual bed wear has a lot less effect. Visualise your tool tip moving up or down .003" - .004" on a large 2" diameter bar. The movement difference will create very little change to the cutting tips location on the material or a difference in the cutting size. A .004" thou up or down movement does not decrease or increase the finished diameter by that .004". Bed twist causes the tool tip to move in or out and that does change the cut diameter by the same amount. It rolls the tool tip in or away from the material depending on which way the bed is twisted.With the bed level then the tailstocks morse taper can be checked by swinging an indicator to the front and rear just inside the morse tapers bore. This DOES NOT work for checking the tailstocks alightment for up and down. Gravity can and will throw those results off. As much as .010" or more. Once the tailstock is aligned and with all of the above done I'd then take another light cut on the long bar with a good dead center and tailstock support.

The measurements taken then will have some meaning about what your lathe is capable of doing. The quick test you've already done isn't of much use because there's too many variables that can sway the measurements. If that cutting test on the long heavy bar with support shows some real improvement then it's time to repeat the test you've just done.

Flat bed lathes like most of the Myfords and some others are the cheapest to have reground. But it's not quite that simple. Doing so lowers the carriage by the amount that was ground off. That affects the half nuts position on the leadscrew. And the same if you have a seperate rod for power feeds. If the bed is worn enough to need that regrinding the bottom surfaces of the carriage will need it as well. So more material is then taken off. To regain the correct alignments material such as moglice is bonded to the bottom of the carriage to lift it back to the original position. The mounts for the leadscrew and possibly gearbox if equipped with one could be lowered to regain the alignment, but adding the moglice is much easier. There's a bit more than all this, but it should give you an idea of what's roughly involved and getting some numbers that can be trusted.

There seems to be more misinformation and lack of understanding about testing and aligning machines tools on every forum I can think of than there is correct information. I've also seen multiple posts on just about every forum about just jumping in and moving the headstocks position. That's the very last thing you do without properly tested and verified results that do show there's no doubt it's actually out of alignment.Googleing for the online PDF of what Dr. Georg Schlessinger wrote about machine tool testing is well worth the time to read it enough so it's understood what's being done and why. I've had to spend a great deal of time, research and hands on trial and error trying to learn the very little I do know about it. There is more than a few ways of doing this with some more complicated methods than others. But I know what I've mentioned does work.

I've been watching Robin's channel ever since Tom Lipton mentioned him on his channel David. An extremely talented person who's demonstrating a lot of topics that haven't been covered by others. There is a lot of really decent machining content showing up on Youtube by people who know there subject very well. Stefan Gotteswinter, Clickspring, Tom Lipton, Abom, This Old Tony just to name a few. I'd still have to put Robin right at the top of the one's I know about today. That's just my own opinion and others may think differently.

Michael,

Yep I'd certainly agree with you about Makita. Only thing I can come up with is even the very best can turn out a faulty product sometimes. Since I don't know the exact drill, nor can I compare it with another to see if they both perform the same, then it's just a best guess right now.But it could also be just a poor design. One wouldn't think so, but even Henry Ford produced some lemons. I do have an Albrecht and 3 Glacern machine tools integral shank keyless chucks for my lathe and mill. But for a hand drill, those Dewalt keyless are pretty damned good. No where near what that Albrecht is of course, but far better than I thought they would be. I wouldn't think twice about buying another one.

Edited By Pete on 15/08/2015 12:43:07

Hi Alan,

To answer your original question, some drill chucks are to be honest completely worthless. And those factory's are more than willing to sell us the worthless junk as long as we keep accepting it. There should be no need to buy drills with the 3 flats ground on them, or need to use any other methods to work around what is a manufactured fault in the OEM chuck you already have. I once owned a Black & Decker corded portable drill with a key type chuck. It was 100% impossible to get that chuck tight enough to prevent the drills from spinning and ruining the drills runout due to the scored shanks. Before I finally got fed up and binned the whole drill, I ruined far more in good drills than the whole machine was worth. Today I have an 18V Dewalt cordless with the keyless chuck, and a 12V Dewalt. They barely take any real effort to properly tighten either of there chucks, and I've yet to ever spin a drill in either of them. If your chuck won't hold a drill without spinning it, then it's a fault of the chuck. Don't waste your time and just replace the chuck or the whole drill with something decent. Good cutting tools aren't exactly cheap today, so it takes very few ruined drills before you could comfortably buy a very good quality drill chuck at the minimum.

