Hello all,

Overlapping sales and the likelihood of more weakening of the dollar
pushed me over the edge on the Enco 12x36 geared head lathe; the spindle
is D1-4. You might recall that I got pretty close to buying the
belt-driven threaded-spindle version of the machine back in the fall.
Long story short: I just couldn't go through with it, and ended up
getting a better machine for the same (perhaps less) money than I would
have paid for the lesser one in the fall.

Presumably in a matter of days, a lift-gated truck will appear at my
curb. I am planning to use an engine hoist to lift the lathe (the
manual has pictures of how to sling it), back my F-150 under it, drive
the 50ft to the garage (it's the down-hill part that makes it fun w/o a
truck), back in enough to reach level cement, and then again use the
hoist to exchange truck bed for assembled stand. Sound about right? It
weighs around 1000 lb.

I am a little concerned about getting the hoist to straddle the pallet;
suggestions, lessons from the school of hard knocks, etc., would be
appreciated. Enco tells me it holds 3 gallons of hydraulic fluid!!!
That's on the way too. I ended up buying a a Rohm ball bearing chuck
and an arbor. It was a LOT cheaper than the Jacobs chuck that I might
eventually get (and have on an R8 arbor for my mill).

Assuming I know nothing about running a lathe (not far from the truth),
any good reading assignments? I have a couple of Audel books, but I
find them to be short on teaching: great references though. The Home
Machinist's Handbook by Brinney looks helpful.

I will probably end up doing this on my mill, but is there a good way to
face the ends of square tubing on a lathe? The pieces I have in mind
are 2" square, 1/8" wall thickness, and vary from 11 to 14 inches or so.
I assume the trick would be to make/get a rest for square tubing???
Beyond an opportunity to fiddle with the new toy, the cross-section is
too deep to easily side mill (should have thought to buy long end-mills
while I was at it), but with an R8 collet (to save vertical space) and
some cranking, my mill should do the job with a fly cutter.

Bill

Bill Schwab wrote:

Hello all,

Overlapping sales and the likelihood of more weakening of the dollar
pushed me over the edge on the Enco 12x36 geared head lathe; the spindle
is D1-4. You might recall that I got pretty close to buying the
belt-driven threaded-spindle version of the machine back in the fall.
Long story short: I just couldn't go through with it, and ended up
getting a better machine for the same (perhaps less) money than I would
have paid for the lesser one in the fall.

You will be far happier with the D1-4. Back in 78 I took out a loan when I
got to Japan to buy stereo equipment. The dollar was plunging vs the yen so
even at the rates charged in that era, it worked out for me.


Presumably in a matter of days, a lift-gated truck will appear at my
curb. I am planning to use an engine hoist to lift the lathe (the
manual has pictures of how to sling it), back my F-150 under it, drive
the 50ft to the garage (it's the down-hill part that makes it fun w/o a
truck), back in enough to reach level cement, and then again use the
hoist to exchange truck bed for assembled stand. Sound about right? It
weighs around 1000 lb.


Did you pay for lift gate service? If you are going to use the truck, I'd
have looked into non lift gate service and picking it up at the terminal
where they have a forklift. That is what I did for my Jet 20" bandsaw.

I am a little concerned about getting the hoist to straddle the pallet;
suggestions, lessons from the school of hard knocks, etc., would be
appreciated. Enco tells me it holds 3 gallons of hydraulic fluid!!!
That's on the way too. I ended up buying a a Rohm ball bearing chuck
and an arbor. It was a LOT cheaper than the Jacobs chuck that I might
eventually get (and have on an R8 arbor for my mill).

The first thing is to have at least one friend that has moved things.
Strapped to a pallet it likely isn't too tippy.

Slings and a wrecker sounds good to me. I moved a 12x36 but it was on a low
trailer. http://www.garage-machinist.com/usen...900_unload.jpg

Digging holes for your back tires to lower the bed and using decent planking
with the tailgate remove (assuming bumper works for this) might be an idea.
Just take your time, be willing to tarp the lathe and call for help if it
looks like it is getting out of control.



Assuming I know nothing about running a lathe (not far from the truth),
any good reading assignments? I have a couple of Audel books, but I
find them to be short on teaching: great references though. The Home
Machinist's Handbook by Brinney looks helpful.

http://wewilliams.net/SBLibrary.htm

Look at his how to run a lathe pdfs. The basics haven't changed much.


I will probably end up doing this on my mill, but is there a good way to
face the ends of square tubing on a lathe? The pieces I have in mind
are 2" square, 1/8" wall thickness, and vary from 11 to 14 inches or so.
I assume the trick would be to make/get a rest for square tubing???
Beyond an opportunity to fiddle with the new toy, the cross-section is
too deep to easily side mill (should have thought to buy long end-mills
while I was at it), but with an R8 collet (to save vertical space) and
some cranking, my mill should do the job with a fly cutter.

I doubt you have a big enough spindle bore to stick it through the head. You
would also need a bushing to keep the far end of the stick from whipping.

Lock the table, mill top edge of tubing, rotate 90, ect. I'd set the bit to
cut flush with edge of the vise jaw. That way when you rotate your part 90,
you can index to jaw edge. If the part doesn't stick up high enough to mill
w/o hitting jaw, put something under stock.

Good luck,


Wes
--
"Additionally as a security officer, I carry a gun to protect
government officials but my life isn't worth protecting at home
in their eyes." Dick Anthony Heller

On 2008-03-22, Bill Schwab wrote:
Hello all,

Overlapping sales and the likelihood of more weakening of the dollar
pushed me over the edge on the Enco 12x36 geared head lathe; the spindle
is D1-4. You might recall that I got pretty close to buying the
belt-driven threaded-spindle version of the machine back in the fall.
Long story short: I just couldn't go through with it, and ended up
getting a better machine for the same (perhaps less) money than I would
have paid for the lesser one in the fall.

Congratulations! This should be a lot better than the belt
driven one -- as long as you manage to avoid crashes. (Belts are more
forgiving of crashes.)

Presumably in a matter of days, a lift-gated truck will appear at my
curb. I am planning to use an engine hoist to lift the lathe (the
manual has pictures of how to sling it), back my F-150 under it, drive
the 50ft to the garage (it's the down-hill part that makes it fun w/o a
truck), back in enough to reach level cement, and then again use the
hoist to exchange truck bed for assembled stand. Sound about right? It
weighs around 1000 lb.

O.K. I got my 12x24 Clausing from the flat-bed high truck which
delivered it (pre-assembled to the pedestal) to my pickup truck by
sliding it down a ramp made from five 10' 2x4s bolted edge on to three
cross-boards on the bottom. I then drove it up the driveway, backed up
to the garage, and slid it down the same ramp to the floor.

I am a little concerned about getting the hoist to straddle the pallet;
suggestions, lessons from the school of hard knocks, etc., would be
appreciated.

I had no instructions (a used lathe, after all, but what I did
was to jack up each end of the pallet and put cribbing under it -- first
2x4, then 4x4 then 2x4 on top of 4x4. Once I could do that, I could
slide the legs under the long custom pallet to which the lathe was
bolted.

I removed the pallet, pulled it clear, and rotated the lathe so
the headstock was towards the column of the engine hoist, and lowered it
onto the floor. This allowed the legs to straddle it. If that
orientation had not been possible, I would have lowered it onto cribbing
again, removed the engine hoist, and using a rolling floor jack, removed
2" of cribbing height per cycle.

Note that the 12x36" Jet which we got at work back around 1985
or so was brought in by professional riggers, but it was pre-assembled
to its base, too. (The motor was in the base, IIRC, and lots of wiring
in there, too. So it was brought in, the crate disassembled from around
it, it was lifted clear of the pallet and that removed, too -- all by
professionals.

The real worry was that it (and the Bridgeport clone) were being
mounted on a raised computer type lab floor. The trick was to put the
load bads over the supported intersections of the floor panels where
there was a jack column.

Enco tells me it holds 3 gallons of hydraulic fluid!!!
That's on the way too. I ended up buying a a Rohm ball bearing chuck
and an arbor. It was a LOT cheaper than the Jacobs chuck that I might
eventually get (and have on an R8 arbor for my mill).

You'll also prefer it to the Jacobs key type chuck, as long as
you aren't using left-hand drill bits. I keep a Jacobs on an
appropriate arbor for just that need. :-)

Assuming I know nothing about running a lathe (not far from the truth),
any good reading assignments?

Hmm ... Either South Bend's or Atlas' _How to Run a Lathe_ will
be good starters -- though they all assume belt driven lathes IIRC.
But a lot of the principles are the same.

And for more serious, go for Moultrecht's _Machine Shop
Practice_, which covers all machine tools. It is in two volumes, and
will tell you about things which you don't even know to ask about once
the time comes to find out about them.

