How tight should be tight? That was a water pipe 27mm diameter. But I could bend whole thing towards it and see toolmark appearing and sound.
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Chinese lathe upgrades.
- Thread starter PaulsM
- Start date
Ah well thats the learning curve.
Make sure anything “structural “ is snugged up.
Then work on the gib adjustment.
The gib adjustment is in your manual , although poorly written and described for sure!
This might help, cross slide gib
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Did you manage to make it rigid? Have you tried to "bend"/move assembly towards spinning work piece? Do you use whatsapp, discord?
Ok so Im not a machinist im a automotive repair tech so I just look at a lathe as a piece if equipment and just treat it like a part on a car.Did you manage to make it rigid? Have you tried to "bend"/move assembly towards spinning work piece? Do you use whatsapp, discord?
So this may not be correct but
Your lathe will have a certain amount back lash or movement in the assemblies.
So when cutting you apply the cutting tool to the work, you now have forces pushing against the tool holder, the saddle, the cross slide the compound so there’s always going to be a little backlash or free travel if you force that back in the opposite direction or towards the work. You also have to remember to use your carriage lock your compound lock, your cross side lock when you’re making cuts as this will help eliminate any movement but you have to be careful because you don’t wanna crank those locks so tight you’re now moving the assembly or bending the Gibbs if the lock is pressing against the Gibbs I’m not sure if that makes sense without actually showing you in the video which I am not good at
Although my lathe was used, it was not used enough to actually be worn and when I had a friends dad who was a master machinist come look at it. He just laughed and said it was never cleaned properly from day one because it still had Cosmoline all over it and it was never properly adjusted oiled or gone through, in the end, I ended up stripping the entire assembly down cleaning everything taking a fine diamond stone hitting all the machine surfaces just enough to break any high spots or nicks or burrs cleaned. Everything got all the Cosmoline out of it. I was shocked at how much crud came out of the Ways surface , there was so much crud buildup that you cannot really see the scrapings. Now once I got it all cleaned back together, well oiled and adjusted. Everything moved and slid nicely and then took about three or four attempts to get all the play out of the saddle, the cross slide , in the compound, I just kept going back and forth making very small changes are eventually I came to a point where I need a dial indicator to test to see if there’s any movement. Now my best indicator is only three digits to the right and I have everything set up , you can barely see anything move on that needle which I feel is well within this machine’s capabilities.
I think the big problem is the manufactures of these Lathes Assume you’re a machinist and know what you’re doing so the instructions are off, awful vague, and sometimes just nondescript. In the end, it took scanning through many videos and reading a lot of how to run to lead articles online, although it’s funny, there are plenty of books on how to run a lathe. The one I was thumbing through didn’t have much in the way of how to set up your lane is keep at it you’ll get there.
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Even with all that, I said, I think you’re probably going to have to disassemble the compound the cross slide and depending on how comfortable you feel the carriage or the saddle I’m sorry if I’m not getting all the Termanology right clean off any, and all anti-corrosive compounds inspect the Gibbs, inspect the machine ways and any machine surface give it a good cleaning Oil it up reassemble it maybe apply Loctite to the screws that should stay tight as far as how tight the screws should be just use common sense or look up. How much torque that size screw nut or bolt can handle back it off a little bit because they probably cheap alloy, nuts, bolts, and screws And go from there. I’m not sure I don’t have links, but I know if you search online you can find torque tables for screw and bolt sizes so you can find out how much an M6 bolt can be torqued to, but he did caution because the castings can be soft. The threads can be loose or tight all these inexpensive machines and I’m sure even some of the expensive machines are not ready to turn metal right out of the box
Heres a link to instructions to what I think is a comparable machine which has ok instructions for adjusting carriage, cross slide and compound
Im trying to put words to what I did
Im trying to put words to what I did
A little update on my machine. So I got the right size cutters, played for about a minute and at one point spindle starts to spin to max rpm, potentiometer doesnt do anything and.. it blows out my main fuse. Fuse on machine intact. I took apart control board and it seems its short circuiting between boards aluminium radiator and machine`s ground. So.. I cannot put it together like from factory. I start it disassembled and it just goes to max rpm. I did test potentiometer, it works.. it maxes out in about middle, but it does work. Starting to regret I bought this thing
Well, that stinks. I hope the vendor or the manufacturer has a little support anyway it’s not that old I’m pretty sure it’s probably a common failure. I think I would look to just bypass the original control unit and see if you can’t just wire up something yourself the worst part about it is whatever you need to buy to replace that is probably a third of more of the original value of the lathe, oh bother
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- Jan 2, 2019
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Probably not an option for you with shipping but there may be some info that could be useful.A little update on my machine. So I got the right size cutters, played for about a minute and at one point spindle starts to spin to max rpm, potentiometer doesnt do anything and.. it blows out my main fuse. Fuse on machine intact. I took apart control board and it seems its short circuiting between boards aluminium radiator and machine`s ground. So.. I cannot put it together like from factory. I start it disassembled and it just goes to max rpm. I did test potentiometer, it works.. it maxes out in about middle, but it does work. Starting to regret I bought this thing
John