If I were to buy any new corded or cordless drill now, and I knew I was properly tightening the drill chuck, and it spun any drill just once. It would be taken back for a full refund. I learned my lesson long ago and I'll not repeat the same mistake again.

Nitia,

I can fully understand your frustration of having to rework what should have been correct right from the factory. With the almost universal use of CNC on production machine tools even in China, or at least the bare minimum of today's cheap Chinese built, but still fairly high accuracy DRO's on any manual machine's that might possibly still be used in a production environment, plus the standard world wide use of jigs and fixtures to speed up production. It is more than inexcusable today that even those cheap machine tools are still being made this inaccurate. Even a 5 second check with an in house shop built gauge would show when an adjustment or new tool tip is required. I honestly can't logically figure out how they can still make any of the cheap machine's that inaccurate today. With the volume there producing, then just add $5 to the price and start checking and using some gauges to show when and where there's a problem developing long before we start seeing what we have been as the end users.

But your certainly not alone with having problems with Seig machines. I spent over $4000 on a Sieg C6, there X2 mini mill, and a lot of accessories. My tailstock pointed uphill over .009" in 2" . Add on a drill chuck, plus the length of a standard drill, and that drill tip was about .025" high or higher with the tailstocks barrel extended. It was impossible to use any center drill because the drill tip was so high the tips would instantly get ripped off as soon as they touched a spinning work piece. Reaming from the tailstock was obviously not going to happen without a very tapered but reamed hole. The additional tee slotted milling table was severely warped enough to easily see it visually. And the cross slide's surface was incorrectly ground over .003" in both directions. So it was impossible to do any accurate milling or between centers boring with the work bolted to the cross slide the way the machine was originally machined, ground and built. So to again use some logic, Seig either has very poorly trained and incompetent employee's, or there management could care less about there customers. I certainly won't ever buy another Seig machine no matter how much they improve there quality control in the future. My comments here may or may not affect company's such as Arc Euro who I do think is a very good company, and who will stand behind what there selling. But I didn't buy from them, and I can only comment on what my personal experience has been with Seig machines.

And I'm certainly not expecting Schaublin quality or accuracy at that much cheaper price. I am expecting the basic machine alignment's to be at least much more correct than what I found so the machine was usable without having to correct the factory errors. You could hardly do worse even on purpose. But it was that machine that forced me into educating myself about what's really involved with the correct yet basic lathe alignments. I do think you don't see all that many complaints on these forums about those alignments because most think what they've bought has to be correct, so most probably won't check like you have.

Pete

Michael,

Yes I do know about that uncertainty of measurement. So you are quite correct that there is no such thing as "100% positive" exact, or even perfection with anything while measuring. I did use an incorrect term I guess. But that NPL website does look interesting. Many thanks for that link.

Pete

Yes John I'd certainly agree that testing against the tail stocks OD would only be the first step. But if your metrology equipment is accurate enough? Then no lathe no matter how good or expensive they are including the worlds best that are available today including the temperature controlled spindle and bed machines that are designed for optical and/or laser equipment would be without fault. And yes you are 100% correct, the tail stocks OD is just a place to start. But I did have to shorten my post by over 2700 letters since the allowable limits on this forum don't like lengthly explanations of what are fairly complicated ideas that both Conolly and Schlesinger had. You do need to run multiple tests if possible on multiple areas just to start forming some ideas of where the problems might be.Then it will take some real thought and I think education before you can properly pinpoint where the those problems might be. To state the completely obvious, the cheaper your machine is, then the more knowledgeable you have to be to be able to wring the very best out of it. It's not impossible, but it does take a real desire to properly educate yourself. I've been learning about this for well over 30 years, and I never expect to ever know what I'd like to.

But..............to end up so that you are 100% positive of the exact issues and exactly where there located with any certainty can take a huge amount of time,testing, thought and energy. That's where your own personal understanding and education starts. I highly recommend NOT asking questions on forums like this first, but you should be doing your own research through Google, and then possibly start to ask some questions on these forums only after doing so.

Pete

Finally!!!!!!!!

Hopper has injected some proper technique and much needed logic into this thread. There's been a lot of other good information posted also. My apology's but I do think my post might get a bit long winded.

