New PM 1236 on its way!

[qualitymachinetools]

Hi Bob,
The ground on the power cord is all it needs, just be sure its not a Neutral, it has to be a GROUND. (I know they connect back in the electrical box, but I think for the electrical code it is different)

And the coolant pump runs on 1 phase, I have been trying for years to get them to change that label, but they just add a little capacitor on the pump, and it runs on single phase. So you are good to go there, no problem at all.

And Mike, OK I was wondering, I had been looking and searching, and did not remember anything like that. But it happens to all of them sometimes, not much, it seems like I will go a year without a problem, then have them all at one time.
I don't know why it is so hard, but trucking companies can be tough sometimes. To me it seems easy enough, but who knows.

 

[rdfoster]

I was cleaning and lubricating the follow rest and center rest this afternoon and was quite disappointed at the poor workmanship and QC. One of the shafts on the center rest wouldn't let the adjusting screw to go near all the way so I ran a tap through it. It was very tight in fact I thought I might break the tap (brand new) so I put some anti-seize on it to get it all the way through. I put it together to see how large a piece of steel it would handle. One if the shafts would not retract fully into the frame like the other two did, restricting the diameter of the work you could hold. I'm working on a solution now. any suggestions?

Bob

 

[Ray C]

Can you show a picture of how limited the travel is? Here's mine fully retracted and another with one leg fully extended. The mechanism is pretty straightforward but, I'm not sure if you're talking about the locking pin (finger pointed to it) or the adjusting thumbscrew bolt.

If you tried to rethread the barrel well, blind holes are always a dicey proposition but, if yours is not opening up anywhere near mine then, you can see that in the fully extended case, the bolt is obviously quite long. It extends to an unusable degree. That being the case, you could just shorten the bolt a tiny bit and it will still have enough extension and retraction range. I'd give Matt a call and I suspect he'll set it straight if the issue is beyond that simple fix.

Mine appears to be able to accommodate a 3" diameter shaft (approximately). A 3" diameter shaft long enough to utilize the full length of the bed will not require a center rest (not only that it will weigh about 100 lbs as does the one in this picture) -much less a shorter shaft that diameter. Same goes for tubing or pipe... It's rigid enough to work on w/o a rest. There's a pic of a 3" dia shaft... you won't have any problems carving on it w/o a rest. It will bend the tool or break the compound long before it bends. A max cut at 50 thou DOC which is about as deep a cut as anyone would consider on a lathe like this won't make 3" bend at all.

BTW: I need to use rests a good bit and when I do, I made this one for the task. The roller bearings are much better.


Ray

 

[darkzero]

Nice work Ray! I haven't used my steady rest yet but I have used the follow rest a number of times & it worked perfectly fine. I knew I wanted a roller setup after using the follow rest a couple of times. Thought about modifying mine but I decided that I'm just going to order the one for the G4003G. Hope Matt doesn't read this, please forgive me. :bitingnails:

 

[Ray C]

I think you'll be forgiven... BTW, I spoke to Matt today; he's finally got some breathing room. He too wants to know you you keep your machines so beautifully clean. Wish I had that kind of discipline.

Also, forgot to mention that center rests are usually only used to drill the center hole in a shaft. I personally have only used it a couple times to hold a cat's head and the rest is for center drilling. I guess there are cases though (really long lathe beds) where center rests are used while cutting.

Ray

Nice work Ray! I haven't used my steady rest yet but I have used the follow rest a number of times & it worked perfectly fine. I knew I wanted a roller setup after using the follow rest a couple of times. Thought about modifying mine but I decided that I'm just going to order the one for the G4003G. Hope Matt doesn't read this, please forgive me. :bitingnails:

 

[jmh8743]

Hey guys, Mike here,
i know I'm in the wrong thread, but.. The steady shown is made identical to mine. Boring requires one to prevent chatter. The SR provided with my machine followers do not meet by a substantial amount, probably 300 thou. Someone could sell these things. The one I have, and it's replacement are boat anchors. It appears any repair would not be feasible. Raining here, all day. Tnx Matt for your comments meant what I said.
:roflmao:

 

[tripletap3]

I was cleaning and lubricating the follow rest and center rest this afternoon and was quite disappointed at the poor workmanship and QC. One of the shafts on the center rest wouldn't let the adjusting screw to go near all the way so I ran a tap through it. It was very tight in fact I thought I might break the tap (brand new) so I put some anti-seize on it to get it all the way through. I put it together to see how large a piece of steel it would handle. One if the shafts would not retract fully into the frame like the other two did, restricting the diameter of the work you could hold. I'm working on a solution now. any suggestions?

Bob

I ended up with the same issue about a month ago when I went to use the steady rest for the first time. It was a late evening project boring a 2.5" x 6" round bar when I found one of the fingers wouldn't retract far enough in to allow the part through. All three fingers were the same length and unlike yours they were threading all the way through so that wasn't the problem. It looks like the steady rest was cast incorrectly and not in a circle making one finger closer to the center line. (Sorry, I am not sure if that makes sense.) I was able to correct it at that time by shortening one finger by about 1/2" . The only down side I see to my fix is that it now doesn't fully meet the others in the middle. Looks like it would only be a problem if I was going to turn anything in the steady rest that was under 1/4" dia. I don’t think there is much chance of that.

 

[Ray C]

All,

Well, I decided the first prop shaft this AM would use the CR that came with the lathe. I prefer mine with rollers and quite frankly don't know how people can stand using them with brass tips. Anyhow, I took a closer look at the legs and you could easily convert it to rollers if you wanted to. Just replace the brass tips with a stud that holds a bearing.

Finally, on mine, the reason some of them appear not to extract all the way (about 1/8" difference in total travel over ~2 inches, is because the tip of the thumb bolt hits the back side of the brass tip. That's the end of travel. All of them are equal and uniform and look really well made. The circular casting is not a precision cast and has unevenness and it gives a visual appearance of un-symmetry. I guess a Hardinge doesn't have that problem -but they don't cost under 3 grand either.

BTW: I was wrong... that's not a blind hole, it's a recessed cavity that's threaded about 1/2" inch on the ends. Cleaning up with a tap should have been trivial. Do realize, that's not a 3/8 x 24. It's a 10mm x 1.0. They are frequently mistaken for each other.

Ray

 

[rdfoster]

I fixed it by turning 1/8" off the top finger and it works OK. Another thing that happened when I was lubricating the compound slide the two closest to the QCTP pushed in about 1/4" inch. Will this hurt anything or should I try to take the compound slide apart and push them back to the surface? How would I make them stay there?

Bob

 

[Ray C]

Bob,

Yes, unfortunately, that's happened to one of mine too. I have a love/hate relationship with those BB-valves. Anyhow, I found a source for them that have a small shoulder like a 22 rimfire cartridge. I'm knee deep in the shop right now and have a walk-in guy waiting on me. I'll post the source for those or, possibly if I can find my box of 25 of them will just send you some. Sit tight for a few hours...


Ray

I fixed it by turning 1/8" off the top finger and it works OK. Another thing that happened when I was lubricating the compound slide the two closest to the QCTP pushed in about 1/4" inch. Will this hurt anything or should I try to take the compound slide apart and push them back to the surface? How would I make them stay there?

Bob