I have a couple of Audel books, but I
find them to be short on teaching: great references though. The Home
Machinist's Handbook by Brinney looks helpful.

I've not seen it, but I might expect it to be aimed for lighter
machines.

The "manual" with the lathe will give you details about the
lathe, but not instructions on how to use it.

BTW I would suggest that you retire the 4-station turret toolpost
And instead get a BXA sized quick-change toolpost to put on
there. If you've got the money, start with an Aloris starter
set. Otherwise, go for a Phase-II set of the wedge style, not
the piston style (more rigid and less chance of the locking arm
swinging into the path of the chuck jaws). If you go Phase-II,
remove the 8mm setscrews which hold the tools into the holders
and replace them with ones from a box of US made ones (A box of
100 is quite cheap compared to the price you would pay at Home
Despot on a per-each basis. The supplied setscrews are likely to
split or round out and become very difficult to loosen unless
the Chinese screws have improved in quality since I got mine.
The rest of the toolpost and holders has been quite
satisfactory.

I will probably end up doing this on my mill, but is there a good way to
face the ends of square tubing on a lathe? The pieces I have in mind
are 2" square, 1/8" wall thickness, and vary from 11 to 14 inches or so.

Hmm ... I think that your D1-4 won't hold 2" square tubing
through the spindle, and that is way too much to stick out unsupported
from the chuck -- even if you can open a 4-jaw far enough to let it seat
on the spindle nose.

I assume the trick would be to make/get a rest for square tubing???

Make a "spider". A round tube large enough to accept the
diagonal of the workpiece, with set screws coming in from four sides to
center it, and with a surface free of setscrews wide enough for the
standard steady to hold. If you want to get fancy, mill a square hole
in it, then grip from the inside with a 4-jaw chuck (figuring out how to
center in in the process) and turn an OD to accept the steady fingers.

Beyond an opportunity to fiddle with the new toy, the cross-section is
too deep to easily side mill (should have thought to buy long end-mills
while I was at it), but with an R8 collet (to save vertical space) and
some cranking, my mill should do the job with a fly cutter.

Arrggghhh! You're going to stand it on end? How are you going
to support the upper end? Same problem as you would have holding it in
the lathe chuck. Too long for its cross-section. You'll try to
compensate by cranking the milling vise tighter and probably crush the
square tubing to rectangular or worse.

Mount it sideways in the vise, mill one side of each (plus
a little over half-way through the other two sides, then set up a stop
on the table so you can mount each piece to line up with the previous
cut when you do the final cut.

Or -- if you have a horizontal mill, put a 5" milling cutter of
perhaps 1/8" thickness or so in and cut through the whole end in one
pass. (yes, those old horizontal spindle milling machines still have
their uses. :-)

Enjoy,
DoN.

--
Email: | Voice (all times): (703) 938-4564
(too) near Washington D.C. | http://www.d-and-d.com/dnichols/DoN.html
--- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---

On Fri, 21 Mar 2008 23:08:56 -0400, Bill Schwab

wrote:

Hello all,

=======================
Welcome to the wonderful world of machining!

A word of advice -- before you power up your lathe, disassembly
it as far as you dare, clean and relube. Asian machine tools are
infamous for coming complete with foundry sand. I suggest using
paint [*NOT* lacquer] thinner to clean with. This is "varsol."
=======================
Overlapping sales and the likelihood of more weakening of the dollar
pushed me over the edge on the Enco 12x36 geared head lathe; the spindle
is D1-4. You might recall that I got pretty close to buying the
belt-driven threaded-spindle version of the machine back in the fall.
Long story short: I just couldn't go through with it, and ended up
getting a better machine for the same (perhaps less) money than I would
have paid for the lesser one in the fall.

Presumably in a matter of days, a lift-gated truck will appear at my
curb. I am planning to use an engine hoist to lift the lathe (the
manual has pictures of how to sling it), back my F-150 under it, drive
the 50ft to the garage (it's the down-hill part that makes it fun w/o a
truck), back in enough to reach level cement, and then again use the
hoist to exchange truck bed for assembled stand. Sound about right? It
weighs around 1000 lb.

I am a little concerned about getting the hoist to straddle the pallet;
suggestions, lessons from the school of hard knocks, etc., would be
appreciated. Enco tells me it holds 3 gallons of hydraulic fluid!!!
That's on the way too. I ended up buying a a Rohm ball bearing chuck
and an arbor. It was a LOT cheaper than the Jacobs chuck that I might
eventually get (and have on an R8 arbor for my mill).

Assuming I know nothing about running a lathe (not far from the truth),
any good reading assignments? I have a couple of Audel books, but I
find them to be short on teaching: great references though. The Home
Machinist's Handbook by Brinney looks helpful.
Start with the cheap stuff first.
one free source is
http://www.niumotorsports.com/Learn/SAE/Lath.pdf

Lindsay Books has reprints that are ideal for the home/hobby shop
machinist. One of the first I suggest is by Milne from the mid
to late 40s as this gives a good overview of the "total" manual
machine shop.
http://www.lindsaybks.com/bks/milne/index.html
These following are all reprints of the 1940s-1950s manuals that
came with the home/hobby shop lathes. (I am showing a number of
sources, most are available at Lindsay]
http://www.littlemachineshop.com/pro...ProductID=1594
http://www.lindsaybks.com/bks7/regal/index.html
(check out the Lindsay and other sites for other books)
------------
The two volumes of Moltrecht will give you a more detailed
overview of the manual machining process than Milne.
http://www.normas.com/INDLPR/pages/11267.html
http://www.normas.com/INDLPR/pages/11321.html
-------------
Edwards will be very valuable as a continuing lathe reference
https://www.hansergardner.com/dp/hgw...D340%2D9%20%20
-------------
Machinery's handbook is a basic reference. The older editions
[eBay] are both cheaper and have material more suitable for the
home/hoby ship machinist
http://www.industrialpress.com/en/Ma...k/default.aspx
------------------
Browse
http://mcduffee-associates.us/machin...ning_books.htm
(and try to not spend all your money on books...)

I will probably end up doing this on my mill, but is there a good way to
face the ends of square tubing on a lathe? The pieces I have in mind
are 2" square, 1/8" wall thickness, and vary from 11 to 14 inches or so.
I assume the trick would be to make/get a rest for square tubing???
Beyond an opportunity to fiddle with the new toy, the cross-section is
too deep to easily side mill (should have thought to buy long end-mills
while I was at it), but with an R8 collet (to save vertical space) and
some cranking, my mill should do the job with a fly cutter.
------------------------------
Magic solution is a 4 jaw chuck, a steady rest and a "cathead"
An old fashioned but very useful tool. You will need a "bridge"
made out of an old hacksaw blade to center the tube with your
drop indicator.
http://www.americanmachinetools.com/...se_a_lathe.htm
[see cathead about 1/2 down page for picture -- you will more
than likely have to make this tool from a short section of pipe
and 8 screws.]
No 4 jaw chuck? Use a face plate with an angle plate or piece of
angle iron.
-------
The older lathe books will have details on the bridge and pump
staffs/wigglers. The work arounds and hints are one of the
reasons the reprints are so valuable. Click on
http://www.lindsaybks.com/bks2/tsotm/index.html for even more
hints.
==============

Bill

Feel free to email me direct.


Unka' George [George McDuffee]
-------------------------------------------
He that will not apply new remedies,
must expect new evils:
for Time is the greatest innovator: and
if Time, of course, alter things to the worse,
and wisdom and counsel shall not alter them to the better,
what shall be the end?

Francis Bacon (1561-1626), English philosopher, essayist, statesman.
Essays, "Of Innovations" (1597-1625).

On Mar 21, 11:08*pm, Bill Schwab wrote:
Hello all,
.............
I am a little concerned about getting the hoist to straddle the pallet;
suggestions, lessons from the school of hard knocks, etc., would be
appreciated. ....

Could you lift one end at a time and put blocks under the pallet?

My engine hoist has a small range of load and boom extension where the
jack is strong enough but the center of gravity is near or forward of
the wheels and the crane will either tip immediately or is unstable
enough to tip when the load swings. Luckily I found this out by
calculation when reconstructing the missing boom load chart. You can
weigh the mast end and measure from there to the hook-end wheels to
find how many foot-pounds of moment arm the hook will support without
tipping. The problem of course is knowing the load's weight. If you
lift the load an inch or two and then heave up on the mast you'll see
if it's close to tipping.

When I have to move something heavy I lower the load onto timbers
placed across the engine hoist's base and roll it like a pallet jack.

I've attached a trailer tongue jack to the upright mast and added
extra wheels and a handle like on a pallet jack, which makes the hoist
much easier to muscle around on dirt and lets me tow it with my
tractor.