I fully understand the OP's desire to adjust his lathe to get the best accuracy possible. I did the same with my little Emco compact 5 lathe, but I did so only after reading that Conolly book more than a few times until I understood as much of the techniques as possible. And most of what's on these hobby forum's is incorrect compared to what Conolly or Schlesinger have to say. I also got fooled for more than a few hours of wasted testing with a light weight dial test indicator bending a quite heavy mounting rod under the effects of gravity. That's all too easy to miss to be honest, and there's really no simple way to know for sure that gravity is or isn't affecting your results when swinging a DTI from the head stock. What I do now is turn a piece of scrap down to within .001"-.002" or the same in metric of either the tail stocks barrel's outside diameter, or the outside diameter of a morse taper blank arbour that fit's the tail stocks female morse taper. You then measure both of your plugs diameter and the tail stocks barrel or arbours parallel section.as accurately as you can with your very best micrometer. Then you use both the lathes carriage and the cross slide to run the finger of a .0001"s reading DTI across both diameters at both the head stock and tail stock. Simple addition or subtraction to account for any minor difference's in sizes for each diameter will then give you the exact numbers of your tail stocks position. I don't know of a simpler or better method that is any faster, more accurate, or easier to do that you can then be 100% positive your test numbers aren't being swayed by those gravity effects.

But the tail stocks centerline height is just only one single check. Just as important you also need to use that DTI to check that your tail stocks barrel isn't pointing to the left or right, uphill or downhill, and if that barrel move's it's position between locked and unlocked, or extended and retracted. Some will say it's only a mini lathe so what's the point of all that? Well it's impossible to try to compensate or correct for any errors if you don't know if they do or don't exist, or even how much those errors might be. And unless your test numbers are 100% repeatable, then your methods will be highly suspect to the point of being useless.

Machine tool alignment, and especially lathe alignment and and that mostly misunderstood "lathe leveling" is probably very close to the number 1 topic on almost any hobby machining forum out there today. And FAR TOO MANY will try and answer to the best of there ability what they think is correct. Yet the majority are basing those answers without taking the time to at least read what both Schlesinger and Conolly have to say, and who ARE those recognised authority's on the subject. Schlesinger's alignment and test procedures are available for free on the net. Possibly the Conolly book might be also. But almost all of us should be able to get a copy to read of the Machine Tool Reconditioning book through something called the "Inter Library Loan" system. I do own my copy, but it is almost $100 to buy it even today through Industrial Press. The book is boring to the extreme in large parts of it, but it will properly educate you so your answers in threads of this type are logical and well thought out reasoning. (Or at least I hope mine are) But in my opinion buying that book was the very best $100 I've ever spent on my shop and education about this so I finally did understand what the actual requirements really are. The subject is vastly more complicated than most understand I think. But those who haven't read it and then understand what's required are pretty obvious when they recommend (with the best of intention's) methods that are incorrect in these threads.

Lapping slides etc. is or would be just one example, yes it will make things much smoother, but there's zero control over exactly where and how much material your removing. Very light lapping can probably work after your initial corrections have been done Trying to maintain or even correct the alignments on a lathe in all 3 dimension's at the same time can't possibly be done by what so many say you should be doing with just that slide lapping. In fact it's all too likely your actually making the accuracy far worse unless your extremely lucky.Scraping and using some very expensive and reliable test equipment, along with a whole lot of logic, knowledge and experience would be the correct and best method. You can of course make a machine a bit better fairly cheaply, and the more skill you have will make your results better. None of this is just my opinion either,those are just the simple facts if your willing to put some effort into researching exactly what is involved.

We really should in my opinion be using these forums as a way to help educate ourselves. But they shouldn't be the only place your basing that all too important self education on. Yet today I see the problems of incorrect information on these forums as a large and growing problem. It should be exactly the opposite. Anyone ever wonder just how M.E.'s or the American term of HSM educated themselves before the internet was invented?

My sincere apology's for the length of this post.

