I'm timidly going back to my hobby, building model engines (do you remember that I had stopped the work on the Scuderi engine a while ago?)
a couple of days ago I was cutting a piece of steel on the lathe and noticed that on a lenght of about 120 mm for a diameter of 35 mm I had a difference of 1-2/10 mm in diameter from end to end (35,2 at one end, 35,3-35,4 at the other)
so I started to think, consider, imagine... till I reach the conclusion that I need to rebuild the lathe
it is a VERY old lathe, 80 years old, Boley 4L screwcutting lathe
browsing the web and Ebay, I found this auction:
http://cgi.ebay.it/910mm-R-J-H-Cast-Iron-Ground-STRAIGHT-EDGE-Unused_W0QQitemZ170385546577QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUK_Home_Garden_PowerTools_SM?hash=item27abc51d51&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14
and was going to buy the item to control the scraping of the ways of the lathe
fortunately, I posponed the purchase to verify first the lathe setting
after an hour of fine adjustment with DTI I was able to obtain an error of 0,02 - 0,03 mm in the same conditions above, and even better with more care in setting up the work
well, I saved about 200 $ on the straight edge, and more if I count the other necessary tools to rebuild the lathe
and a lot of time and frustrations without knowing if I really could had been able to do a right work
it would have been a real mistake to start this adventure! ???
but a question remains... I noticed that every little change in the setup has a great consequence in the accuracy of the setup
in my tailstock, also shut the lever that blocks the spindle causes a movement of the DI of several 1/100 mm
and many other parts react in the same manner
so, to maintain the accuracy, is it necessary to check with a DI every stock after that it has been fixed in the lathe? an annoiyng practise, isn't it?
or my old lathe is really too much sensitive to these factors?
thank you
a couple of days ago I was cutting a piece of steel on the lathe and noticed that on a lenght of about 120 mm for a diameter of 35 mm I had a difference of 1-2/10 mm in diameter from end to end (35,2 at one end, 35,3-35,4 at the other)
so I started to think, consider, imagine... till I reach the conclusion that I need to rebuild the lathe
it is a VERY old lathe, 80 years old, Boley 4L screwcutting lathe
browsing the web and Ebay, I found this auction:
http://cgi.ebay.it/910mm-R-J-H-Cast-Iron-Ground-STRAIGHT-EDGE-Unused_W0QQitemZ170385546577QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUK_Home_Garden_PowerTools_SM?hash=item27abc51d51&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14
and was going to buy the item to control the scraping of the ways of the lathe
fortunately, I posponed the purchase to verify first the lathe setting
after an hour of fine adjustment with DTI I was able to obtain an error of 0,02 - 0,03 mm in the same conditions above, and even better with more care in setting up the work
well, I saved about 200 $ on the straight edge, and more if I count the other necessary tools to rebuild the lathe
and a lot of time and frustrations without knowing if I really could had been able to do a right work
it would have been a real mistake to start this adventure! ???
but a question remains... I noticed that every little change in the setup has a great consequence in the accuracy of the setup
in my tailstock, also shut the lever that blocks the spindle causes a movement of the DI of several 1/100 mm
and many other parts react in the same manner
so, to maintain the accuracy, is it necessary to check with a DI every stock after that it has been fixed in the lathe? an annoiyng practise, isn't it?
or my old lathe is really too much sensitive to these factors?
thank you