I will probably end up doing this on my mill, but is there a good way to
face the ends of square tubing on a lathe? *The pieces I have in mind
are 2" square, 1/8" wall thickness, and vary from 11 to 14 inches or so.
* I assume the trick would be to make/get a rest for square tubing???
Beyond an opportunity to fiddle with the new toy, the cross-section is
too deep to easily side mill (should have thought to buy long end-mills
while I was at it), but with an R8 collet (to save vertical space) and
some cranking, my mill should do the job with a fly cutter.

Bill

If you set up an angle plate as a stop for the other end, you can turn
the piece in the vise and mill each top edge. As long as the angle
plate is square to the table it will stop the tubing at the same place
each time regardless of where the high spot touches it.

Jim Wilkins

Wes,

You will be far happier with the D1-4. Back in 78 I took out a loan when I
got to Japan to buy stereo equipment. The dollar was plunging vs the yen so
even at the rates charged in that era, it worked out for me.

In this case, I skimped up front, and I sure could do without a daily
misery index report, but I fear that it will be a while before I would
see yesterday's price on that lathe.


Presumably in a matter of days, a lift-gated truck will appear at my
curb. I am planning to use an engine hoist to lift the lathe (the
manual has pictures of how to sling it), back my F-150 under it, drive
the 50ft to the garage (it's the down-hill part that makes it fun w/o a
truck), back in enough to reach level cement, and then again use the
hoist to exchange truck bed for assembled stand. Sound about right? It
weighs around 1000 lb.


Did you pay for lift gate service? If you are going to use the truck, I'd
have looked into non lift gate service and picking it up at the terminal
where they have a forklift. That is what I did for my Jet 20" bandsaw.

I did pay for the gate, and it appeared on the invoice. The advantage
of doing it this way is that I do not have the drive a long distance
with the load.


Slings and a wrecker sounds good to me. I moved a 12x36 but it was on a low
trailer. http://www.garage-machinist.com/usen...900_unload.jpg

That is something I need to try. To start, I would probably use a
trailer as overkill on something I could do another way. So little
time, so many cool ways to get into trouble On a more serious note,
there is an equipment rental place not terribly far from my house.


Digging holes for your back tires to lower the bed and using decent planking
with the tailgate remove (assuming bumper works for this) might be an idea.

I think the vertical dimensions add up in my favor. It seems unlikely
that the lathe will ever be positioned where digging would be possible.
If for some reason I have really botched the math to get into the
truck, it's hello tarp and riggers. If I get into trouble with
clearance inside the garage, then again, we wait for help. However, I
am fairly certain that it will work, and there are "safe" stopping
points along the way. I will also ensure that my car is not trapped,
allowing me to run off to to hardware stores as needed.


Just take your time, be willing to tarp the lathe and call for help if it
looks like it is getting out of control.

Already did In the sense that I talked to a guy I would call in such
a situation. I arranged a couple of backup plans with him just in case.
The lathe is not too much heavier than my mill, and I am better
equipped and a bit more experienced than when I just barely got the mill
where I wanted it. The real trick was getting up the 3/4 inch lip on
the garage floor, but my truck will take care of that part, along with
keeping the load from rolling down the hill. Perhaps naive, I figure
that once I get the stand bolted to the lathe, I can move it fairly
comfortably: just pick it up enough to slide over the floor and go
slowly. It's the machine itself dangling feet off the ground that makes
me nervous, but I will keep that to a minimum. The lathe will sit in
the truck while I assemble the stand, etc.



Assuming I know nothing about running a lathe (not far from the truth),
any good reading assignments? I have a couple of Audel books, but I
find them to be short on teaching: great references though. The Home
Machinist's Handbook by Brinney looks helpful.

http://wewilliams.net/SBLibrary.htm

Overhead belts - great stuff !!!!!


Look at his how to run a lathe pdfs. The basics haven't changed much.

Agreed. They look very much worth the time.


I will probably end up doing this on my mill, but is there a good way to
face the ends of square tubing on a lathe? The pieces I have in mind
are 2" square, 1/8" wall thickness, and vary from 11 to 14 inches or so.
I assume the trick would be to make/get a rest for square tubing???
Beyond an opportunity to fiddle with the new toy, the cross-section is
too deep to easily side mill (should have thought to buy long end-mills
while I was at it), but with an R8 collet (to save vertical space) and
some cranking, my mill should do the job with a fly cutter.

I doubt you have a big enough spindle bore to stick it through the head. You
would also need a bushing to keep the far end of the stick from whipping.

I assumed as much. However, sticking through the bore might work for
another material in my arsenal of stuff I use a lot: 3/4" square tubing,
but that is easily side-milled.



Lock the table, mill top edge of tubing, rotate 90, ect. I'd set the bit to
cut flush with edge of the vise jaw. That way when you rotate your part 90,
you can index to jaw edge. If the part doesn't stick up high enough to mill
w/o hitting jaw, put something under stock.

Interesting. Now you have me wondering whether I could clean up part of
two edges and use a stop "below the cut" to index it. I prefer to
position a stop and then locate it using a v-block or something, but it
might work.


"Additionally as a security officer, I carry a gun to protect
government officials but my life isn't worth protecting at home
in their eyes." Dick Anthony Heller

As an aside (and recognizing that it is a quote), we really have to stop
calling them "officials." "Public servants" would a much better term to
drill into them, and our peers.

Bill

"Bill Schwab" wrote in message ...
Hello all,

Overlapping sales and the likelihood of more weakening of the dollar
pushed me over the edge on the Enco 12x36 geared head lathe; the spindle
is D1-4. You might recall that I got pretty close to buying the
belt-driven threaded-spindle version of the machine back in the fall.
Long story short: I just couldn't go through with it, and ended up
getting a better machine for the same (perhaps less) money than I would
have paid for the lesser one in the fall.

The 12x gear head is a very capable lathe. Good bang for the buck.
You should be pretty happy.

Presumably in a matter of days, a lift-gated truck will appear at my
curb. I am planning to use an engine hoist to lift the lathe (the
manual has pictures of how to sling it), back my F-150 under it, drive
the 50ft to the garage (it's the down-hill part that makes it fun w/o a
truck), back in enough to reach level cement, and then again use the
hoist to exchange truck bed for assembled stand. Sound about right? It
weighs around 1000 lb.

That will work, but there is not much reason to get lift gate service if
you are doing half the work. As another poster said, it is best to just
go to the terminal and have the machine fork lifted into your truck.
Avoids having to schedule and wait for delivery, too.

A 2-ton engine hoist will handle the lathe very nicely. You can move
the carriage around for balance, though I used a load balancer and
two straps. The lathe did not tend to tip with the backsplash on,
but wanted to tip without it.

I am a little concerned about getting the hoist to straddle the pallet;
suggestions, lessons from the school of hard knocks, etc., would be
appreciated.

I cut away parts of the pallet and crate to get the hoist around mine.

Enco tells me it holds 3 gallons of hydraulic fluid!!!
That's on the way too. I ended up buying a a Rohm ball bearing chuck
and an arbor. It was a LOT cheaper than the Jacobs chuck that I might
eventually get (and have on an R8 arbor for my mill).

I like the Rohm keyless chucks.

Assuming I know nothing about running a lathe (not far from the truth),
any good reading assignments? I have a couple of Audel books, but I
find them to be short on teaching: great references though. The Home
Machinist's Handbook by Brinney looks helpful.

Definitely go through "Machine Shop Essentials" by Marlow.

I will probably end up doing this on my mill, but is there a good way to
face the ends of square tubing on a lathe? The pieces I have in mind
are 2" square, 1/8" wall thickness, and vary from 11 to 14 inches or so.
I assume the trick would be to make/get a rest for square tubing???

Beyond an opportunity to fiddle with the new toy, the cross-section is
too deep to easily side mill (should have thought to buy long end-mills
while I was at it), but with an R8 collet (to save vertical space) and
some cranking, my mill should do the job with a fly cutter.

You can put the square tubing inside round tubing or pipe, secured and
centered with screws, then hold the round in the chuck and steady.

Have fun!
Alan

Don,

Congratulations! This should be a lot better than the belt
driven one -- as long as you manage to avoid crashes. (Belts are more
forgiving of crashes.)

That part bothered me just a little, but it's not a good idea to crash
things into machines anyway. It has a "fiber gear" to avoid total
loses. They do not sell it online because they had problems with people
buying the wrong one. Wanting to cash in on the extra 10% off for web
orders, I figured I'd wait. However, I will get one to have on hand.



O.K. I got my 12x24 Clausing from the flat-bed high truck which
delivered it (pre-assembled to the pedestal) to my pickup truck by
sliding it down a ramp made from five 10' 2x4s bolted edge on to three
cross-boards on the bottom. I then drove it up the driveway, backed up
to the garage, and slid it down the same ramp to the floor.

