Total Newbie question about my 4902 feed direction.

[Tamper84]

That is how my lathe is set up. If you have the lead screw in the forward position, (with the machine running in forward btw) the carriage feed is toward the head stock, the cross feed feeds out towards the operator, and the half nuts take it toward the tail stock. When running the lead screw in reverse, (machine is still running in forward) the carriage will feed toward the tail stock, the cross feed will feed in, and the half nuts will thread toward the head stock. I thought something was screwy with mine as well. Guess not lol. But it does seem weird doesn't it.

Chris

 

[vt-biketim]

Thanks everybody in Clausing 49XX land.

Bob and Billy G: it's OK, I know not to use the half nuts unless threading and I keep the dial gear swung away from the screw, as well. I really don't want to ever have to buy one of those for this thing. This was a school shop machine and was crashed a lot, but seems not to have much actual wear on it. I paid mucho $$ to Clausing for the main spindle gear b/c some kids must have tried to put it into reverse on the fly, but otherwise it was in good repair after cleaning. I gather there's been a lot of 49XX machines turning over recently and it seems the Clausing prices have been climbing accordingly. Last year I heard people say this spindle gear would be $80-90, then somebody here (architard, perhaps?) got a quote 50% higher than that, I actually paid $180.

I went to my local machine shop guy who helped me install that new gear. What a great resource, this man's father and grandfather before him ran this shop with water power and lineshafts in the heyday of Vermont machining. When I asked him this feed direction question he did a double take, thought about it, and said he'd never heard of a lathe working that way. :nuts:

So Chris sums it up nicely:

That is how my lathe is set up. If you have the lead screw in the forward position, (with the machine running in forward btw) the carriage feed is toward the head stock, the cross feed feeds out towards the operator, and the half nuts take it toward the tail stock. When running the lead screw in reverse, (machine is still running in forward) the carriage will feed toward the tail stock, the cross feed will feed in, and the half nuts will thread toward the head stock. I thought something was screwy with mine as well. Guess not lol. But it does seem weird doesn't it.

Chris

I've been happily turning steel bars and aluminum tubes into bits of trash for the last week and a half anyway, but what a great relief to know it all works the way it's supposed to!