Save me from myself, please!

So- may I present the 'hillbilly' lathe repair/restoration. See the attached pic of one of my techniques. First, lets get some terminology straight- this lathe has 2 FLAT ways. The one closest to the operator is FRONT. The one farthest from the operator is BACK. That orientation will persist as I discuss the various FACETS of the ways.
As said before, this lathe was sloppy, to be kind, when I met it. In my 'hillbilly' attempt to address that, I entered into my very first attempt to SCRAPE any machine into something better.
The jig pictured is for the 'back' side of the BACK way. Addressing play in the 'x' direction, as the carriage moves along in the 'y' direction.
The jig built for addressing the 'z', vertical play in the carriage, has, regrettably, been repurposed, but is similar.
Meausurement of either axis involves a 6" caliper, a test indicator, carefull employment of gib adjustment, and a pantload of patience and observation. I will present further 'technique', loosely termed, very soon.

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The scraper employed is a 3/8 wide carbide, brazed to a piece of HSS. A lathe tool, obviously repurposed. Told ya, I am a poor hillbilly with limited resources, yet a strong desire to better his machine AND his skills.
 
There is absolutely nothing wrong with inexpensive tools that do the job.
Looking forward to more!

How's the knee?

-brino
 
The knee is coming along nicely. Thanks for asking!
So, I started with the back facet of the BACK way. I assumed that facet was far more worn than the front of the FRONT way. Using a 6" mic, I found the deepest wear. I scraped the rest of the back of the BACK to match, best I could measure. Then, I tightened the gib, one of 4 adjusters only, and fine tuned the facet by judging how tight the carriage was to move. All this done with the carriage VERTICAL gibs loose.
For the carriage VERTICAL, it was a little tougher. On this machine, gib adjustment is done with shims between the top of the gibs and the underside of the carriage. The gibs extend UNDER the bottom of the ways. The top of the FRONT way had a .004 groove worn in it. Again, I assumed the top of the front way was worn far more than the bottom. I found the area of greatest wear, and scraped a groove into the rest of the way to match. Fine tuned the depth of the groove in the same manner as before. I had to mill the underside of the carriage where the shim lands to allow adjustment of the carriage down into the groove.
Certainly NOT how the real guys do it. I did not address the area of the carriage that runs in the groove in the FRONT way. Nor did I address the BACK way at all, in the vertical.
All in all, the improvement is satisfying. Chatter is greatly reduced. Accuracy is manageable, for my needs so far.
I will start another thread on my idea about grinding lathe tools. My bench grinder, and my sharpening skills, will not get these tools to the keen edge I know will help this STILL floppy lathe.
 
Brino- thanks for the link! I read Mikey's entire thread over the past few days. What an amazing wealth of knowledge here! My appreciation and thanks to all who have contributed.
 
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