I think I would call for help before trying that.


I had no instructions (a used lathe, after all, but what I did
was to jack up each end of the pallet and put cribbing under it -- first
2x4, then 4x4 then 2x4 on top of 4x4. Once I could do that, I could
slide the legs under the long custom pallet to which the lathe was
bolted.

That makes sense, and I will probably end up doing that. Did you start
out with a pry-bar to get it off the ground, or is there a slicker way?




I removed the pallet, pulled it clear, and rotated the lathe so
the headstock was towards the column of the engine hoist, and lowered it
onto the floor. This allowed the legs to straddle it.

Understood about the headstock next to the column of the hoist - that is
what I plan to use to get the lathe onto the stand (I hopeg). It
should work, assuming my mill is any example.


If that
orientation had not been possible, I would have lowered it onto cribbing
again, removed the engine hoist, and using a rolling floor jack, removed
2" of cribbing height per cycle.

I can largely picture that, but what is the goal? If you can't straddle
the lathe with the legs, would not want to keep it on cribbing and/or
just lift it to your truck? Or, are you simply giving instructions for
getting back down in that case?



Note that the 12x36" Jet which we got at work back around 1985
or so was brought in by professional riggers, but it was pre-assembled
to its base, too. (The motor was in the base, IIRC, and lots of wiring
in there, too. So it was brought in, the crate disassembled from around
it, it was lifted clear of the pallet and that removed, too -- all by
professionals.

The real worry was that it (and the Bridgeport clone) were being
mounted on a raised computer type lab floor. The trick was to put the
load bads over the supported intersections of the floor panels where
there was a jack column.

Once the truck does its part, this will be on a garage floor. I am not
sure I would want to try it on raised floor =:0



Enco tells me it holds 3 gallons of hydraulic fluid!!!
That's on the way too. I ended up buying a a Rohm ball bearing chuck
and an arbor. It was a LOT cheaper than the Jacobs chuck that I might
eventually get (and have on an R8 arbor for my mill).

You'll also prefer it to the Jacobs key type chuck, as long as
you aren't using left-hand drill bits. I keep a Jacobs on an
appropriate arbor for just that need. :-)

I really enjoy my Jacobs chuck, and will probably end up buying another
one to live on a 3MT arbor - later.


Assuming I know nothing about running a lathe (not far from the truth),
any good reading assignments?

[snip]
Thanks!


I have a couple of Audel books, but I
find them to be short on teaching: great references though. The Home
Machinist's Handbook by Brinney looks helpful.

I've not seen it, but I might expect it to be aimed for lighter
machines.

True, but it still has been useful at times.



The "manual" with the lathe will give you details about the
lathe, but not instructions on how to use it.

It is actually pretty good - one of the best I have seen on a Chinese
machine.


BTW I would suggest that you retire the 4-station turret toolpost
And instead get a BXA sized quick-change toolpost to put on
there. If you've got the money, start with an Aloris starter
set. Otherwise, go for a Phase-II set of the wedge style, not
the piston style (more rigid and less chance of the locking arm
swinging into the path of the chuck jaws). If you go Phase-II,
remove the 8mm setscrews which hold the tools into the holders
and replace them with ones from a box of US made ones (A box of
100 is quite cheap compared to the price you would pay at Home
Despot on a per-each basis. The supplied setscrews are likely to
split or round out and become very difficult to loosen unless
the Chinese screws have improved in quality since I got mine.
The rest of the toolpost and holders has been quite
satisfactory.

I believe that to be excellent advice. It sounds very familiar from my
earlier research on this purchase. Given what the IRS is going to do to
me in a few weeks, it will have to wait. I almost didn't buy the lathe
to be honest.



I assume the trick would be to make/get a rest for square tubing???

Make a "spider". A round tube large enough to accept the
diagonal of the workpiece, with set screws coming in from four sides to
center it, and with a surface free of setscrews wide enough for the
standard steady to hold. If you want to get fancy, mill a square hole
in it, then grip from the inside with a 4-jaw chuck (figuring out how to
center in in the process) and turn an OD to accept the steady fingers.

Sounds like good practice.


Beyond an opportunity to fiddle with the new toy, the cross-section is
too deep to easily side mill (should have thought to buy long end-mills
while I was at it), but with an R8 collet (to save vertical space) and
some cranking, my mill should do the job with a fly cutter.

Arrggghhh! You're going to stand it on end? How are you going
to support the upper end? Same problem as you would have holding it in
the lathe chuck. Too long for its cross-section. You'll try to
compensate by cranking the milling vise tighter and probably crush the
square tubing to rectangular or worse.

It worked very nicely once before. Making pairs of these things, I
clamped the ends together and took light cuts. In fairness, those were
a little shorter than the parts for the current job.



Mount it sideways in the vise, mill one side of each (plus
a little over half-way through the other two sides, then set up a stop
on the table so you can mount each piece to line up with the previous
cut when you do the final cut.

To clarify, I would bring the stop into contact with the lower end of
the first cut, tighten, and then move the part, right? My usual stops
would probably trick me; they work nicely, but always seem to move a
little when tightened - not a problem the way I use them. However, a
v-block and a parallel or something held in place with clamps should do it.


Or -- if you have a horizontal mill, put a 5" milling cutter of
perhaps 1/8" thickness or so in and cut through the whole end in one
pass. (yes, those old horizontal spindle milling machines still have
their uses. :-)

Not long ago I saw a picture of a Swedish(??) vertical/horizontal mill.
Interesting looking thing.

THANKS!!

Bill

On Sat, 22 Mar 2008 12:24:03 -0400, Bill Schwab wrote:
[Wes wrote]
....
Just take your time, be willing to tarp the lathe and call for help if
it looks like it is getting out of control.

Already did In the sense that I talked to a guy I would call in such
a situation. I arranged a couple of backup plans with him just in case.
The lathe is not too much heavier than my mill, and I am better
equipped and a bit more experienced than when I just barely got the mill
where I wanted it. The real trick was getting up the 3/4 inch lip on
the garage floor, but my truck will take care of that part, along with
keeping the load from rolling down the hill. [...]

If you have a pallet jack, it's fairly easy to go up a lip like that,
as follows: Drop pallet, pull jack back say 4", then lift. Move the
pallet forward until the front wheels hit the lip. Drop the pallet,
push the jack up over the lip, raise the load, go forward until back
wheel hits the lip, drop pallet, pull jack out, move jack to opposite
side of pallet, etc.
-jiw

George,

I won't even try to put comments inline: there's too much great stuff in
your reply to do it justice. I will check out the references. At first
glance, the cathead is pretty much what I thought might be needed.
AFAIK, the machine comes with 3- and 4-jaw chucks.

You mention disassembly for cleaning, and you are not the first to
mention casting sand. That is a scary thought for a splash-lubricated
head stock! How far would you go? I recognize that you would probably
be in a position to go farther than I should be willing to go, so
perhaps I should ask what you would NOT touch???

With respect to moving the machine, what about the motor? Removing it
might make it a little easier to handle, and if you want me to take it
off for cleaning, perhaps I should get a head start??

Thanks!

Bill

Jim,

Could you lift one end at a time and put blocks under the pallet?

My engine hoist has a small range of load and boom extension where the
jack is strong enough but the center of gravity is near or forward of
the wheels and the crane will either tip immediately or is unstable
enough to tip when the load swings. Luckily I found this out by
calculation when reconstructing the missing boom load chart. You can
weigh the mast end and measure from there to the hook-end wheels to
find how many foot-pounds of moment arm the hook will support without
tipping. The problem of course is knowing the load's weight. If you
lift the load an inch or two and then heave up on the mast you'll see
if it's close to tipping.

Don's reply got me thinking about that. IIRC, my hoist's boom will not
over-extend, though if it starts to tip with the load on the ground, I'm
not sure it's a big risk??


When I have to move something heavy I lower the load onto timbers
placed across the engine hoist's base and roll it like a pallet jack.

I have used the same trick. Once the base is attached and it comes time
to slide it into place, I might prefer to keep it just off the ground; I
look forward to being that far along.


I've attached a trailer tongue jack to the upright mast and added
extra wheels and a handle like on a pallet jack, which makes the hoist
much easier to muscle around on dirt and lets me tow it with my
tractor.

My goal is to get nowhere near dirt on this move

Thanks!

Bill

James,

If you have a pallet jack, it's fairly easy to go up a lip like that,
as follows: Drop pallet, pull jack back say 4", then lift. Move the
pallet forward until the front wheels hit the lip. Drop the pallet,
push the jack up over the lip, raise the load, go forward until back
wheel hits the lip, drop pallet, pull jack out, move jack to opposite
side of pallet, etc.

