- Joined
- Dec 5, 2017
- Messages
- 464
I was making an adapter on my lathe and needed to do a bit of boring. Even with very light cuts, the compound was moving up and down noticeably.
I managed to finish the job and when I was cleaning up the lathe I found an Allen screw laying in the tray. "Hmmmm," sez I, "Coincidence? I think not!"
So some investigation revealed that it came from the retainer plate on the front of the cross slide, behind the carriage. I call it a retainer plate as there isn't a gib in the normal sense.
Wound up taking the entire cross slide and carriage assembly off the lathe so I could get at things to replace the errant screw. All three screws were loose and flopping around.
The retainer plate is held in place with three Allen screws with set-screw and lock nut adjusters between them: X o X o X with the X's being Allen screws and the o's being adjusters.
I assume (yeah, I know...) that the idea is to use the adjusters to set the gap between the retainer plate and the way and then snug the Allen screws to lock everything in place. My problem is I can't snug the Allen screws enough to give me any confidence they'll stay snug. So, two questions:
1. Am I just not fiddling with the adjustment enough and if I get that right I should be able to snug the screws up in good shape?
2. Or, should I clean things up good and use loctite on the screws?
I managed to finish the job and when I was cleaning up the lathe I found an Allen screw laying in the tray. "Hmmmm," sez I, "Coincidence? I think not!"
So some investigation revealed that it came from the retainer plate on the front of the cross slide, behind the carriage. I call it a retainer plate as there isn't a gib in the normal sense.
Wound up taking the entire cross slide and carriage assembly off the lathe so I could get at things to replace the errant screw. All three screws were loose and flopping around.
The retainer plate is held in place with three Allen screws with set-screw and lock nut adjusters between them: X o X o X with the X's being Allen screws and the o's being adjusters.
I assume (yeah, I know...) that the idea is to use the adjusters to set the gap between the retainer plate and the way and then snug the Allen screws to lock everything in place. My problem is I can't snug the Allen screws enough to give me any confidence they'll stay snug. So, two questions:
1. Am I just not fiddling with the adjustment enough and if I get that right I should be able to snug the screws up in good shape?
2. Or, should I clean things up good and use loctite on the screws?