In article .com, jmiguez
says...

No Jim, I do not have a graduated dial on my cross feed. I had to
laugh when you said, "you will be unable to=AD turn diameters to a
tolerance of better than about ten thousandths of an inch." If I can
do two to three hundreds of an inch tolerance I will be happy.

Oh. I guess you are unaware of the purpose of the funny little
hook-latch that is on the front of your apron, in line with
the hole in the cross slide. Of course not, looking at your
photo I see that you are missing the threaded, graduated
shaft that goes in there, like I am.

You can do some moderatly accurate turning this way. It is
supposed to have threaded rod with two locking thumbnuts on it,
that goes into that hole in the cross slide. The latch flips
over and the thumbnuts bear on the outer surface of it, so
that the depth of the slide can be controlled much the same
way that a drill press depth stop can be used to control the
quill feed. It's a tolerably fine thread and has inch graduations
on the upper, flat surface.

I know this is what goes there because my friend's star lathe
(which *does* have a graduated dial) has one. I've been meaning
to copy it for mine. Now there's another reason to borrow it
and take some photos/measurements.

My lathe's spindle measured 1 3/8" by 10 TPI. I believe that too is
a non-standard thread. I have a 4 jaw chuck and have considered
getting a three jaw. However, I never see any adapter plates with 1
3/8" by 10 threads.

Interesting, the serial numbers are pretty close - and I would
have suspected that they would *increase* the spindle diameter,
not decrease it. You will have to thread backplates single-point
if you want to add to your tooling supply.

Thanks for the input on changing the screw and adding a graduated dial.
I have been thinking of maybe just having a new cross slide with
"T" slots made. If I do, I will follow your advice.

However, don't look for that to happen soon. I am busy with my T-38
simulator project. I could build and equip a workshop for what this
thing is costing.

The nice thing about lathes like that is, you can use them up to
and including their ability. And if you want to improve them,
there's always a chance later for a side project. Of course
this leads to owning more than one lathe, because you need the
second one to work on the first one.... etc.

Jim


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