G0602 Installation Questions

[Mark Stonich]

I'm finally getting time to install the 0602 I bought a few months ago.

1. When cleaning off the cosmoline (or whatever) do you just clean off the exposed surfaces or should I try to take apart the sub-assemblies, chucks, tailstock compound etc.?

2. The flat area of the chip pan sits about 0.060" above the surface of the table. Should I put a sheet of metal something under pan so the feet don't distort the pan?

3. Would putting the lathe on leveling pads be worthwhile? Similar to this project.
One consideration is that I hope to someday copy Fabrickator's Belt Drive Speed Reducer. But I have trust issues with epoxy. So I was thinking about extending the top plate under the pulleys, to provide a solid mounting place for the jackshaft cradle.

 

[Baithog]

I would not recommend that you take apart the sub-assemblies. Nothing like taking apart a machine that you are not familiar with, putting it together, and then finding that it doesn't work right. Was it defective in the beginning, did you break it? And my favorite, you have to buy hundreds of dollars of tools you find you don't have to get it back to factory specs. Grizzly has decent quality. Not perfect, but decent. It probably meets the limits noted on your inspection sheet. Remove the tail stock whole and the change gears, but not the carriage. RTFM - an acronym for what you should do with the manual.

Are you sure you don't have the chip pan upside down?

I see no need for leveling pads like you link to. Spend your money on a decent level. If the bed is warped, send it back. I see no reason to be twisting a new bed into shape. A good level and some shims should work just fine. Mine is on a wood table. I makes parts good enough for me. I'm not building a Mars rover for NASA.

 

[xman_charl]

here is my setup

tailstock is cheap, no slots in cross slide, just a flat chunk of metal with 2 holes for the compound.

cheap lathe

have cut a lot of metal with it, bought it 2009

Charl



good old G602

 

[Mark Stonich]

I would not recommend that you take apart the sub-assemblies. Nothing like taking apart a machine that you are not familiar with, putting it together, and then finding that it doesn't work right. Was it defective in the beginning, did you break it? And my favorite, you have to buy hundreds of dollars of tools you find you don't have to get it back to factory specs. Grizzly has decent quality. Not perfect, but decent. It probably meets the limits noted on your inspection sheet. Remove the tail stock whole and the change gears, but not the carriage. RTFM - an acronym for what you should do with the manual.

I did RTFM. But TFM only refers to unpainted surfaces. Many of which I'm sure are internal.

I know my limits and assume the carriage, headstock and gearbox are best left alone. Anything else?

I regularly disassembled the, much simpler, chucks on my 1938 SB 9"to clean and lube them. Anything to watch out for when doing the 602 units? Other than marking the parts so that every piece goes back where it started.

Any reason not to remove the cross slide? I intend to do the 4 bolt compound swivel clamping ring. And also drill and tap 4 more holes in the cross slide for a tube coping fixture. (At 70 I'm easing into re-retirement, and hope this gives me time to get back into bicycle frame building.)

On various forums I've seen the tailstock disassembled. Anything tricky there?

Are you sure you don't have the chip pan upside down?

Quite sure.

I see no need for leveling pads like you link to. Spend your money on a decent level. If the bed is warped, send it back. I see no reason to be twisting a new bed into shape. A good level and some shims should work just fine. Mine is on a wood table. I makes parts good enough for me. I'm not building a Mars rover for NASA.

My interest in the pads was to prevent my table from introducing twist, not correcting twist from the factory. I'll hold off on them unless I see a need. The guy who bought my SB to restore has a good machinist's level I can use.

 

[tmarks11]

1. When cleaning off the cosmoline (or whatever) do you just clean off the exposed surfaces or should I try to take apart the sub-assemblies, chucks, tailstock compound etc.?

It is probably worth disassembling and cleaning and oiling the chuck. Many people chose to do the same with other sliding surfaces on the lathe, to ensure there isn't any grit left from the factory. If the compound doesn't feel smooth, then by all means take it apart. It is a simple process and the schematic in the manual shows you what you need to see.

2. The flat area of the chip pan sits about 0.060" above the surface of the table. Should I put a sheet of metal something under pan so the feet don't distort the pan?

Is the chip pan flat, and the table warped, or vice-versa? The weight of the lathe should flatten the chip pan against the table. If the table is flat, then you should be good to go.

3. Would putting the lathe on leveling pads be worthwhile? Similar to this project.

That looks like more work than I would go to. Verify the table is flat before putting the chip pan and the lathe on it. Then use shims as necessary between the pan and the lathe to get the lathe bed flat and untwisted.

Any reason not to remove the cross slide?

Goes off and goes on easily. Go for it.

If the bed is warped, send it back. I see no reason to be twisting a new bed into shape.

The bed on any home shop lathe that doesn't come mounted on a solid one-piece cast iron base is very flexible, and twist can be easily induced if it is not properly levelled. Not a manufacturing fault, just the physics associate with the shape and the material.

 

[Baithog]

Mark, you are a man after my own heart. I can't count the number of times I got called down to the line to fix problems with 'my process', and found some sustaining guy diddled with the machine and got it out of factory spec. They write them manuals for a reason. Clean the exposed metal that you can get to. That should be sufficient. I would not remove anything until you know the lathe works right. Best to leave the head stock sealed. There is no gasket on the gearbox cover. It is sealed with some kind of RTV. Any preservative that is inside the gear box or bearings will get washed out by lubrication. You can always go back later when you've qualified the lathe and are comfortable with re-assembly to do a residual mop-up.

I thought maybe you had the lip on the drip pan turned down, but come to think about it, that would be more than 60 mils. The drip pan is thin, so any bow should flatten out when you set the lathe on it.

Even if you don't take the chucks apart now, you will eventually have to clean the chips out. The 4-jaw is really simple. The 3-jaw gave me a bit of a struggle. The scroll would cock and fail to drop out. A few light taps with a plastic hammer and drift from the front got it to fall free. Yeah, mark everything as you take it apart. Check for numbers on the jaws when you first take them out. One of mine had a 2 and a 3 on it and nothing on another.