Squared up the carriage casting on the mill, drilled holes for oilers, rear follow rest and new carriage lock. Made the lock and T-Nut. This works amazingly well and will lock it firmly with just finger pressure on the bolt. Less than 1/4 turn to tighten it. I will make a lever or thumbscrew for it. Machining the bottom of the carriage casting surface and the slot width to size really helps with the lock movement for both the carriage and the tail stock.
No need for the other one I made a few months ago, free to whoever wants it.
Installed the half nut upgrade. This is was a pain as the top nut won't move fully and is limiting the bottom nut movement. It won't move enough to disengage from the lead screw. I started to scrape this in but stopped after a short time. I am afraid the threads won't line up between the two nuts if I moved one over. I took the cam and turned it 180 and tried that. This worked very well but the detents in the shaft are now in the wrong place. I will have to make new ones.
Milled a apron gear relief in the gib bracket and started to fit apron to carriage.
The apron needed to be shimmed down by.035" as the engagement to the lead screw was terrible. I'll deal with this some more today and make proper spacer for it. Also today's plan is to drill holes for some wipers.
I just can't believe how much better this is getting. All the attention to details in the scraping and lapping is just amazing. The carriage has no measurable movement yet slides with just a slight push.
Made and installed gear chip guard. Used plastic push pins and CA to hold it on and started to fit apron to carriage. I had to add about .045" of AL shims to the carriage/apron contact to get proper half nut to lead screw engagement. Then I had to mill the rack so as to lower it .06" to mesh with the apron gear that moves the carriage. I shouldn't of cut this fully out as it weakens it drastically. I should of only cut out what was needed but that was hard to figure out with out doing this. See how it goes but I expect to be putting a new modified one on soon. Lots of lessons learned.
Had to remake the carriage stop as it sat too high and too hold down bolt was too close to cross slide once I got that on. The thumb screw is too hard to reach when using the tail stock. This will get changed out to a custom made lever. A conical spring was added too.
Now once again the compound is hitting in the wrong places but I lapped it in this way anyway just as I did with the cross slide. The dovetails are getting good contact as well as the bottom which should not be touching. I am going to leave it alone for now as it slides well. There is lots of work that needs to be done to the compound to get backlash out. Thrust bearings are on order.
Milled out middle of cross slide for future longer travel mod.
Modified cross slide screw nut and shimmed to line up with the screw. This took hours once again. I had no idea the tolerances were so critical for this. Lapping spacers to the .001" for final placement made huge difference.
Started scraping in the tailstock and found the need for a fine adjuster. Overall the quill runs true with the bed, just needed to lower it a few thousandths. Finding more ways to use the Vernon H Mill now that I have some collets for it.
Thanks for this thread, this is great! Im 3 days into owning my first lathe (craftex 7x8) and soaking all this in. I cant believe the things your going through on what is probably the lowest cost lathe out there! Sounds like your having fun with it.
Well I have been working on the tailstock. I scrapped some off the bottom of the top casting and got it pretty darn close with the small scale between new centers to start with. I found that when I tighten the tail spindle the nose moves up .005" when retracted and .015" when extended. It is in line with the spindle pretty well when tightened and indicator run along top on the tail spindle with indicator on carriage. This type of single point clamp that pushes on only the top side of the spindle sucks. HUMMM. What to do? I would like to see a double wedge or split pinch clamp. Not sure how I am going to do this yet. The casting bore is going to have to be machined and bushed if I want it better.
There sure are allot of dead links on these lathes on the net. Something newer than 10 yrs old would be nice.
As I was using power feed to cut a few thousandths off a AL rod the 80t gear stripped out on the lead screw. My bad. I did not check that if the lead screw spun freely before adjusting the split nut engagement to the lead screw. Been messing with it for a hour with varying results. Some times it needs huge shims on the bushing at the end of the lathe and other times it needs nothing and turns fine by hand in the place I had it originally. I have used it some with no binding but something changed, I can't figure it out yet and needed to get away and have beer. This is going to keep me up all night.
I also ordered a set of 3mt collets for the mini from Shars direct.
Making tentative plan of attack.
I have several large tapered reams with MT3 for my LeBlond. Start with 7/8" ream in headstock and step up to 1". This should make the tailstock spindle bore in line with the headstock I would think if I can do it. I'm sure I can get the 7/8" ream in. Moving the tailstock into the ream is going to be a challenge especially as I step up in bore size. I may have to do a better job of scrapping the underside of the bed where the T-Nut ride on. Now it is within .005", not that great for what I am going to try to do. After I get the 7/8" ream in the bore should be good with the spindle. I may be able to at that point use my mills to enlarge the hole and finish ream on the lathe with the 1" ream.
Use 1" drill rod and bore to .863". Heat treat to about 56 RC and lite press into casting then ream to 22mm which I do not have. I do have an adjustable hand ream that I use on my bikes that will have to do. The stock clamp may just work if the tolerances are tighter. I'll address that issue as needed later.
Any thoughts or am I just high? It is Colorado LOL
The tail stock spindle moved .007" to the side and down when clamped. The spindle bore hole is too big. The spindle center sits high by about .004". I started off by looking at the V groove. It is not close to matching the bed so it only was barely touching on the very bottom edges, I started scraping the V to bring it closer to the same angles. Once I got a pattern that was at least closer to the center of the V I put pins in the V that contacted my marks and leveled the base on the surface plate. Then worked the top of the base to be level with bottom flat and pins. Reassemble on late bed many times and scraped the top of the base and bottom of the main casting till I got the tail spindle center lower and on center with the headstock spindle. Originally I was going to bore the tail spindle hole out and bush it to fit the spindle better. I may do this later. What complicated that plan was the end of the tailstock is not open so I couldn't ream the bore out without removing the end and making a new one after the bore was enlarged. This would be a ton of work. I played with positioning pieces of shim stock around the spindle and tightened the clamp. Checked movement till I got the shims to be in a good place. See how long this lasts. I got 2 long days in this already, I am going to call it quits for now until I have an issue with it.
A little late to mention this but....The first thing I did was make a base for the lathe. The rubber feet are way too close. I took a piece of 11 ply plywood and cut it to the size of the pan and put the rubber feet on the corners of the ply. This made it very stable and this special plywood is pretty sturdy.
I wish I could say he would but no chance of that.I have heard from him since X-Mas. Not a single reply to any of the emails or texts. IF it isn't electronic hand held he is not interested in it. I thought that when I told him he needs a hobby and he chose to buy the lathe. It sat unopened for over 3 months so I bought it from him.
SO SAD. I just don't understand him and why he would rather never see a sole unless it is online. If it wasn't for school he would never leave the house. He has no ambitions nor even want a drivers license. 17 yr old introvert.
I guess this is my therapy.
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