Interesting! I do not have one, but will probably get one eventually.
For now, I _think_ I would rather hold out for a load positioner,
especially with some storage options I have in mind. Of course, a
pallet jack can handle a mill. Call me overly cautious, but if I end up
with ton of mill in my garage, I want to be able to move it in an
emergency. My favorite example scenario is a tree limb falls through
the roof, and the mill needs to move either out of harm's way or to
allow emergency repair access. In Florida, we think of such things.

Bill

Bill Schwab wrote:

Wes,


Did you pay for lift gate service? If you are going to use the truck, I'd
have looked into non lift gate service and picking it up at the terminal
where they have a forklift. That is what I did for my Jet 20" bandsaw.

I did pay for the gate, and it appeared on the invoice. The advantage
of doing it this way is that I do not have the drive a long distance
with the load.

In my case the terminal was 7 miles a way. Took me most of an hour since I
wasn't going fast with such a top heavy load. Road home had nice wide paved
shoulders and I let everyone by.



Slings and a wrecker sounds good to me. I moved a 12x36 but it was on a low
trailer. http://www.garage-machinist.com/usen...900_unload.jpg

That is something I need to try. To start, I would probably use a
trailer as overkill on something I could do another way. So little
time, so many cool ways to get into trouble On a more serious note,
there is an equipment rental place not terribly far from my house.

My little trailer has been great. Put a jack under the front end and I get
to tip it to make unloading ez as pie. Bought the trailer when I went from
pickup truck to car for gas mileage reasons. Uncle has a truck so we use
his vehicle to move machines.



Digging holes for your back tires to lower the bed and using decent planking
with the tailgate remove (assuming bumper works for this) might be an idea.

I think the vertical dimensions add up in my favor. It seems unlikely
that the lathe will ever be positioned where digging would be possible.

The idea is to drop your back tires of truck in the holes to get your bed
closer to the ground.

If for some reason I have really botched the math to get into the
truck, it's hello tarp and riggers. If I get into trouble with
clearance inside the garage, then again, we wait for help. However, I
am fairly certain that it will work, and there are "safe" stopping
points along the way. I will also ensure that my car is not trapped,
allowing me to run off to to hardware stores as needed.



Already did In the sense that I talked to a guy I would call in such
a situation. I arranged a couple of backup plans with him just in case.
The lathe is not too much heavier than my mill, and I am better
equipped and a bit more experienced than when I just barely got the mill
where I wanted it. The real trick was getting up the 3/4 inch lip on
the garage floor, but my truck will take care of that part, along with
keeping the load from rolling down the hill.

When I unloaded my band saw, I took advantage of the lip on the approach to
trap my planks between bumper and slab. You will be suprized on just how
hard it is to get something to slide on rough wood.

Perhaps naive, I figure
that once I get the stand bolted to the lathe, I can move it fairly
comfortably: just pick it up enough to slide over the floor and go
slowly. It's the machine itself dangling feet off the ground that makes
me nervous, but I will keep that to a minimum. The lathe will sit in
the truck while I assemble the stand, etc.

I'm not picturing that but as long as you are.



Assuming I know nothing about running a lathe (not far from the truth),
any good reading assignments? I have a couple of Audel books, but I
find them to be short on teaching: great references though. The Home
Machinist's Handbook by Brinney looks helpful.

http://wewilliams.net/SBLibrary.htm

Overhead belts - great stuff !!!!!

Well a few things have changed.


Look at his how to run a lathe pdfs. The basics haven't changed much.

Agreed. They look very much worth the time.


"Additionally as a security officer, I carry a gun to protect
government officials but my life isn't worth protecting at home
in their eyes." Dick Anthony Heller

As an aside (and recognizing that it is a quote), we really have to stop
calling them "officials." "Public servants" would a much better term to
drill into them, and our peers.


Yes, I agree but for some reason they seem to think we are their public
servants. Maybe I ment serfs?

Sure hope this all goes great for you. I figure a couple more weeks and I
can get back out into the garage w/o freezing my arse off.

Post pictures of the unload.

Wes
--
"Additionally as a security officer, I carry a gun to protect
government officials but my life isn't worth protecting at home
in their eyes." Dick Anthony Heller

Bill Schwab wrote:

Interesting! I do not have one, but will probably get one eventually.
For now, I _think_ I would rather hold out for a load positioner,
especially with some storage options I have in mind. Of course, a
pallet jack can handle a mill. Call me overly cautious, but if I end up
with ton of mill in my garage, I want to be able to move it in an
emergency. My favorite example scenario is a tree limb falls through
the roof, and the mill needs to move either out of harm's way or to
allow emergency repair access. In Florida, we think of such things.


I assume you keep a supply of "blue roofing" on hand

Three pieces of 3/4" pipe wide enough to span the base of a bridgeport and a
prybar or two is enough to move a bridgeport on your own. Always better if
you have a friend to help but doable on your own.

I lust after a lift table/cart.

Wes
--
"Additionally as a security officer, I carry a gun to protect
government officials but my life isn't worth protecting at home
in their eyes." Dick Anthony Heller

Alan,

That will work, but there is not much reason to get lift gate service if
you are doing half the work. As another poster said, it is best to just
go to the terminal and have the machine fork lifted into your truck.
Avoids having to schedule and wait for delivery, too.

Understood, but this means I can crawl up and down the driveway vs.
fighting traffic. Maybe next time.


A 2-ton engine hoist will handle the lathe very nicely. You can move
the carriage around for balance,

Nice!


I am a little concerned about getting the hoist to straddle the pallet;
suggestions, lessons from the school of hard knocks, etc., would be
appreciated.

I cut away parts of the pallet and crate to get the hoist around mine.

I think I will end up using cribbing (good excuse to practice), unless
it is near an edge - my mill was when it arrived, but I suspect the
lathe will likely be centered, or nearly so because there is not much
else in the shipment this time.


Have fun!

Will do!

Bill

On Fri, 21 Mar 2008 23:08:56 -0400, Bill Schwab
wrote:
snip
I will probably end up doing this on my mill, but is there a good way to
face the ends of square tubing on a lathe? The pieces I have in mind
are 2" square, 1/8" wall thickness, and vary from 11 to 14 inches or so.
snip
============
One dodge is to use your lathe as a horizontal mill.

fabricate a block to hold a HSS lathe tool to the face plate.
This is your fly cutter.

Remove the compound and rig up a way to hold the square tube on
the cross slide. Use the cross slide to move the tube in and out
past the fly cutter. An angle iron with a spacer underneath
should be adequate loction. May be a little "fiddly" to set up,
but cheap.




Unka' George [George McDuffee]
-------------------------------------------
He that will not apply new remedies,
must expect new evils:
for Time is the greatest innovator: and
if Time, of course, alter things to the worse,
and wisdom and counsel shall not alter them to the better,
what shall be the end?

Francis Bacon (1561-1626), English philosopher, essayist, statesman.
Essays, "Of Innovations" (1597-1625).

George,

On Fri, 21 Mar 2008 23:08:56 -0400, Bill Schwab
wrote:
snip
I will probably end up doing this on my mill, but is there a good way to
face the ends of square tubing on a lathe? The pieces I have in mind
are 2" square, 1/8" wall thickness, and vary from 11 to 14 inches or so.
snip
============
One dodge is to use your lathe as a horizontal mill.

fabricate a block to hold a HSS lathe tool to the face plate.
This is your fly cutter.

Remove the compound and rig up a way to hold the square tube on
the cross slide. Use the cross slide to move the tube in and out
past the fly cutter. An angle iron with a spacer underneath
should be adequate loction. May be a little "fiddly" to set up,
but cheap.

I plan try some things like that. One of the reasons I wanted to skip
the threaded spindle machine is that I realized I would want to do a
fair number of interrupted cuts. My mill-drill serves me well, but
facing plates can be a pain - I have to really stay on top of the
vertical feed (the lock is not enough) to get good results. There isn't
much else that it does or fails to do that bothers me. I realize I will
almost certainly end up buying a bigger mill some day, but see no need
to rush into it. So far, I suspect I might want a baby bridgie with a
riser block, but I have yet to find that

Whether or not dumping my facing work on the lathe is a good idea, it
will be a good addition to my shop, and it is past time for me to learn
my way around one. My hope is that this will be my "second" lathe,
meaning I hopefully skipped the starter machine and got something that
will meet my long-term needs for a lathe.

Bill

On 2008-03-22, Wes wrote:
My little trailer has been great. Put a jack under the front end and I get
to tip it to make unloading ez as pie. Bought the trailer when I went from
pickup truck to car for gas mileage reasons. Uncle has a truck so we use
his vehicle to move machines.