Pete

A cutting speed of 100 feet per minute is the MAXIMUM recommended speed while cutting mild steel with the usual HSS. Just remember that is the maximum. Much better to drop that a touch to make the tool tip last a lot longer between sharpening's. A 10% reduction will make the tool tip last much more than 10% longer. It's not directly proportional. And you could use 3.1416 or even a closer number for pi, but to make it easy to do in your head, I just use the tool or part diameter and multiply that by 4. So a 3" diameter swing tool or part X 4 = 12" or 1 foot. 100 rpm would then be the maximum rpm to give you that recommended 100 ft per minute, or whatever metric numbers that are the same. Very few of the smaller and cheaper offshore built machines today come with a low enough rpm to hit that number once your tool diameter or work piece on a lathe starts getting a bit larger. Sometimes all you can do then is to go to a carbide tipped tool. Some carbides depending on the exact material can do 300-600 ft per minute with mild steel, and some specialised carbides can today do over 1,000 ft per minute with very expensive and rigid machines. Aluminum can be cut depending on the alloy at very high speeds, almost to the point of being unlimited rpm within reason with good industrial grades of carbides, or even ceramic, and diamond tipped tooling. Those materials are very brittle, can't take interrupted cuts even as well as carbide can, and require those industrial very rigid machines and multiple part production to justify there high costs.

Knowing or at least having access to a list of the general and recommended cutting speeds isn't optional. Burning up hard to resharpen at home tooling can get really expensive. But all of those cutting speed lists are for high quality industrial machines and tooling. You'd be far better off to understand that and cut back on those speeds at least a bit. Our time in a hobby is cheap, and the tooling fairly expensive. In industry it's just the exact opposite, so tooling is run right to the limit of cost effectiveness.

Pete

Almost "NO" machine tools will ever use grease at any point. There are of course a very rare few that do. But you'd certainly do far less permanent damage to any machine tool by using oil in place of the grease. Going the other way and using grease in place of the proper and recommended oil will accelerate wear at all points at least 10 times more than that proper lubrication would. And being really stupid and pumping grease into something like a Bridgeport's head because some do have a grease zerk on the side of the head can literally cost you thousands in replacement parts and even just to clean all that grease out so you can then use the correct high speed spindle oil.  

Exactly why do far too many hobbiest's insist on using oil and even far worse that grease lubrication that's 100% completely wrong for there machine tools? Yes any oil is better than no oil, but the correct and especially that correct way oil is far better than any other oil at all, and most definitely any automotive or even worse the high detergent motor or transmission oils.  We all, or at least most of us have to scrimp and save just to buy our machines and tooling, and the total spent can be very high. The proper way oil or spindle oil is literally only a few pennies per use, yet some insist on using some of the worst possible ideas for lubrication just to pinch a very few of those pennies, and they then greatly accelerate the wear on a comparably expensive machine tool. Proper way oil DOES make a noticeable difference to the way your machine operates, feels, and even just how well or tightly you can adjust it's gibs, yet it still allows a smooth movement. No properly run commercial machine shop would ever use anything but the correct and recommended lubrication because they've learned that the incorrect lube just isn't cost effective. And some of what's used by hobbiest's that think there far smarter than the lubrication engineer's or machine tool manufacturers is most likely far more expensive by volume than the correct lubrication would be. In small quantity's that WD-40 certainly is.

Anybody here think this isn't a very expensive hobby at any level and size of equipment? It is if that's somehow news to you I'm sorry to say, and doing things correctly  including that proper and specific lubrication is just a very small part of the total cost's involved  in this hobby.

I learned very expensively just how little I knew about machine tool lubrication when I mistakenly thought a heavy duty hypoid 90 weight gear oil would last and work much better than the light weight factory oil recommendation would do. Because of the oil drying out and a collection of wear particles that weren't being flushed out of the power feed assembly with that light oil, it then created enough drag and burned up a $800 Emco motor on my lathe. Today I use exactly what the factory recommends and have never had another problem. I'd hate to see anyone here relearning the same very costly mistake I did.

Pete 

Edited By Pete on 27/06/2015 01:08:42

Well I'd sure have to agree that the current lathe designs at the lower to mid range end of the manual machine market aren't or haven't changed much at all in the last 50 years. I do suspect that's about to change, or at least I hope it will, and fairly soon though. Volume production of at least semi CNC machine's shouldn't be much or maybe any more expensive than what it takes to build and add a Norton style gearbox and the two axis power feeds. Add a built in DRO like Tony has already mentioned, and then tie it's positional feedback into the CNC for a very accurate location of the tool tip. So you could then use fairly inaccurate and therefore much cheaper ball screws and nuts. Even any future wear on the screws and nut's should be able to be accurately compensated for. Just let the CNC map the steps against the actual slide movements that the DRO is measuring.

