Praying just before you turn on that new lathe for the first time...

How are things going? Were you able to check runout of the spindle and the chuck?

I did notice the screws were put on very loose in many places of my lathe... too loose in many places. The first one I unscrewed to take off the splash guard (have to remove this to take off motor cover) was only half screwed in. Something else I found, seems at random they kept swapping different sized screws for the same holes. Not sure what happened there. It is a jump from 9mm to 11mm. Not a real biggie, just more of a sloppy feel to me.

Yeah. Someone here said it, though I can't remember who. Welcome to QC outsourcing; on these lathes the Chinese manufacturing company counts on the end user to be the QC department...

You'll probably want to disassemble most of the lathe to remove the crazy amount of grease (cosmoline?) and swarf left over from the manufacturing process, knock down burs and sharp edges, etc.

Once that's done you'll spend the first 3 months to a year learning how to do basic operations, and then another 3 months making improvements, and then... :D
 
When I bought my lathe, a Jet 14x40, they shipped me the 8", 4 jaw chuck, for some reason, they shipped it a week later, as it wasn't, in the crate. It came in a 12"x12"x12" box, it looked like they poked a hole in one corner of the box (vent hole), inserted the infamous red Chinese cosmolene nozzle in the opposite corner, then pumped until it came out the vent hole. When I opened the box, it looked like a solid cubic foot of cosmolene.
 
Some of my newer tools are arriving already... though not everything just yet.
Yesterday I decided to look at the Motor, but all I found on it was a sticker with a part #, and the date of manufacture (or is that installation). Nothing about wattage.

I did notice the screws were put on very loose in many places of my lathe... too loose in many places. The first one I unscrewed to take off the splash guard (have to remove this to take off motor cover) was only half screwed in. Something else I found, seems at random they kept swapping different sized screws for the same holes. Not sure what happened there. It is a jump from 9mm to 11mm. Not a real biggie, just more of a sloppy feel to me.

I have a dial gauge that just arrived today, I'll try to use it to get some readings on the chuck, etc. to see how things line up over there soon...

Image....
Any news?, as mentioned by others it doesn't look like the shaft is bent, did you mange to find out what was loose? . I just hope it's a simple fix and you don't have to haul it back to the dealer to replace it, it was a smart move on your part not to take it all apart to fix the problem and void the warranty.
I bet you can't wait to get that lathe going and do some actual turning.
 
Yes, I got around to giving it an examination today...

Speaking of burrs, yes that is an obvious problem I noticed on today's investigation!

Took me a while, but I managed to pry off the sprocket attached to the spindle. While being very careful not to lose the key. I measured the face of that sprocket before removal, and there was a wobble of 20 thou.

After removing it, I pulled out the cheap plastic spacer, and noticed a few things. There was a pretty bad burr on the end of that spacer where the sprocket was facing. So I am going to guess that may be part of the reason. And also, the reason for the burr, is somehow someone used something on the inside of it, and caused a very nasty linear gouge... scraping away material down the plastic spacer. I have no idea how that happened, or why one would do that.

I further more have no idea why someone couldn't just replace a 2 cent piece of damaged material, to have something proper as a spacer... Oh wait, yes I do. These poorly exploited workers who have no clue how to assemble a precision piece of machinery, assumed it was not worth the loss of 2 cents to use a piece that wasn't damaged!

Duh--

I'll do some more measurements with the cleared spindle just to make sure the spindle is not damaged, and then de-burr that cheap spacer, and see about re-assembling again.
 
I further more have no idea why someone couldn't just replace a 2 cent piece of damaged material, to have something proper as a spacer... Oh wait, yes I do. These poorly exploited workers who have no clue how to assemble a precision piece of machinery, assumed it was not worth the loss of 2 cents to use a piece that wasn't damaged!
Back when I was at HP and we would design/build assembly lines, then ship them to Singapore, we'd occasionally run into something similar. It seems they would sometimes have a delay in getting a new line up and running because they had a pre-set "scrap budget," and exceeding it would require management approval, etc.

I can well imagine that a Chinese factory would have little or no allowance for out-of-spec or damaged parts. Just force it on and ship it out! It may be management policy, rather than the individual worker's fault.
 
UPDATE

Well, after de-burring the spacer, I put the gear back on. Still was with wobble, which partly looked to me due to the key causing the gear to mis-align due to friction. I tightened it some more with a little spanner wrench, and the gear fully moved in place over the full key, and now it seems to be running true when in motion.

So, for today I will consider this a success.... though the spacer itself looks to wobble a lot, I don't care about that.

So, tomorrow I'll try to pick up a can of some decent lubrication for the plastic & metal gears I have. Though I've been hearing alternating stories as to whether plastic gears really need lubrication or not.
 
So.... now that I have resumed....

Added some lubricant to the gears, put on cover, and after everything else, I finally did some basic testing.

The good news is the 3/8" carbide tip tooling seems to fit into the post pretty good, without need of shims (so far).

I did just a facing job for today while testing... A lot more vibrations than I was expecting, but it works...

Now what doesn't work--

Noticed the Thread gauge wasn't turning. After touching it with my finger, it's so loose it's barely staying on.... Then after some investigation, I noticed the spiral-spoke underneath it was not making contact with the lead-screw. I'll have to see what's going on there.

To make matters worse, it is a real problem trying to get the half-nut to engage with the screw. I have to push really hard, and it appears to be bending the lead screw when I do this.... I don't think it was supposed to be this difficult...

I guess I will have to take off the Saddle, etc, and try to see if there is something obviously wrong with it.

Grrrrrrrr..........
 
So.. update..

Took off the apron today and did an inspection.

Turns out there was 0 amount of lube on the half-nuts, which was part of the problem... that and I think the gib was screwed too tight.

Then to compound this issue, there was RUST on the half-nuts. I am guessing these units were sitting for years somewhere in a Chinese factory hut, with probably a dirt & muddy floor before some poor underpaid and over-worked worker decided to put them on my lathe.

Sometimes you just HAVE TO LAUGH... it's been what... 2000 years since the Roman empire, and the state of progress since then when it comes to manufacturing just has me shaking my head...

I suppose the poor worker asked his foreman what to do with the RUSTY pieces. And was properly told the half-nuts looked like they were in proper working order... leave nothing to waste!

I suppose the worker also decided not to bother adding grease or anything, simply for the fact that the rust had already started, so plainly adding more was a waste of time!

Oh that, and the fact that no one would notice the rusty units hiding behind the apron... I mean, who would think to ever look.

Now... as for why the thread dial was not working... it appears to me some genius of an engineer decided to drill the mount hole so far back from the lead screw, that it would be impossible for the dial to engage properly. I'll have to think up a remedy to fix that too somehow...

I suppose, with only 2000 years since the Romans had their own engineers, I can't really expect progress to have taken that many leaps and bounds since... I mean, just drilling a simple pilot hole, is not so simple. It requires a vast network of super-computers and advanced algorithms to figure out the proper location for a hole.

I'm already laughing here waiting to see what other surprises this Chinese lathe has in store for me tomorrow...
 
Some of the smaller bench top off shore lathes are made so that the thread gauge mounting bolt can be loosened, the thread gauge turned slightly,
and therefore does not make contact with the lead screw all the time. Adjust it to make contact only when making threads... Bill W.
 
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