Much as I'd like to say it's due solely to my legendary skills, I'll forego such an exercise in back-patting and tell you that the plans that come with the kit are exellent - as are PMR plans in general.
Complete as the plans are though, they don't offer a great deal in the way of help on fabrication procedures so I'll offer some suggestions to get you started.
Milling the lathe bed, with four prismatic ways, requires great patience and preparation.
I laid out a detailed, step-by-step cutting schedule first and then proofed those plans on a piece of scrap aluminum. This test part then later became a fixture for holding the headstock and tailstock for drilling and boring. I made a similar test piece for testing the procedure for cutting the female V-ways in the HS and TS to ensure that, when finished , they would fit nicely on the ways. Buy a V-tipped endmill to mill the way prisms - don't attempt to tilt the lathe bed. (I attached the bed casting to a sturdy backbone for the duration of the work done on it. This gave the MM vise something to grip and prevented milling forces from bending the casting during machinining.)
The 1/32" wide, 4+ inch long slot in the 1/8" OD power feed shaft can't be cut with an endmill (unless you have far better equipment and skills than I have). Make a jig to hold the rod rigidly and use a slitting saw.
Throw away the supplied castings for the cone pulleys. It's far easier to make these from bar stock so you have something to hold onto in the lathe. You'll waste a lot of time trying to come up with a jig to hold the supplied castings and they won't be as accurate as ones turned from bar stock.
A collet setup is essential for holding the gear stock to make the myriad gears.
I made the 3 ball handle for the crossfeed by using one of my computer programs to generate an incremental cutting schedule. This technique works well although, today, with more practice behind me, I would probably do it by hand using a graver - similar to turning on a wood lathe.
The oil cups (for the HS main bearings) that you see on my model are not called out in the plans. I think that they add a nice touch of realism and encourage you to consider making some for your model.
By all means take the time to make the working 4-jaw for the model using the included plans. I did and it's a real attention getter when I exhibit the model.