Tormach brought out a pretty simple and fairly cheap semi automated CNC surface grinder last year? Instead of needing a heavy weight, noisy, and quite expensive hydraulic system to give you the really useful reciprocating table drive and user pre selected automatic step overs in the Y axis, it's set up as a simple but limited CNC with an easily programmable system to input your parameters for what you want for table speeds, distance, and feeds. As far as I know the Z axis is still fully manual, but that should be just fine with those smaller surface grinders. Use the same idea with a 2 axis semi CNC drive and a GOOD and ACCURATE rotary encoder on the spindle with a really well designed and rigid lathe and there's your screw cutting system. Plus with almost zero extra money you could have the constant surface speed (CSS) for facing larger diameters that's already available on a few higher end manual lathes that have the Newall CSS feature on some of there DRO's.

Exactly why we don't yet have this yet? Probably because were just not demanding it in large enough numbers yet that one of the larger dealers such as Grizzly is willing to take a chance and requested one of the better factory's to start working on a new design of this type, and in a variety of sizes. With what it's capability's would be, then there's not many manual machine users that wouldn't want something exactly like this as long as the prices could be kept in check. Make the inputs user friendly, fast, and dead simple, and then even the smaller one off jobber shops just like John's would be wanting one. It's even not really much past today's more usual lathes that comes with 2 axis power feeds.

Pete

Bill,

I email with multiple people on almost a daily basis. One who is a working industrial designer and certified machinist, he even owns a Colchester Chipmaster. And one who's a barely retired professional machinist after 50 plus years in the trade, and is in fact a more than well known Model Engineer. One of the best today in fact. I'm not saying this to brag, I'm saying this because I can hold my own with these people.

I don't need to SEE one of these lathes at all. I've been around lathes that had at least 30' between centers. I already know what a heavy well built lathe is quite capable of. Just because I don't own one doesn't mean my points are worthless. I said and I 100% meant that ALL lathes work on the exact same alignment principals, and it's very much pointless about who built it if it's a half decent machine. Hugh's is by being a Colchester a well made machine. That part is unquestionable.Just how good it was built and how well it's aligned right now is the question. In a way I can see your point about that bar test. I've done that more than a few times. Even Emco shows it in my manual. But material deflection could easily fool you just from the sharpness or lack of on the tool point. A poor set of chuck jaws could even sway the results. You didn't read or at least fully understand what I tried to explain. That facing test is only the very first step, It will prove 100% one way or another that something is out or it's not. If there's something wrong in the numbers, you can then start looking into further areas. It is possible that an incorrect cross slide alignment or even wear could change the results.But after that test you then might start going to your two point bar test over say 6" But with what I've learned the extremely hard way, I don't and won't ever depend on one single test or method. You could easily mistake a bed twist for a headstock misalignment without some prior experience with your bar test. Your bar test does work, but just like my facing test, there can be other factors that could change your test results.

And You and I may know about that facing test, but I've yet to see it ever mentioned on any forum like this.

My current home won't work with a concrete slab under my little Emco. But that doesn't prevent me from desperately wanting one. I did at one time have my setup on a proper concrete floor, and it spoiled the hell out of me. I didn't fully appreciate what I had then.

Pete

Edited By Pete on 08/06/2014 02:16:56

Edited By Pete on 08/06/2014 02:28:59

Edited By Pete on 08/06/2014 02:30:27

For what your wanting to do Jamie, then right now there's no real need for industrial type machine tools. But as I said, if you stick with this it's natural and all too likely you'll end up going towards the larger more industrial equipment. It's almost impossible not to do so. I started out with a little 65 lb Emco compact 5 lathe with the rear mounted milling head. I still have that equipment, but my larger lathe is now one of those 450 lb 280 VF's, and my mill is a 3/4 sized 1100 lb Taiwan built baby Bridgeport clone. I think I could have saved a huge amount of money if I knew then what I think I know now. And my equipment choices today still would have been larger if I could support more weight in my shop. Funny enough, I just mentally added up the costs for the first time, and what that little Emco lathe and mill cost me along with just about every accessory Emco built for them amount's to just about what my larger lathe and mill cost me. I'm well within a $1,000.00 of that figure at least.

