Don,

Congratulations! This should be a lot better than the belt
driven one -- as long as you manage to avoid crashes. (Belts are more
forgiving of crashes.)

That part bothered me just a little, but it's not a good idea to crash
things into machines anyway. It has a "fiber gear" to avoid total
loses. They do not sell it online because they had problems with people
buying the wrong one. Wanting to cash in on the extra 10% off for web
orders, I figured I'd wait. However, I will get one to have on hand.



O.K. I got my 12x24 Clausing from the flat-bed high truck which
delivered it (pre-assembled to the pedestal) to my pickup truck by
sliding it down a ramp made from five 10' 2x4s bolted edge on to three
cross-boards on the bottom. I then drove it up the driveway, backed up
to the garage, and slid it down the same ramp to the floor.

I think I would call for help before trying that.


I had no instructions (a used lathe, after all, but what I did
was to jack up each end of the pallet and put cribbing under it -- first
2x4, then 4x4 then 2x4 on top of 4x4. Once I could do that, I could
slide the legs under the long custom pallet to which the lathe was
bolted.

That makes sense, and I will probably end up doing that. Did you start
out with a pry-bar to get it off the ground, or is there a slicker way?




I removed the pallet, pulled it clear, and rotated the lathe so
the headstock was towards the column of the engine hoist, and lowered it
onto the floor. This allowed the legs to straddle it.

Understood about the headstock next to the column of the hoist - that is
what I plan to use to get the lathe onto the stand (I hopeg). It
should work, assuming my mill is any example.


If that
orientation had not been possible, I would have lowered it onto cribbing
again, removed the engine hoist, and using a rolling floor jack, removed
2" of cribbing height per cycle.

I can largely picture that, but what is the goal? If you can't straddle
the lathe with the legs, would not want to keep it on cribbing and/or
just lift it to your truck? Or, are you simply giving instructions for
getting back down in that case?



Note that the 12x36" Jet which we got at work back around 1985
or so was brought in by professional riggers, but it was pre-assembled
to its base, too. (The motor was in the base, IIRC, and lots of wiring
in there, too. So it was brought in, the crate disassembled from around
it, it was lifted clear of the pallet and that removed, too -- all by
professionals.

The real worry was that it (and the Bridgeport clone) were being
mounted on a raised computer type lab floor. The trick was to put the
load bads over the supported intersections of the floor panels where
there was a jack column.

Once the truck does its part, this will be on a garage floor. I am not
sure I would want to try it on raised floor =:0



Enco tells me it holds 3 gallons of hydraulic fluid!!!
That's on the way too. I ended up buying a a Rohm ball bearing chuck
and an arbor. It was a LOT cheaper than the Jacobs chuck that I might
eventually get (and have on an R8 arbor for my mill).

You'll also prefer it to the Jacobs key type chuck, as long as
you aren't using left-hand drill bits. I keep a Jacobs on an
appropriate arbor for just that need. :-)

I really enjoy my Jacobs chuck, and will probably end up buying another
one to live on a 3MT arbor - later.


Assuming I know nothing about running a lathe (not far from the truth),
any good reading assignments?

[snip]
Thanks!


I have a couple of Audel books, but I
find them to be short on teaching: great references though. The Home
Machinist's Handbook by Brinney looks helpful.

I've not seen it, but I might expect it to be aimed for lighter
machines.

True, but it still has been useful at times.



The "manual" with the lathe will give you details about the
lathe, but not instructions on how to use it.

It is actually pretty good - one of the best I have seen on a Chinese
machine.


BTW I would suggest that you retire the 4-station turret toolpost
And instead get a BXA sized quick-change toolpost to put on
there. If you've got the money, start with an Aloris starter
set. Otherwise, go for a Phase-II set of the wedge style, not
the piston style (more rigid and less chance of the locking arm
swinging into the path of the chuck jaws). If you go Phase-II,
remove the 8mm setscrews which hold the tools into the holders
and replace them with ones from a box of US made ones (A box of
100 is quite cheap compared to the price you would pay at Home
Despot on a per-each basis. The supplied setscrews are likely to
split or round out and become very difficult to loosen unless
the Chinese screws have improved in quality since I got mine.
The rest of the toolpost and holders has been quite
satisfactory.

I believe that to be excellent advice. It sounds very familiar from my
earlier research on this purchase. Given what the IRS is going to do to
me in a few weeks, it will have to wait. I almost didn't buy the lathe
to be honest.



I assume the trick would be to make/get a rest for square tubing???

Make a "spider". A round tube large enough to accept the
diagonal of the workpiece, with set screws coming in from four sides to
center it, and with a surface free of setscrews wide enough for the
standard steady to hold. If you want to get fancy, mill a square hole
in it, then grip from the inside with a 4-jaw chuck (figuring out how to
center in in the process) and turn an OD to accept the steady fingers.

Sounds like good practice.


Beyond an opportunity to fiddle with the new toy, the cross-section is
too deep to easily side mill (should have thought to buy long end-mills
while I was at it), but with an R8 collet (to save vertical space) and
some cranking, my mill should do the job with a fly cutter.

Arrggghhh! You're going to stand it on end? How are you going
to support the upper end? Same problem as you would have holding it in
the lathe chuck. Too long for its cross-section. You'll try to
compensate by cranking the milling vise tighter and probably crush the
square tubing to rectangular or worse.

It worked very nicely once before. Making pairs of these things, I
clamped the ends together and took light cuts. In fairness, those were
a little shorter than the parts for the current job.



Mount it sideways in the vise, mill one side of each (plus
a little over half-way through the other two sides, then set up a stop
on the table so you can mount each piece to line up with the previous
cut when you do the final cut.

To clarify, I would bring the stop into contact with the lower end of
the first cut, tighten, and then move the part, right? My usual stops
would probably trick me; they work nicely, but always seem to move a
little when tightened - not a problem the way I use them. However, a
v-block and a parallel or something held in place with clamps should do it.


Or -- if you have a horizontal mill, put a 5" milling cutter of
perhaps 1/8" thickness or so in and cut through the whole end in one
pass. (yes, those old horizontal spindle milling machines still have
their uses. :-)

Not long ago I saw a picture of a Swedish(??) vertical/horizontal mill.
Interesting looking thing.

THANKS!!

Bill