Iggy,

A good place to start might be http://homemetalshopclub.org/news/jan02/jan02.html

I found it and many others by googling "lathe alignment" without the quotes, but it may be
better WITH the quotes.

Hope it helps.

Al

==============

Ignoramus3975 wrote:
My clausing lathe cuts tapers instead of straight cylinders.

I am trying to set up my Clausing lathe in a way that eliminates the
possibility that these tapers are caused by anything other than wear
on the lathe (ie, improper leveling, etc)

To that end, I leveled this lathe with a Starrett 98 level.

However, despite that, it still cuts tapers, such as 8/1000 inch per
4 inch of carriage travel. It also produces an uneven finish, which I
would expect to be better. I took some pictures of the finish, which
did not turn out to be good, but I think that you can tell that it is
uneven.

http://igor.chudov.com/projects/Clau...10-Setting-Up/

The surface finish alone could account for quite a bit of diameter
variation.

In short, I want to do everything to align the lathe properly and
produce the best surface possible so that I would only be dealing with
late wear and not any other mistake in turning.

So.

How can I improve the surface finish. This piece that you see in the
chuck is 12L14 steel.