Most entry level people don't know that the actual machine tool cost is almost incidental. And the tooling unless you get into some more than larger industrial sized equipment stay's pretty much the same cost. Milling machines are a good example of this. The tooling that fit's and is used on say something like a Seig X2 type mill will also fit and can be used on a Bridgeport sized machine.Lathes are the same, so if you can possibly do it, then saving and buying the largest equipment you can will with some luck delay replacing it for larger a little longer. You need to figure out your largest diameters and lengths, maybe add 25%- 50% to that number, and that's the size of equipment you need. I can say that most new machine tools we can afford does not have a built in low enough speed. It's a bit frustrating when your trying to do larger diameter work and even carbide is burning up because you can't get a low enough rpm.That's when the larger 3 ph equipment starts to make some sense.I've never once regretted buying my 3 hp 3 ph mill. Adding a VFD just makes it really nice to use.

Pete

Hi Nigel,

Some interesting life experiences

I took the time and jumped over to the lathes UK site. Hugh's lathe is exactly what I expected, a very desireable and good quality British built machine tool. But it changes nothing about what I said. Obviously we both know all lathes are set up, aligned, and work to a standard set of very well understood basic alignments. It's impossible for them to perform to the level of what we expect if they were somehow "different". But I do respect and appreciate that you do have what seems to be a great deal of hands on experience with the Colchester machines. That alone makes my points a bit suspect.

And I lust after anything that's got a DS&G lettering cast onto it. Even more I'd like due to my recent finds one of those Holbrooks. Just possibly an even better machine than the DS&G's.

But, I didn't say it was impossible for Hugh's lathe to be out of alignment. It may well be. What I do disagree with is the automatic assumption by far too many on these forums that it's always a headstock misaligment. Going by your experience, then you'd have to agree that far too many just jump to that conclusion without fully checking the rest of the machine. But now with your additional experience and information, then yes it makes it slight bit more likely that Hugh's headstock might need a proper realignment. But .................................I did give him a test method that will quickly prove what direction he might need to go. If that facing test is even close to the factory allowable specifications, then there's no need to adjust the headstock.

Maybe in a way I worded and wrote my post due to reading far too many other posts where the adjustment of the headstock is the first thing mentioned. I still maintain it should be the last thing you touch until you've proved it is in fact the headstock that's out. That facing test I mentioned isn't obviously 100% reliable because it's a combination of the head stocks alignment and the built in alignment and wear on the cross slide. But it will help to pinpoint where the problems are or aren't. It's exactly where I'd start, but it's something I've yet to see even mentioned anywhere else.

FWIW, and it doesn't mean that much to this discussion. I started out with a little Emco Compact 5 lathe when they were still being built in Austria. I got deeply interested in why I was getting tapers on long parts. Not very much of a taper, but enough I didn't and wouldn't tolerate what I found. So I bought Emco's add on accessory, they call them "leveling plates". Those still didn't give me what I wanted on a wooden bench top, so I then mounted my little lathe to a 1" x 12.5" x 28" long mild steel plate.It was only then I could see just what this little and fairly cheap lathe was actually capable of. Unfortunately my shop floor isn't concrete, and due to it's standard stick built 2" x 6" floor construction, my methods aren't even close to being permanent. I can and have proven using a brand new Mitutoyo 2" digital mike that it's possible to adjust this lathe by leveling the lathe bed, and then making very slight adjustments after that where I can turn a 2" x just about 12" long shaft to under .0002" taper from end to end. Now if I shift my feet on the floor or move at all it shows up immediately in the size. The settings can't and don't last more than an hour or two due to temperature or humidity changes. But those accuracy's are possible with a bit of skill and knowledge. Maybe more than a bit of luck helps too.

Pete

Jaimie,

Most likely it would be better and much more kind to lie to you. But your should resign yourself to the facts that you will never ever be finished buying tooling for a mill. A lathe is slightly better though. How much is your budget, and how much electrical power and room do you have?

Your mill is a fairly decent machine to start out with, and far larger than my first mill was. Motorcycle work? Leaving aside anything like engine work and cylinder reboreing etc. Then your wanting to do mostly parts replacement and that customisation, and then maybe building up to parts such as disc brakes for diameter. Single phase motors on machine tools are ok, but a real upgrade later on is using proper 3 phase equipment.. VFD's today make this more than within reach and very much worthwhile.

