Member postings for Peter Dobson

Simon

I have sent you a message. I might be able to help.

Peter D

I had not been able to read the lettering on the casting until I had downloaded it and enlarged it.

It has been assembled back to front. The view shown is from the rear of the bed.

The cut off slide needs to be dismantled and rebuilt from the other side so that the operating handle is on the headstock side of the slide.

The handle for the capstan should be inserted from the other side. The bracket for the end of the capstan lever mounts on a strip of T slot mounted on the rear of the lathe as in the other picture. There are holes visible in the casting which are probably those for fixing the T slot strip. The measurements required can be obtained from the machine itself. It should all be clear with a careful study of the photo's on the Lathes site.

All threads will be BSF or BSW unless any changes have been made - as I found out with mine.

HTH

Peter D

Looks as if it is the LH version - or has the photo been reversed? On the other hand it may have been assembled back to front!!

What precisely is it you are looking for I do have one of these so can do some measuring but the motor I have is not connected to the lathe by anything more than the belt! or to put it another way the motor mount is independent of the lathe bed.

Peter Dobson

Ketan

Thanks for that - I had pretty much come to the conclusion that I would go for a refund.

I will be in touch shortly - probably next week.

This whole thing is a mystery and I will be very interested in the outcome especially if it shows the problem is at my end.

Luckily I am but 30mins by car away from ARC so any meetings will be very easy..

Once again - thanks

Peter D

Neil

The lathe is a chinese import CT-918 dated 1993/12. I have never had any problems with alignment before.

I have turned a spigot to size and fitted the turret to it. Whichever tool hole I use to fix it there is a 'wobble' or eccentricity at the end of the morse taper. Not easy to make sure that the indicator is always at the same relative position but does show somewhere in the region of +/- .3mm. That is somewhere north of 20thou. TIR. Your figure of 0.05mm equates to about 1/10th of that.

I would be happy with 2 thou.

I cant help feeling that the best (easiest) solution is to take the refund offer and use the cash to buy the materials to make my own. The immediate problem was solved by the age old method of swapping drills etc. in the tailstock chuck.

Peter D

Bob

I have already tried that - BUT - I can't remember the result. I put a dti on the taper.

However I will repeat the test and see what I get.

That will have to be a job for tomorrow as it is late and dark outside.

Peter D

Michael

I see what you mean ...I had to sit and look at the thing for quite some time before the penny dropped.

However I am fairly certain that this is not the problem as the first one I had was consistently to one side when set with the centres point to point. The second one is consistently slightly lower. However as with all such things, supposition is one thing, the truth may well prove to be something quite different.

Peter D

Michael

Neither as far as I can tell.........I suspect that the problem lies in the relationship between the axis used to bore the tool mounting holes and the axis of the morse taper that fits in the tailstock. The two matching parts of the body are both stamped with the same number so some attempts has been made to create a matching pair. The problem is the same whichever hole I use to mount the centre.

Has anyone acquired one of these devices and had a problem with alignment.. I have just acquired one from ARC Eurotrade and found that when I put a centre in the turret it would not line up with a centre in the headstock. A phone call and a visit to ARC (yes I live close by) produced a replacement without any quibble. The problem starts with the fact that the new one does not line up either. Ian at ARC is not aware of any problems with these and is happy to offer a refund but I have decided to see whether any one else has had the same problem and might be able to offer a solution. I know I could remove the taper arbour and bore out the hole to fit a new one but it is fixed with a roll pin in a blind hole and removing that will not be easy.

I have checked the tailstock alignment and as far as I can tell it is perfectly OK.

Peter D