Headstock and Tailstock Alignment

wrmiller

wrmiller

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So I'm still in the slow process of getting my little machines setup for when the weather warms up a bit (unheated garage).

I'm going to be turning some 5" and 6" 1911 barrels and making cones for them, so I figured it's time to check the tailstock alignment. I put my Edge 12" alignment bar in my 8x18 and adjusted the tailstock to approx. 1/4-1/3 of a thou (visual interpolation) across 12".

Just for grins I took a vertical measurement and found the TS to be about a thou and a half high (again, at 12"). Is this something to worry about?
 
1.5 thou high is pretty common on a little used lathe. to make it 'perfect' and not rebuild the tailstock, I use a MT3 boring head set to the perfect height. a dead centre is held as a boring bar -I made my own dead centre... I also use this for threading barrels for muzzle breaks.
 
I think it was common practice to set the tailstocks a bit high from the factory, as they expected some wear from drilling operations. If you lose sleep over it you could potentially shim the headstock up.
 
This little lathe doesn't have a Norton gearbox like my 1340GT did, so for threading I am going to try making a die guide and using that. Should be interesting. Hopefully it works. :oops:
 
wrmiller said:
This little lathe doesn't have a Norton gearbox like my 1340GT did, so for threading I am going to try making a die guide and using that. Should be interesting. Hopefully it works. :oops:
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You don't have manual gears and a lead screw?

That's how I had to cut threads on my Grizzly 10x22. It wasn't that bad. Well, it wasn't great either, but I made a lot of parts. Later, I made my own ELS, which simplified things a lot. Making the ELS from scratch was a lot harder than changing gears, but I think it was worth it. Now I'm not a slave to my stack of gears, or flying e-clips! And my hands stay pretty clean for a change.
 
WobblyHand said:
You don't have manual gears and a lead screw?

That's how I had to cut threads on my Grizzly 10x22. It wasn't that bad. Well, it wasn't great either, but I made a lot of parts. Later, I made my own ELS, which simplified things a lot. Making the ELS from scratch was a lot harder than changing gears, but I think it was worth it. Now I'm not a slave to my stack of gears, or flying e-clips! And my hands stay pretty clean for a change.
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I have toothed wheels and belts, and a leadscrew. It's a timesink pos changing these things. I used to change them, got a real lathe, and now I'm back to this and I don't have the patience as it involves moving the machine to get to the headstock end of the lathe. Yea, I'm lazy. ;)

I'd like to have a ELS but likely can't afford it. Oh well.
 
wrmiller said:
It's a timesink pos changing these things.
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Can't disagree, but I'd think single pointing will be a lot more accurate than using a die.

My 10x22 had the unfortunate habit of launching e-clips to parts unknown. Had to buy a bag of clips, since I was losing them so fast. I think that was the real motivation for getting a DRO, that, and the grease of the gears.

My ELS cost about $200 worth of parts, and oh, 6-8 months of software development. (Not full time, just calendar duration.) It was running at around 5 months, but wanted to make it work better and have a nicer interface. The bulk of the cost was the stepper, it's driver and power supply. At the time, it cost ~$110 or so. Processor was $30, the connectors always seem cost more than they should.

I would have gone with the run of the mill solution, (Clough42) but, at the time, just post-pandemic, the processor that he used was unavailable for about a year. Since the easy option was off the table, had to roll my own. Honestly, it was a lot of fun doing, since I did it with a clean sheet software design. Was quite insightful doing the testing, since one could see the consequences of the choices made. Even 18 months later, I get the giggles using my ELS. The ELS has an integrated touch panel display for the user interface and serves as the display for my DRO's. At some point I'll integrate some more features.
 
It does not make any difference. Turn a bar with the same sized ends between centers and you are good.
 
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