New MX-210V 8x16 lathe - a beginner's first lathe experience

So I am making a number of videos that are going up on a playlist on my currently pretty much empty YouTube channel. I am not a YouTuber but it is an easy way to share videos. There will be a good number of these and I may enlist Dave M to help me out as he is a YouTuber and lives not too far away.

This first one is a 2 minute overview of the lathe once I got it lifted onto my bench. It is not too heavy - two of us were able to lift it pretty easily. I got the heavy end unfortunately.

Anyway, overall it is not too bad on the surface but as subsequent videos will show this is a cheap Chinese lathe and will need some work to get it functional. I hope to get most of it all pulled apart and diagnosed this weekend so these will be coming along over the next few days. If anyone has some insight as to how to fix various problems I am all ears!

 
First up is the tailstock. There are some definite issues with this tailstock as these videos describe. There are some huge gouges on the outside that have rust in them. I thought these were why the tailstock moved so poorly but once I got things apart it was clear that the holes in the casting for the retainer (for lack of a better word) were very poorly done. if anyone has any thoughts on a good way to fix that I would appreciate it.

The misalignment of the grub screw that keeps the barrel from rotating may or may not be an issue. If needed I guess I can drill and tap a new hole in the right orientation but will defer to more experienced folks to let me know if that is needed or not.

The presence of a thrust washer was a pleasant surprise that I had not expected. I have seen others add these to tailstocks in other videos so I am pretty pleased.


 
Subscribed to the YouTube channel so I do not miss a video. Great that you are taking the time to do those.
 
Here is a video of the tailstock back on the lathe and moving "smoothly" but with only one bolt holding the retainer on. I am confident that the word retainer is incorrect, so please correct me if my suspicion is correct.

The casting on the back side of this tailstock is pretty shabby as this video shows.


 
The bottom surfaces of the tailstock are very, very crudely machined. I worry that these will impact my ways - any thoughts on how to correct this?

 
I simply did not have the patience to do the full cleanup before testing the runout on the spindle bore and face. I just got that indicator yesterday and have never used this type before so my measurement method and interpretation of the results may be way off. With that said, if I did it correctly I am pretty pleased with the result.

There is some grinding noise as I turn by hand that I hope is not the spindle bearings. I disconnected the change gears to take them out of the equation. I guess the worst case scenario is that I am doing a spindle bearing replacement. At some point along this process I am going to figure out if this has tapered roller bearings or not - we shall see!


 
Tomzo said:
Here is a video of the tailstock back on the lathe and moving "smoothly" but with only one bolt holding the retainer on. I am confident that the word retainer is incorrect, so please correct me if my suspicion is correct.

The casting on the back side of this tailstock is pretty shabby as this video shows.


Click to expand...
Obviously, the "backside" you showed doesn't matter. But it is indicative of the shortcuts that are made. When you get a chance, look at the bottom of the tailstock where it rides on the ways. It may not be that pretty. Typically, one removes a screw stop and then the tailstock just slides off the end. It would be curious to find out how far off the tailstock is. Typically tailstocks are shipped high of center, maybe to account for wear. You ought to measure yours. It's relatively easy to adjust them side to side, vertically, one has to machine it or use shims.

My LMS tailstock is too tall. One of these days I need to machine it lower (and not screw it up). It's high enough that center drills make a conical point, instead of a hole! Not a problem for large stock as large stiff drills will eventually plow through it. Small stock with small flexible bits - my tailstock is useless as it is too far out of vertical adjustment. If I use it, it generates a lot of taper. Hope yours is a lot better than mine.
 
WobblyHand - I posted a video of the underside of the tailstock in post 15 - it is pretty bad. My chucks and live/dead centers arrive today so I will make some measurements of how far high I am. At least I hope I am high because I think those surfaces need to be machined down. I don't own a mill, so that may pose some issues. If nothing else I may just take a flat stone to them for a bit.

I came into this project with no illusions that I would be getting a first rate machine. Half of this effort is to get my hands on a lathe so I can learn how they work and how to make inferior ones do some work that lacks precision. A better machine would be wasted in my incapable hands, so perhaps this experience will give me a bit of what I need if and when I do splurge on something built in a factory with a modicum of quality control.
 
Tomzo said:
WobblyHand - I posted a video of the underside of the tailstock in post 15 - it is pretty bad. My chucks and live/dead centers arrive today so I will make some measurements of how far high I am. At least I hope I am high because I think those surfaces need to be machined down. I don't own a mill, so that may pose some issues. If nothing else I may just take a flat stone to them for a bit.

I came into this project with no illusions that I would be getting a first rate machine. Half of this effort is to get my hands on a lathe so I can learn how they work and how to make inferior ones do some work that lacks precision. A better machine would be wasted in my incapable hands, so perhaps this experience will give me a bit of what I need if and when I do splurge on something built in a factory with a modicum of quality control.
Click to expand...
Sorry, I hadn't looked at that video. I'll do that in a bit. Got to run off for some errands, when I get back, I will take a look.

"A better machine would be wasted in my incapable hands" Don't sell yourself short. If nothing else, you will learn a lot. You will be able to make some interesting parts, as well, only limited by your imagination.

Please check out the sticky in the Beginner's section on grinding your own high speed steel tools. It's a very good read and you will learn a lot. I've successfully ground some tooling to trepan and make a groove, as well as some basic tools (RH square, RH knife, RH threading, and LH knife). All very useful.

One thing that you have in the MX210V is a rather large spindle bore. My 7X mini-lathe spindle bore is only 20mm. Definitely been times when I could have used the larger bore.
 
OK - I took the compound off and have a few initial impressions:

- It had some grinding dust in there but not an excessive amount.
- The surfaces on the dovetails are not as bad as I had feared but are not optimal at all
- The gib was reasonably straight - I put it on the glass bed of my 3D printer (the flattest surface I have handy) and there was very little noticeable rock in it. The holes aligned with the gib adjustment screws which I know is not the case with all gibs in this class of lathe.
- The gib adjustment screws were pretty low quality and bent somehow. I had some button head screws of the same size on hand so I replaced them. The threads in the casting were rough, but once I ran the screws in and out a few times they cleaned up a bit.
- Once put back together it was pretty clear that if I wanted any type of rigidity the gib screws were going to have to be pretty snug. For this class of lathe I had expected this.

The audio on some of these videos was odd - I must have had my hand over the mic on my phone. I am going to figure out how to get the phone onto a tripod.




 
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