A few questions...

[Richard King 2]

Don't use grease as a lubricant, buy some Vactra 2 way oil. Grease will act as a lapping compound and catch the chips and dirt and ruin your new friend. Think about the gear as a bearing in your car, if it's to loose it will flop around. If the gear turned a little tight that is good as if it's to loose it will unwind. Make sure you didn't burr up an edge when taking it apart. Be sure to wear some Nitrate or leather gloves when you take it apart. Those imports have razor sharp edges sometime. Buy a small sharpening stone and stone it just to remove the sharp edges and burrs. I would not take apart the head-stock, carriage without getting the go ahead from Grizzly, as you might be voiding the warranty . As I said I would follow the MFG. instructions. I read on their website there is a warranty card, better fill it out and call http://www.grizzly.com/customerservice

The bad thing about brake cleaner is it can goof up the paint. Ask Grizzly what product they recommend. I hate to say this but I have never been a real big fan of Grizzly but I want to help you now that you have it. Rich

PS: Be sure to wear safety glasses when you use the punch and when you run the lathe.

 

[SamI]

I dont know why, it seems like when I turn the leadscrew off, the cutting tool digs in to the work piece a little bit. Without me touching the dials. What's the correct way of stopping the leadscrew from turning? I've been just pulling the leadscrew lever from autofeed to off.

When you make a cut in the lathe the tool deflects slightly under the pressure of cutting. What is happening is that when the leadscrew is disengaged the tool is still contacting the workpiece with pressure behind it and is essentially making a plunge cut into the material. Smaller lathes are much more prone to this than larger, more rigid machines. Try taking lighter cuts on finishing passes to minimise this and retract the cutting tool slightly as soon as you disengage the leadscrew.

As a note, you will find it difficult to repeatedly hit a finished size on a small machine if you only take a single finishing cut. As mentioned above the tool deflects when contacting the workpiece. This deflection will be greater for a larger depth of cut so, if for arguments sake you are taking 0.020" roughing cuts then you take a single 0.005" finishing cut chances are you would end up with a part that is under sized (as during the 0.005" cut the tool wouldn't be pushed away from the workpiece quite as much). It would be good practice to take two or three finishing cuts at 0.005" so you have the chance to account for this. In my experience with these smaller machines a greater depth of cut tends to leave a poor surface finish unless it is perfectly adjusted. This is because you are relying on the machine being perfectly adjusted to keep everything rigid. On a larger machine you have mass on your side to help prevent chatter. That being said it's down to you to experiment to see what gives acceptable finishes for your part(s). Sharp tooling and a well maintained machine will give dramatically better results. Sadly my mini lathe is not exactly well maintained!

I'm supposed to get my 0XA QCTP delivered today. I couldn't zero in my cutting tools and I don't have any shims. I'll just wait to get my QCTP.

I want to take the lathe apart, wipe everything clean and reapply new grease. My 3 jaw chuck feels gritty, so I took it apart. Everything looked clean, but very dry. I had to carefully use a punch to get the bevel gear out, I applied 5W-30 oil on all the mating surfaces, but still feels gritty. Not sure why you need a punch to get the bevel gear out. Is this normal? It looked clean to me and it's still a "tight" after I added oil in.

Also, what's your guys' opinion on using BrakeClean to clean parts before applying grease?

I'd say go for it although with any degreaser / cleaner you need to be sure to wipe any bare metal surfaces with way oil otherwise they'll begin to corrode very quickly. You may also find brake cleaner to be uneconomical to use for this purpose. I used citrus degreaser when getting my new machine and I was pleasantly surprised at how effective this was. If any surfaces are coated with grease use a plastic scraper to get the worst off then go to town on it with the degreaser and some old rags.

As for shims, get a set of feeler gauges off of ebay or amazon for a couple of quid (dollars for the American readers!), take them apart and use those. Obviously if you've got your QCTP then all the better but the feeler gauges work well. Failing that i made some out of old beer cans to shim the gibs under the carriage (swapped out the adjustable grub screws because they were fiddly and annoying). They were a pain to make but can be cut to virtually any size / shape needed for your application.

I hope all of the above makes sense!

 

[royesses]

Brake cleaner should be ok. I have used it with no problems. I usually use CRC electro-mechanical cleaner available at O'Reilly auto parts and other auto parts stores. This evaporates quickly and won't harm any electrical parts.

The 0XA qctp is perfect for your machine. It was designed for mini-lathes. You will love it. The only problems you may encounter are the hold down screws for the tool holders. Some of them might have damaged threads or sockets. This seems to be a some do-some don't situation. I ordered a dozen screws from LMS and just replaced the defective ones.

Roy

 

[SamI]

The only problems you may encounter are the hold down screws for the tool holders. Some of them might have damaged threads or sockets. This seems to be a some do-some don't situation. I ordered a dozen screws from LMS and just replaced the defective ones.

Roy

+1 except I ended up replacing all of mine with stainless set screws rather than just the defective ones. I found that the hex heads were poorly formed and eventually rounded. For the sake of a couple of quid replacing all of them is well worth it IMO.

 

[Bob Korves]

Stainless might not be the best choice for tool post screws. It likes to gall, depending on the alloy. I would (and did) purchase some good quality carbon steel screws, like Holo-krome.

 

[SamI]

Stainless might not be the best choice for tool post screws. It likes to gall, depending on the alloy. I would (and did) purchase some good quality carbon steel screws, like Holo-krome.

That's a good point - I must admit I usually pop these things into ebay and buy the first thing that comes up and didn't give much thought on the material for these. I'll bear this in mind for future purchases though so thank you for your comment.

 

[markba633csi]

Pcmaker: I use camping fuel aka white gas, naphtha, Coleman fuel to clean and degrease parts. It's mild and not too toxic. Brake cleaner often has toluene or xylene and has strong fumes, eats paint, dries out your skin badly too
Walmart, sporting good stores have camping fuel
Paint thinner works too but not as well
Mark

 

[Pcmaker]

Thanks, guys. I just got my QCTP. MUCH better...

Another question. I know if you're turning and the length of your workpiece is more than 4x the diameter of it, you need to use the dead center and the tailstock.

What if you're facing? Obviously you can't use the tailstock at all. Do you go from the center of the workpiece to out so it pushes the work piece "in" while you're working on it?

 

[Silverbullet]

Many of the import machines use plastic gears , for lube I wouldn't think of grease , a good tacky machine oil is what you want . Like a thin honey sticks but slides off too. Like the Lucas oil additive display they use to have showed.

 

[markba633csi]

Age-old dilemmas; if you can tolerate a centering hole on the end of the workpiece then do that in combination with a tailstock center, or use a steady rest.
If you take light cuts you can hang it out there pretty far, but it's hard to advise how much is too much- we all ruin a few parts sometimes doing it
Another thing to be careful of, trying to grab a workpiece in the chuck that's too large for it- you can break the inside tooth of one of the jaws when there isn't enough of the jaw for the scroll to grab
You often see used chucks for sale with this kind of damage