Thank you DoN for the info. I will look at it and experiment with the
lathe in the morning. As I recall, the half nut lever will drop out
pretty easily. I sometime have to hold it up or it drops and the
carriage stops moving. Maybe I done have something adjusted correctly.
I really haven't done much with it. I wish I had learned more while
my father was still alive. I am more of a woodworker, so that is what
I used it for. I just replaced my Sears wood lathe with this lathe
when I inherited it.

Over the last year I have been designing and building a T-38 flight
simulator cockpit. In 1972 Uncle Sam actually paid me to go to USAF
pilot training. I have loved the T-38 ever since. I am trying to make
the simulator match my 30 year old memory of what it felt like to fly.
My goal is to trailer mount it and bring it to Civil Air Patrol, Boy
Scout meetings and allow young people to get a taste of flying a jet.

In my quest for simulated authenticity I have had to learn how to weld
and do simple machining in order to build the rudder pedals and flight
control stick. They are now done and I have started building the
cockpit itself. That should be easy. The hard part for me will be the
electronics.

Now that I have gotten a taste of machining, I would like to do more.

Jim Rozen what is the spindle threads and taper for your lathe? Also,
what taper do you have on the tail piece? I thought mine was something
like =BD" to the foot. I made a couple of centers on the lathe using
=BD" to the foot taper. They seem to fit. They hold and I have to
drive them out with a piece of =BD tubing I stick into the backend of
the spindle and tap with a ball peen hammer. For the tail stock, I
tried a MT2 it didn't fit. However, my dad use to wrap a piece of
thin copper around the MT2 dead centers and they held. I do the same.
I know admitting this will probably get me burned at the stake for
blasphemy.=20

LOL

John