What I do to tip my trailer, is I keep it hitched to the truck and
drive the rear wheels of my truck on a ramp (or just 2x10s).

i

Wes,

I assume you keep a supply of "blue roofing" on hand

Almost I *do* have plywood and pitch, and a fair amount of plastic.
I try to strike a balance between paranoia and common sense, leaning
toward the latter. If the roof comes off the house, I have big problem.
If a tree limb strikes, I might be able to keep it down to a small
problem with some reasonable preparation.


Three pieces of 3/4" pipe wide enough to span the base of a bridgeport and a
prybar or two is enough to move a bridgeport on your own. Always better if
you have a friend to help but doable on your own.

I have heard that enough times that I am starting to believe it.
However, I would like to have a slight technological edge on the damn
thing. Let's see how I do with the lathe.


I lust after a lift table/cart.

I almost bought something a while back, but it wasn't quite right.
I will allow myself one or two such items, but between money and
storage space, I want to plan ahead.

Bill

On Sat, 22 Mar 2008 15:26:43 -0400, Bill Schwab
wrote:

I assume you keep a supply of "blue roofing" on hand

Almost I *do* have plywood and pitch, and a fair amount of plastic.
I try to strike a balance between paranoia and common sense, leaning
toward the latter. If the roof comes off the house, I have big problem.
If a tree limb strikes, I might be able to keep it down to a small
problem with some reasonable preparation.

Three pieces of 3/4" pipe wide enough to span the base of a bridgeport and a
prybar or two is enough to move a bridgeport on your own. Always better if
you have a friend to help but doable on your own.

I have heard that enough times that I am starting to believe it.
However, I would like to have a slight technological edge on the damn
thing. Let's see how I do with the lathe.

I lust after a lift table/cart.

I almost bought something a while back, but it wasn't quite right.
I will allow myself one or two such items, but between money and
storage space, I want to plan ahead.

Air bearings should do it. ;-) A 4' x 4' sheet of 1/2" plate steel
underneath the mill, with a 3/8" NPT threaded hole in the center.
Screw in a QD spud and apply 90 PSI air pressure, and suddenly it's
floating...

Only works on a flat or near-flat slab, but that's the classical
definition of a garage.

-- Bruce --

On Sat, 22 Mar 2008 05:51:03 -0700 (PDT), Jim Wilkins
wrote:

My engine hoist has a small range of load and boom extension where the
jack is strong enough but the center of gravity is near or forward of
the wheels and the crane will either tip immediately or is unstable
enough to tip when the load swings. Luckily I found this out by
calculation when reconstructing the missing boom load chart. You can
weigh the mast end and measure from there to the hook-end wheels to
find how many foot-pounds of moment arm the hook will support without
tipping. The problem of course is knowing the load's weight. If you
lift the load an inch or two and then heave up on the mast you'll see
if it's close to tipping.

Ahem. Counterbalance on the ram end of the engine hoist?

I plan to cut a small chunk of plywood into a platform to fit over
the legs of mine at that end, and then stack bricks or concrete
blocks, two 5-gallon buckets full of sand, or other 'found weight' as
needed to achieve stability.

If you have barbell weights, all it would take is a chunk of pipe to
slide them onto, big mouse clip and a flatwasher to keep them there.

-- Bruce --

On Mar 22, 4:48*pm, Bruce L. Bergman
wrote:
On Sat, 22 Mar 2008 05:51:03 -0700 (PDT), Jim Wilkins
...and the crane will either tip immediately or is unstable
enough to tip when the load swings. ...

* Ahem. *Counterbalance on the ram end of the engine hoist?
...
* -- Bruce --

The original load chart may have considered tipping, but I only had
the max load with the boom fully in to work backwards from.

The best counterweight would be the tractor if I can figure out a way
to mount a fixed hitch coupler that doesn't interfere with the trailer
jack and its swivel handle. Otherwise it's only a problem when I help
the neighbors unload a welder or such off a truck (my stuff isn't that
heavy) and several of the guys can just stand on it rather than
watching, drinking beer and wisecracking.

-----------------------------------------------------------
Thanks for getting me thinking. A rope from the mast top to the
trailer hitch coupler that's already on the handle end will be enough
to keep the hoist from tipping and it won't interfere with manhandling
the hoist into position. That fixed coupler would still be useful to
allow the tractor to back it up without jackknifing.

Jim Wilkins

Bill,
I can tell you that about 1 year ago my younger brother took delivery of
the same lathe (12 x 26 gap bed) from HF at their store about 20 miles away.
He got it on a Friday night and after work, he and I took it off of his
truck by hand... We did it by taking it apart. The motor, the ways, the head
stock, etc. It was still very heavy, but us two 40 year old lads did it, but
it was heavy.

What followed next was a full on disassembly of all parts of that machine.
Every part was taken apart, cleaned a polished. It took about 4 weekends
worth of work. We used solvents etc. It was surprising, to say the least,
how much grit was in the machine, the head stock being the worst. All told,
we measured just under 3/4's of a cup of grit. What we did was to filter all
the solvents and old oils etc and collect the grit.... My guess is that the
lathe would not have run for a month, if we had left all of that crud in and
on the machine. We also were able to correct a couple of gears that were not
aligned so great.

A year latter, with a fair amount of use now, the lathe is still running
strong and the original tolerances are holding just fine. I would consider
this lathe to be more of a lathe kit, then a finished product, ready to
run!!!! But once its all cleaned up and put back together, WOW is it nice.
Never crashed a tool, never had an issue of any type. All told a great
lathe.

bob


"Bill Schwab" wrote in message
...
George,

I won't even try to put comments inline: there's too much great stuff in
your reply to do it justice. I will check out the references. At first
glance, the cathead is pretty much what I thought might be needed. AFAIK,
the machine comes with 3- and 4-jaw chucks.

You mention disassembly for cleaning, and you are not the first to mention
casting sand. That is a scary thought for a splash-lubricated head stock!
How far would you go? I recognize that you would probably be in a
position to go farther than I should be willing to go, so perhaps I should
ask what you would NOT touch???

With respect to moving the machine, what about the motor? Removing it
might make it a little easier to handle, and if you want me to take it off
for cleaning, perhaps I should get a head start??

Thanks!

Bill

On 2008-03-22, Bill Schwab wrote:
Don,

Congratulations! This should be a lot better than the belt
driven one -- as long as you manage to avoid crashes. (Belts are more
forgiving of crashes.)

That part bothered me just a little, but it's not a good idea to crash
things into machines anyway. It has a "fiber gear" to avoid total
loses.

Good!

They do not sell it online because they had problems with people
buying the wrong one. Wanting to cash in on the extra 10% off for web
orders, I figured I'd wait. However, I will get one to have on hand.

If you have a spare on hand, you are less likely to need it. :-)

O.K. I got my 12x24 Clausing from the flat-bed high truck which
delivered it (pre-assembled to the pedestal) to my pickup truck by
sliding it down a ramp made from five 10' 2x4s bolted edge on to three
cross-boards on the bottom. I then drove it up the driveway, backed up
to the garage, and slid it down the same ramp to the floor.

I think I would call for help before trying that.

I had help from the driver sliding it into the pickup (3/4 ton,
4WD), and help from a friend an my wife when sliding it down the ramp
into the garage. The friend helped me pull it, and my wife "tailed" on
a line looped several times through a carabiner clip so she did not need
much pull to control the motion of the lathe down the ramp.


I had no instructions (a used lathe, after all, but what I did
was to jack up each end of the pallet and put cribbing under it -- first
2x4, then 4x4 then 2x4 on top of 4x4. Once I could do that, I could
slide the legs under the long custom pallet to which the lathe was
bolted.

That makes sense, and I will probably end up doing that. Did you start
out with a pry-bar to get it off the ground, or is there a slicker way?

A pry-bar plus a length of 2x4 acting as a longer pry-bar. But
it was easier to get hooked into the upper layer of the pallet for the
first motion.

I would have used the engine hoist from the start for unloading
from the pickup -- except that I had to unload the pickup to drive over
to a friend's place to borrow the engine hoist. I've since acquired my
own. :-)

I removed the pallet, pulled it clear, and rotated the lathe so
the headstock was towards the column of the engine hoist, and lowered it
onto the floor. This allowed the legs to straddle it.

Understood about the headstock next to the column of the hoist - that is
what I plan to use to get the lathe onto the stand (I hopeg). It
should work, assuming my mill is any example.

Good.

If that
orientation had not been possible, I would have lowered it onto cribbing
again, removed the engine hoist, and using a rolling floor jack, removed
2" of cribbing height per cycle.

I can largely picture that, but what is the goal? If you can't straddle
the lathe with the legs, would not want to keep it on cribbing and/or
just lift it to your truck? Or, are you simply giving instructions for
getting back down in that case?

