G0602 Cross Slide / Compound Dial Conflict

Make sure you put some rubber mat or vinyl down to protect your bed ways. Grinding dust will get everywhere and is a quick way to turn a new lathe into a very old lathe.
 
tmarks11 said:
Make sure you put some rubber mat or vinyl down to protect your bed ways. Grinding dust will get everywhere and is a quick way to turn a new lathe into a very old lathe.
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Great point! After the first incident I placed shop rags over the ways before my next grinding episode and to my dismay, when I lifted the rags there was still grinding dust on the ways. :eek: It must somehow get through the fabric. Now I need to cut some plastic to fit over the ways and compound slide.
 
Aluminum foil works well also. Unfortunately it's possible for grinding wheel dust to embed itself into the metal if the ways are not protected.


Steve Shannon, P.E.
 
HBilly1022 said:
Great point! After the first incident I placed shop rags over the ways before my next grinding episode and to my dismay, when I lifted the rags there was still grinding dust on the ways. :eek: It must somehow get through the fabric. Now I need to cut some plastic to fit over the ways and compound slide.
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I try and use oily rags as the dust sticks to them quite well, also i have a couple of pieces of thin ply that i use. The dust can be carefully lifted away with the ply wood.

I only do light emery cloth type abraisivs though. When i do drop the grinding dust every where :) i flood it off with wd40 and re oil hevily as soon as possible.

Stuart
 
Steve; are you saying that even if the ways are cleaned right after grinding, the dust will still cause damage? That kind of makes sense though, as I've noticed there is always a blackish smear on the ways after I did a bunch of grinding in the shop about a month ago. I did cover the whole lathe with a sheet but maybe that wasn't good enough. My saving grace could be that I don't use the lathe a lot and I'm not young ........ so the lathe should still outlast me.

Stupoty; thanks for the tip, after dinner I'm heading back to the shop to flood the ways and give them a super cleaning, before re oiling.
 
I think that as long as you clean them before running anything along the ways you might be okay, but it's possible to smear the dust into the surface where it will embed itself. I would do everything I could to prevent having the dust anywhere around my lathes, because it is small enough to make its way into places you don't want. If I did grind on a lathe I would tightly cover everything I could with non-porous materials, such as Saran Wrap or aluminum foil.
If you're grinding on a separate machine nearby a sheet should be fine, but if you're finding grinding dust on nearby surfaces you ought to be worried about your lungs, too.

Steve Shannon
 
Thanks Steve. That black grit was everywhere in my shop. After completing my anvil build, the cause of all the grinding, I ended up going over every horizontal surface in the shop with rags and my shop vac. What a mess. I will never do any more extensive grinding in the shop. From now on it will have to be outside. I did wear a protective mask for some of the grinding but I'm sure it wasn't often enough. Live and learn.
 
One good thing is that the human nose is pretty good at filtering and human lungs are pretty good at ejecting dust and renewing their interior surfaces.


Steve Shannon, P.E.
 
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