I asked David his thoughts on this one. https://www.ebay.com/itm/5MT-Lathe-...er-All-Length-442mm-17-1-2-Inch-/173745215972 He said this one looked similar to his so I bought one. It showed up at the house yesterday. I mic'd both ends and they were the same as far as I could tell (34.962mm spindle 34.963mm end). I apologize for the metric, my 2" mic has a dead batter and I have a set of metric manuals so I used those. I have no idea about the run out because I do not have a set of V's to set it in and check. I can say that at the spindle, I had .0001" of run out and less than .0002" at 10.5" I cannot tell if it is hardened or not but I figure if I take care of the bar, it shouldn't matter.
After what seemed like a never ending exercise of futility, I have the lathe leveled. With the test bar, I had .0006" taper in the head stock. I was able to get that down to .0001" in the 10.5" of travel. I will put the bar between centers tomorrow to check the tail stock. Getting closer to making test cuts.
Side note, my brother likes to make wooden hammers and made me one with an oak head and china berry handle. I asked him to make me a 1.5"dia x 12" long dowel to unseat tools in the spindle taper.
After what seemed like a never ending exercise of futility, I have the lathe leveled. With the test bar, I had .0006" taper in the head stock. I was able to get that down to .0001" in the 10.5" of travel. I will put the bar between centers tomorrow to check the tail stock. Getting closer to making test cuts.
Side note, my brother likes to make wooden hammers and made me one with an oak head and china berry handle. I asked him to make me a 1.5"dia x 12" long dowel to unseat tools in the spindle taper.