It had to be lifted to unbolt the pallet. Once it was in the
air, the choices were to lower it onto the legs of the hoist (counter
productive) or onto cribbing so the hoist could be removed.

Note that the 12x36" Jet which we got at work back around 1985
or so was brought in by professional riggers, but it was pre-assembled
to its base, too. (The motor was in the base, IIRC, and lots of wiring
in there, too. So it was brought in, the crate disassembled from around
it, it was lifted clear of the pallet and that removed, too -- all by
professionals.

The real worry was that it (and the Bridgeport clone) were being
mounted on a raised computer type lab floor. The trick was to put the
load bads over the supported intersections of the floor panels where
there was a jack column.

Once the truck does its part, this will be on a garage floor. I am not
sure I would want to try it on raised floor =:0

We had no choice -- since the work needed to remove not only
that room's raised floor, but the one before it through which it came
would have been a major problem -- especially with the conduit and
plumbing below the floor. At least there was a nice long ramp before
the first room which would serve as the first test of whether it would
support what was being moved.

Enco tells me it holds 3 gallons of hydraulic fluid!!!
That's on the way too. I ended up buying a a Rohm ball bearing chuck
and an arbor. It was a LOT cheaper than the Jacobs chuck that I might
eventually get (and have on an R8 arbor for my mill).

You'll also prefer it to the Jacobs key type chuck, as long as
you aren't using left-hand drill bits. I keep a Jacobs on an
appropriate arbor for just that need. :-)

I really enjoy my Jacobs chuck, and will probably end up buying another
one to live on a 3MT arbor - later.

Wait until you've done a few projects with the Rohm keyless
chuck. (I do presume that the Rohm is keyless and the Jacobs is keyed,
though both make both styles. And I have a nice Jacobs keyless on my
drill press (which came with a 5/8" or 3/4" clone of a Jacobs chuck --
always too big for metalworking with the slowest speed available from
the spindle. :-)

Assuming I know nothing about running a lathe (not far from the truth),
any good reading assignments?

[snip]
Thanks!


I have a couple of Audel books, but I
find them to be short on teaching: great references though. The Home
Machinist's Handbook by Brinney looks helpful.

I've not seen it, but I might expect it to be aimed for lighter
machines.

True, but it still has been useful at times.

For that matter, I learned a lot from the manual for my Unimat
SL-1000, including tricks which I have not seen documented in manuals
for larger machines. :-)

The "manual" with the lathe will give you details about the
lathe, but not instructions on how to use it.

It is actually pretty good - one of the best I have seen on a Chinese
machine.

Hmm ... a significant improvement from one for the Jet from
around 1980-85.

BTW I would suggest that you retire the 4-station turret toolpost
And instead get a BXA sized quick-change toolpost to put on
there. If you've got the money, start with an Aloris starter
set. Otherwise, go for a Phase-II set of the wedge style, not
the piston style (more rigid and less chance of the locking arm
swinging into the path of the chuck jaws). If you go Phase-II,
remove the 8mm setscrews which hold the tools into the holders
and replace them with ones from a box of US made ones (A box of
100 is quite cheap compared to the price you would pay at Home
Despot on a per-each basis. The supplied setscrews are likely to
split or round out and become very difficult to loosen unless
the Chinese screws have improved in quality since I got mine.
The rest of the toolpost and holders has been quite
satisfactory.

I believe that to be excellent advice. It sounds very familiar from my
earlier research on this purchase. Given what the IRS is going to do to
me in a few weeks, it will have to wait. I almost didn't buy the lathe
to be honest.

O.K. So keep your eyes open for sales for the Phase-II wedge
style set. I got mine from such a sale -- choosing to pay more for the
wedge style over the piston style.

[ ... ]

Beyond an opportunity to fiddle with the new toy, the cross-section is
too deep to easily side mill (should have thought to buy long end-mills
while I was at it), but with an R8 collet (to save vertical space) and
some cranking, my mill should do the job with a fly cutter.

Arrggghhh! You're going to stand it on end? How are you going
to support the upper end? Same problem as you would have holding it in
the lathe chuck. Too long for its cross-section. You'll try to
compensate by cranking the milling vise tighter and probably crush the
square tubing to rectangular or worse.

It worked very nicely once before. Making pairs of these things, I
clamped the ends together and took light cuts. In fairness, those were
a little shorter than the parts for the current job.

If you had two side by side, and firmly clamped that way, it
would be a lot better than one at a time.

Mount it sideways in the vise, mill one side of each (plus
a little over half-way through the other two sides, then set up a stop
on the table so you can mount each piece to line up with the previous
cut when you do the final cut.

To clarify, I would bring the stop into contact with the lower end of
the first cut, tighten, and then move the part, right? My usual stops
would probably trick me; they work nicely, but always seem to move a
little when tightened - not a problem the way I use them. However, a
v-block and a parallel or something held in place with clamps should do it.

I would just make a cut through a bit over half of the height of
each one not worrying about the end stop then. Then rotate one piece 90
degrees, so there is both a top and a bottom section machined together.
Set the stop to press on a bottom section of the machined area, lock it,
and then move the X-axis to bring the edge of the end mill just barely
contact with the end. IIRC, cigarette rolling papers are supposed to be
good for this -- moisten one, and stick it on the end of the machined
surface, and bring the X-axis in until the endmill just whisks the paper
away -- you are then within 0.001".

Now -- lock the X-axis, stop the spindle, crank the Y-axis clear
in such a direction so you will be doing conventional milling not climb
milling when you bring the mill back into contact, loosen the vise, and
rotate the workpiece so the long un-milled part is on top and the long
machined part is on the bottom in contact with the work stop. Tighten
the vise, mill through the un-machined work (with a little overlap),
loosen the vise, crank the Y-axis back to where it was before, and clamp
the next half-done workpiece against the stop. Repeat until all are
done on that end. Then carefully cut to final length on one side of the
other end of all parts (perhaps setting the stop at the already milled
in now if all are to be the same length), and machine each one top flip
bottom and on to the next.

Or -- if you have a horizontal mill, put a 5" milling cutter of
perhaps 1/8" thickness or so in and cut through the whole end in one
pass. (yes, those old horizontal spindle milling machines still have
their uses. :-)

Not long ago I saw a picture of a Swedish(??) vertical/horizontal mill.
Interesting looking thing.

Yes -- those are nice machines, and I wish that I had one, and
sufficient electric power to run one properly.

THANKS!!

You're welcome.

Enjoy,
DoN.

--
Email: | Voice (all times): (703) 938-4564
(too) near Washington D.C. | http://www.d-and-d.com/dnichols/DoN.html
--- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---

On 2008-03-22, Bill Schwab wrote:
George,

[ ... ]

You mention disassembly for cleaning, and you are not the first to
mention casting sand. That is a scary thought for a splash-lubricated
head stock! How far would you go? I recognize that you would probably
be in a position to go farther than I should be willing to go, so
perhaps I should ask what you would NOT touch???

From what I have read, the gear-head machines have been made
with more attention to such matters than the belt-driven ones from the
same source -- and the larger lathes better made than the smaller ones.
All that extra money pays for more than just more cast iron. :-)

I would suggest taking apart and checking the compound and the
cross slide. If those are well done, you probably have pretty good
chances with the rest. Maybe take apart and check the tailstock as
well.

Taking apart the gear-head headstock to sufficient level of
detail is a major undertaking.

Enjoy,
DoN.

--
Email: | Voice (all times): (703) 938-4564
(too) near Washington D.C. | http://www.d-and-d.com/dnichols/DoN.html
--- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---

Bob,

I can tell you that about 1 year ago my younger brother took delivery of
the same lathe (12 x 26 gap bed) from HF at their store about 20 miles away.
He got it on a Friday night and after work, he and I took it off of his
truck by hand... We did it by taking it apart. The motor, the ways, the head
stock, etc. It was still very heavy, but us two 40 year old lads did it, but
it was heavy.

What followed next was a full on disassembly of all parts of that machine.
[snip]

Are you two the types who rebuild Jaguar engines for fun? I'm at the
replace the water pump level. Any special tools required? It looks
like I would want to finally get a pair of c-clip pliers. Otherwise I'm
guessing it's the usual stuff any good tool freak will have on hand.
Did you find any torque specs? Do you have any photos of the re-assembly?

Thanks,

Bill

Don,

They do not sell it online because they had problems with people
buying the wrong one. Wanting to cash in on the extra 10% off for web
orders, I figured I'd wait. However, I will get one to have on hand.

If you have a spare on hand, you are less likely to need it. :-)

My thinking exactly, sir!



