Speed 10 cross slide backlash

I am trying to adjust the amount of backlash on my speed 10 cross slide. At the moment it has 40 thou worth of play. I am also speculating that this might be why the cross slide sometimes 'wanders' and I get too much cut.

Ca anyone tell me how to adjust/cancel the backlash as much as possible also to stop the cross slide and or topslide from wandering?

Backlash will not usually affect how much cut you take, as long as you turn the handwheel in the one direction only so backlash does not come into play. So if you wind it in too far, you have to bring it back out past the backlash and then wind in again to the desired mark. Gib strip adjustment is probably more important.

But it's nice to remove as much backlash as possible. If the ML10 is the same as the ML7, you have to hold the cross slide dial with a spanner on the flats and turn the ball handle anti-clockwise until it comes loose. then you turn the dial in until it all gap is eliminated but it is not binding and then tighten up the ball handle again. Sometimes if the dial is a tight fit on the thread on the end of the feed screw, you have to hold the feedscreew with a pair of small pliers on the plain section at the end of the thread where it will not damage the thread.

There will still be a bit of backlash due to clearance/wear in the feed nut and screw threads, but that is normal and is nothing to worry about. It will not affect the accuracy of your lathe.

Someone used to sell a kit of parts to fit a needle roller thrust race to Myford Cross slide. No idea whether it would fit a Speed 10, but someone will know

Arc Eutrade sell the kit, go to the last page in their cataogue and look for projects.

It may help you to do this mod if you also buy from Myford the small brkt. that the cross slide runs in as you can still use the lathe to modify the brkt. for fitting the bearings.

Making sure the leadscrew is held properly does backlash go or reduce noticeably each end of the travel? My 50 thou of wear reduced to 15 at each end of travel and a new lead screw fixed it.

Unfortunately Arc are out of stock of the necessary bearings for modifying the cross slide.

Andrew.

+1 for gib adjustment - a classic symptom of a 'sticky' cross-slide gib would be "put on a small cut, nothing happens; put on a second small cut, again nothing happens; put on a third small cut, and a huge cut comes off as soon as the tool hits the work" - the total depth is usually more than the sum of what you have dialled in because it often seems to include all & any free play that exists in the assembly, in addition.

If the gib is too tight for the first small movement to have meaningfully advanced the slide, a subsequent movement of similar small magnititude will often fail to find enough 'purchase' in the nut for the screw to hold itself - if the handle is 'going uphill', it can fall back under it's own weight as the screw 'backs-out' a part-turn, giving the impression of excessive backlash.

If you can back off the gib adjustment a bit, it will tell you immediately whether the fault lies there, or elsewhere.

Before adjusting the cross-slide, I first turn it back half a rotation. Then (try) to turn to the requested position in one continues move. I do the same procedure when CNC turning. When CNC turning this results in a repeatability (not accuracy) of probably the stepper resolution 0.001 mm.

I once had a problem that I sometimes couldn't turn accurate to 0.2 mm. I took me a month to find the cause, a damaged trust bearing. This bearing was probably damaged when a parted off workpiece got stuck between the (rotating) spindle and the tool post. Now I replace the two trust bearings on an annual base during maintenance.

The backlash on my cross-slide is 0.325 mm.

Edited By Huub on 05/07/2022 22:33:00