On 11 Dec 2004 10:14:13 -0800, jim rozen
wrote:

In article , Glenn Lyford says...

Removing the ram and playing with a mic, I get 1.622
diameter everywhere I measured it. I haven't measured
the bore yet.

First off you should be *absolutely sure that the clamp
mechanism is functioning the way it should.

Some of them clamp via a slit alonside the casting, so that
the clamp bolt actually tightens up the bore. There are
others that have a two-piece clamp that self-centers in a
vertical hole, and pinches the ram. What kind of setup
does this Hendy have?

My experience is that the bores and the rams wear at about
equal rate. So finding the ram dimension constant along
its length implies to me that the bore might be OK. The
amount of slop that you see when the clamp is snugged down
is pretty large - large enough to imply to me that something
is wrong with the clamp setup.

If the bore really *is* bell-mouthed then you probably need to
worry about opening it up and fabricating a new steel ram.
This is not trivial to do, as you need to get the MT socket
in the center of the ram to be right on axis, on both planes.

Boring the tailstock casting is tough because of the rigidity
issues you mention. Plus you want to take as small a cut
as possible of course, so the bar is subject to chatter. I think
it would be informative to figure out how those bores are formed
in the first place.

Now that's a good question !

I had mine nickel plated twice and ready to lightly polish in the
other lathe , haven't got around to that part yet , but it holds tight
now backwards. It has a slit on the back side like Jim said above and
from the same era as yours.

If you bore it out I'd like to see pictures of the set up and how the
TS is driven. I've thought about doing it that way , but I don't think
my lathe is really worth the trouble. Hmmm , bolt the carriage and TS
together and a SR. Still , the ram would be hard to remake.


I wonder if a reamer would provide an accurate enough hole - would
it follow the existing hole axis close enough, and cut to size
even though the existing hole is bell-mouthed?

Jim