Atlas 12 x 24 cross slide

With help from the forum, I was able to get hold of a new 1/2x 10 LH ACME leadscrew length and a nut for the museum's Atlas lathe. Also there was advice on a resettable Myford dial which is superior to the original Atlas one. There was a block of steel of a good size to make a longer cross slide to replace the very short original and enable plenty of room to incorporate twin nuts for antibacklash. It is now finished and about 3" longer than the original, shown next to the new one. There are 6 gib grubscrews now instead of 4 and the height has been adjusted slightly to share the Smart & Brown tooling. The 12mm tools which I had bought for the lathe will need slightly thicker shims, and they can also be used on the S & B. The degree scale is part of a brass protractor glued onto the rear of the compound pivot point and lined up before the glue hardened.

Smart job.

A little surprised you didn't take the opportunity to add a thumb lever style slide lock screw in Geo. H Thomas style.

So nice to be able to leave the gibs that smidgen looser so things run easily for accurate setting, but is still secure enough for ordinary jobs, with the lock to hold against heavy jobs.

Clive

Edited By Clive Foster on 05/07/2023 07:23:13

I did think about a lock, and one can be easily added at any time, it only takes a few minutes to remove the cross slide. One thing put me off and that was the gib is brass, and would be distorted by localised pressure on it. The possible way around that might be to have a hole in the gib where the locking screw is and to use a bronze pin against the dovetail. Those two large screw holes are simply existing holes in the steel block, they do not emerge in the wall, just too high and short. That piece of sheet aluminium is original and fixes to the rear of the cross slide to keep swarf away.

Edited By old mart on 05/07/2023 19:04:38

Edited By old mart on 05/07/2023 19:06:20