Don,
A partial reply for now:
O.K. It sounds like an 8 TPI leadscrew. The thing to check is
whether either of the dials have a slight gap between the top-most
figure and zero. An 8 TPI dial is not bad when you are dealing with
fractional inches (it is 1/8" per turn, after all), but easy to make a
mistake in when you are working with decimal inches longer than 0.125".
It is specified as 8 tpi and the compound checked out to 0.125. I was
getting 0.124 or something on the cross, but discovered that my mounting
surface for the indicator was not flat. The metric dials have a weird
number of divisions, so it is looking like an imperial machine. That's
good.
If you are going to work exclusively in imperial, I would
seriously complain to the vendor. Was the story that it was 0.100" per
turn over the phone, or in e-mail? If the latter, print it out and save
it for use in your debates with the vendor. It should be possible to
get a replacement dial, leadscrew and nut (if they are made for the
machine) and swap them in.
That would be slick. I will search my email to see if I have it in
writing. The guy who found that info for me seems very good overall. I
will see what else I had available and then approach them about it if I
was indeed mislead.
I have a hunch that it will not bother nearly so much on a lathe as it
would (which it would bug me) on a mill. Staring at the thing, I
suspect I will be doing a lot of "remove this much next" type of work
vs. zeroing the dials for large distances. If I am missing something,
please speak up.
I know many of you say it comes naturally, and
you are typically bang on right;
No -- I say that this increases the chances of making errors.
You might want to set up a bracket for a dial indicator to measure
crossfeed -- and spend the extra for a dial indicator with a longer
travel than usual. I know that I've got one by Starrett which will
handle 5" travel (or is it 6" -- I would have to go down and check to be
sure.)
That probably is in the cards for the future. I like to work manually,
but I am not totally nuts
What I believe to be the face plate is (if I gave it a fair shake with a
quick inspection) not a thing of beauty, but it should serve. Is that
for the lathe analog of clamping to a mill table?
That depends. It could be a faceplate, or a dog driver plate.
I had not thought of a dog driver; that could easily be what it is.
More later.
That's about all the crowing I have time to do right now - gotta go to
work in the morning. However, I will pick up with questions later. For
now, the lathe is safely in my garage, the crate is removed, and the
lathe sits on a skid (I guess that is what one would call it???) on top
of a pallet. Standing at the headstock end, the lathe is against the
right side of the pallet. So, I am thinking of cribbing the skid just
enough to unload the pallet, at which point I think I will be able to
break away the pallet and straddle the lathe/skid with my hoist and
sling the lathe. I promise not to burn bridges until I measure it. The
only problem I see is that from the tailstock end, the skid is not
sticking out very far, leaving what appears to be an angled bottom
surface. Would you recommend cribbing that end "inside the pallet," or
would you simply crib the pallet enough to get the hoist legs under it.
I don't have enough of a mental picture of this to be able to
offer advice.
Cribbing just the skid would save a fair amount of lifting distance,
provided it works.
How does this give the legs of the engine host access?
Now for the reason for the partial reply. The stand is in one piece and
the hoist legs are in position. Cribbing the skid would allow me to
break away a couple of boards on the left side of the pallet to give the
hoist access to the sling location.
At this point, it is very clear that the lathe is bolted to the skid. I
do not yet see any firm attachment between the skid and the pallet.
The alternative to supporting the skid is to crib the pallet. The
logical conclusion would be to take the pallet up 7-8 inches to clear
the hoist legs. Not knowing whether the pallet is truly adding
stability, that seems a long way to crib it.
However, maybe I need the practice with cribbing
anyway. Having the pallet adds lateral stability (I hope!), so it might
be a good option until the lathe is balanced on the slings.
Yes -- it is a source of stability.
How would they be attached? I will look again, but it's not obvious.
Thanks!!!!
Bill