FWIW, your current mill probably won't be something you stick with, but it's a great learning tool, with some luck it's also a common taper like a R8 so the tooling can be transfered to a larger mill when you do upgrade. Your lathe will be exactly the same idea. You will if you stick with this upgrade to larger equipment in the future. Everyone does. So for right now if you want to buy new? I'd suggest something like a 280 V-F. It's rebadged by numerous dealers and is possibly built by Weiss In Nanjing China. There's obviously far better and larger, but this would be a good learning tool. Given some experience and knowledge, then you might then start looking at the better quality used industrial machines. That does require that experience and knowledge before you can even judge exactly what you need or want. But most tooling you'd tend to buy for something like that 280 would be useable on another machine. Tailstock tooling and the smaller MT tapers wouldn't transfer though.

But the very best advise I can offer is if you think you'll stick with machining as a hobby for even the next 10 years? Then please save your money and buy the very best industrial grade cutting tools and measuring equipment you can afford. In the long run it's the cheapest bang for the buck. There is no such thing as good cheap durable cutting tools. The much more expensive industrial tooling cut's, performs and last's far beyond the extra expense involved. And if you were to add the word accuracy, then the same can be said about metrology equipment.Think about it,if you can't measure it dependably and repeatably, then you can't build it to the required accuracy. I tried the cheap cutting tools and measuring equipment, I can't afford to buy it anymore.

Pete

Jerry,

I'm sure you understand it's more than tough to properly sort out a problem like this without being face to face and putting your hands on it. So for whatever it's worth you have my sincere sympathy. We all know mistakes and factory defects can happen with even the very best manufacturer's today. There's no doubt Albrecht can and does produce the odd factory dud. But for your problems right now, I think it's fairly safe to rule out your Albrecht chuck. And since it's at least fairly new, and you've used the tightening methods we've suggested, then your looking either at a contamination issue, or the actual quality of the drills your using. Something has obviously and drastically changed, At one time as you've said you didn't have any problems. So..........................what have you changed that might produce this problem. Maybe I'm totally wrong, but I'm suspecting the drills themselves. There no different than anything else. Defects and mistakes happen. But again something has changed to produce this problem. A cutting oil change maybe? I just don't know and can't suggest any other logical reasons.

Pete

And after some more thought Hugh.

There is a fairly quick method of giving you a quite good idea about your headstock's actual alignment using some simple test equipment. You can do all the precision test's and alignments you'd like. But the bottom line is just how well the machine performs under real world cutting conditions. Anything else can't and won't prove all that much. The finished parts and just how true and accurate they are show the machines actual alignments.

I know zero about your lathe, but they all work to the same basic design principles. All good lathes should be setup at the factory so the cross slide will cut a very shallow concave angle while doing a facing cut. Standard commercial quality lathes have a larger allowance for this than tool room quality lathes. If? I remember correctly. Tool room quality lathes should be set up and produce a concave cut of around .0015" over 12". My memory could be a bit faulty about that specification though. The exact numbers aren't that important for what you want to really test though. But that concave is ground in to the machine so parts don't rock as the faces are brought together, and the machine wears into alignment not out of alignment as you use it.

Since I haven't checked the Lathes UK site I don't even know what your lathe looks like. Do you have a faceplate for your lathe? Does your lathe have power cross feed? Or do you have a piece of scrap plate as large as you can possibly swing? Any of that will work for this test.

Bolt or thread your faceplate to your spindle, or figure out a way to attach and face off a plate to the maximum diameter your lathe is capable of. Ideally you have power cross feed. But it could be done using a hand feed. You want the slowest feed yet very best surface finish you can manage across the whole face until it cleans up. That will replicate the exact alignment your headstock has to at least the cross slide's way alignment. Now, you need to set up a good accurate and 100% completely dependable DTI on your lathes cross slide with the DTI's finger against the part you just faced. You do not want to check that faced part by running the DTI finger from the parts O.D. that's closest to you into the parts center. All that does is follow the cutting tools path and it can't and will not prove anything. You want to set the DTI's finger at the parts approximate C/L and then use your cross slide to run the DTI's finger across to the furthest point away from you. That would be towards the lathes rear bed way. The variation you record on the DTI dial will be twice as much as the lathe actually cut's. It's an extremely accurate way to at least test the cross slides alignment to the headstock's alignment. Longitudinal turning or finding a taper while measuring that longitudinal cut could show a taper due to many other reasons. But the test above should give you a very good idea if your headstock is misaligned or not. It would be without question my first test for your lathes basic headstock alignment.

Pete

Edited By Pete on 07/06/2014 20:42:41