I have a venerable 1949 South Bend 9" lathe. Sadly, its cross-slide nut (or
screw, or both) have a fair amount of wear, as I can grab the cross-slide table
and move it nearly 1/16" with my hands. I'm whittling down a block of 303
stainless and it seems like it's taking forever. The machine is cutting the 303,
but I can only advance the cutter about .010" between passes, and reducing the
diameter .020" at a time is going to mean a lot of lathe work. I don't really
have to do it, of course, but it has led me to wonder if the slop in my
cross-slide screw actually contributes to lack of rigidity while turning. I have
always figured as long as the slack in the screw was taken up, it wouldn't make
any difference whether there were .004" of backlash or .040". Yet I don't have a
complete understanding so I thought I'd post this to the group. There is an
advertiser in HSM that offers new cross-slide nuts and screws for my lathe at
what seems like a reasonable price.

GWE