O.K. I got my 12x24 Clausing from the flat-bed high truck which
delivered it (pre-assembled to the pedestal) to my pickup truck by
sliding it down a ramp made from five 10' 2x4s bolted edge on to three
cross-boards on the bottom. I then drove it up the driveway, backed up
to the garage, and slid it down the same ramp to the floor.
I think I would call for help before trying that.

I had help from the driver sliding it into the pickup (3/4 ton,
4WD), and help from a friend an my wife when sliding it down the ramp
into the garage. The friend helped me pull it, and my wife "tailed" on
a line looped several times through a carabiner clip so she did not need
much pull to control the motion of the lathe down the ramp.

I thought about a truck/truck transfer, but will probably go the ground
and hoist route.


I had no instructions (a used lathe, after all, but what I did
was to jack up each end of the pallet and put cribbing under it -- first
2x4, then 4x4 then 2x4 on top of 4x4. Once I could do that, I could
slide the legs under the long custom pallet to which the lathe was
bolted.
That makes sense, and I will probably end up doing that. Did you start
out with a pry-bar to get it off the ground, or is there a slicker way?

A pry-bar plus a length of 2x4 acting as a longer pry-bar. But
it was easier to get hooked into the upper layer of the pallet for the
first motion.

Dumb question: any trick to keeping the pull from simply tearing apart
the pallet? One thought I had was a 2x4 shoved in the pallet and a
sling over it up to the hoist - that should get it going, assuming the
wood can take it.


I would have used the engine hoist from the start for unloading
from the pickup --

Good to know. At the risk of appearing to cross-examine (in reality I
simply want to understand to get the most out of your helpful
descriptions), unload from the _pickup_??? Would you still have done
the ramp transfer, or would you have gone flatbed-ground-hoist?



except that I had to unload the pickup to drive over
to a friend's place to borrow the engine hoist. I've since acquired my
own. :-)

Ok, now I'm starting to think that you would have done the ramp between
the two trucks, and then used to hoist from your pickup to the ground.
Is that it?




If that
orientation had not been possible, I would have lowered it onto cribbing
again, removed the engine hoist, and using a rolling floor jack, removed
2" of cribbing height per cycle.
I can largely picture that, but what is the goal? If you can't straddle
the lathe with the legs, would not want to keep it on cribbing and/or
just lift it to your truck? Or, are you simply giving instructions for
getting back down in that case?

It had to be lifted to unbolt the pallet. Once it was in the
air, the choices were to lower it onto the legs of the hoist (counter
productive) or onto cribbing so the hoist could be removed.

I still do not quite follow (sorry). Unless the idea was to lower onto
cribbing to have stable foundation while you unbolted the pallet? I am
assuming that you slung the lathe, and the pallet is just along for the
ride; one could then unbolt with the whole thing swinging, but it would
be very dangerous to do that - the load could fall, or shift and then
fall as the pallet does weirdness being partially attached to that
lathe. However, I would probably leave the hoist holding some tension
on the lathe, just in case all hell broke loose with the pallet while I
was unbolting it.



We had no choice -- since the work needed to remove not only
that room's raised floor, but the one before it through which it came
would have been a major problem -- especially with the conduit and
plumbing below the floor. At least there was a nice long ramp before
the first room which would serve as the first test of whether it would
support what was being moved.

Scary thought, but I get the idea.



I really enjoy my Jacobs chuck, and will probably end up buying another
one to live on a 3MT arbor - later.

Wait until you've done a few projects with the Rohm keyless
chuck. (I do presume that the Rohm is keyless and the Jacobs is keyed,
though both make both styles. And I have a nice Jacobs keyless on my
drill press (which came with a 5/8" or 3/4" clone of a Jacobs chuck --
always too big for metalworking with the slowest speed available from
the spindle. :-)

Please be careful, as my evil twin is the one who buys all this stuff; I
am fairly certain he settled for a keyed chuck Humor aside, I might
be in for a pleasant surprise, but I was trying to balance price and
quality, and the Enco tech suggested the Rohm as a worthy compromise.
Worst case, it will become a backup to my Jacobs.





Assuming I know nothing about running a lathe (not far from the truth),
any good reading assignments?
[snip]
Thanks!


I have a couple of Audel books, but I
find them to be short on teaching: great references though. The Home
Machinist's Handbook by Brinney looks helpful.
I've not seen it, but I might expect it to be aimed for lighter
machines.
True, but it still has been useful at times.

For that matter, I learned a lot from the manual for my Unimat
SL-1000, including tricks which I have not seen documented in manuals
for larger machines. :-)

The "manual" with the lathe will give you details about the
lathe, but not instructions on how to use it.
It is actually pretty good - one of the best I have seen on a Chinese
machine.

Hmm ... a significant improvement from one for the Jet from
around 1980-85.

I bought my last Jet machine a couple of years ago. The clincher was
when I called them to point out that they had an safety latch that
needed to remain in place bolted at one point, and that it would
eventually pivot. Nutty me, I thought they would want to know - they
didn't care, nor did they seem to even grasp how stupid the design might
be, nor that they might want to find somebody who might understand same.
Anyway, it *did* fail as I predicted.



BTW I would suggest that you retire the 4-station turret toolpost
And instead get a BXA sized quick-change toolpost to put on
there. If you've got the money, start with an Aloris starter
set. Otherwise, go for a Phase-II set of the wedge style, not
the piston style (more rigid and less chance of the locking arm
swinging into the path of the chuck jaws). If you go Phase-II,
remove the 8mm setscrews which hold the tools into the holders
and replace them with ones from a box of US made ones (A box of
100 is quite cheap compared to the price you would pay at Home
Despot on a per-each basis. The supplied setscrews are likely to
split or round out and become very difficult to loosen unless
the Chinese screws have improved in quality since I got mine.
The rest of the toolpost and holders has been quite
satisfactory.
I believe that to be excellent advice. It sounds very familiar from my
earlier research on this purchase. Given what the IRS is going to do to
me in a few weeks, it will have to wait. I almost didn't buy the lathe
to be honest.

O.K. So keep your eyes open for sales for the Phase-II wedge
style set. I got mine from such a sale -- choosing to pay more for the
wedge style over the piston style.

Great minds... I fully expect to go that route, I just have to slow
down the flow of green stuff out of my wallet for a while. If the
Phase-II is anything like the RT they make, it will be very much worth
the money. I assume/hope that I will be able to function with the
existing post while I fumble my way along with learning what the new toy
can do. After I recover from April 15 and brace for the local guys
mugging me later in the year, I can start looking for sales.



[ ... ]

Beyond an opportunity to fiddle with the new toy, the cross-section is
too deep to easily side mill (should have thought to buy long end-mills
while I was at it), but with an R8 collet (to save vertical space) and
some cranking, my mill should do the job with a fly cutter.
Arrggghhh! You're going to stand it on end? How are you going
to support the upper end? Same problem as you would have holding it in
the lathe chuck. Too long for its cross-section. You'll try to
compensate by cranking the milling vise tighter and probably crush the
square tubing to rectangular or worse.
It worked very nicely once before. Making pairs of these things, I
clamped the ends together and took light cuts. In fairness, those were
a little shorter than the parts for the current job.

If you had two side by side, and firmly clamped that way, it
would be a lot better than one at a time.

That is what I did. One of the parts is a singleton, but I would no
doubt give it a shorter peer to help stabilize it. The other reason to
cut two at a time was that I wanted them to be the same length, whatever
that turned out to be. Now that I think about it, if I put that
improvised stop in the center, it should be able to work for both tubes,
allowing me to the lengths the same - I think



Mount it sideways in the vise, mill one side of each (plus
a little over half-way through the other two sides, then set up a stop
on the table so you can mount each piece to line up with the previous
cut when you do the final cut.
To clarify, I would bring the stop into contact with the lower end of
the first cut, tighten, and then move the part, right? My usual stops
would probably trick me; they work nicely, but always seem to move a
little when tightened - not a problem the way I use them. However, a
v-block and a parallel or something held in place with clamps should do it.

I would just make a cut through a bit over half of the height of
each one not worrying about the end stop then. Then rotate one piece 90
degrees, so there is both a top and a bottom section machined together.
Set the stop to press on a bottom section of the machined area, lock it,
and then move the X-axis to bring the edge of the end mill just barely
contact with the end. IIRC, cigarette rolling papers are supposed to be
good for this -- moisten one, and stick it on the end of the machined
surface, and bring the X-axis in until the endmill just whisks the paper
away -- you are then within 0.001".

Now -- lock the X-axis, stop the spindle, crank the Y-axis clear
in such a direction so you will be doing conventional milling not climb
milling when you bring the mill back into contact, loosen the vise, and
rotate the workpiece so the long un-milled part is on top and the long
machined part is on the bottom in contact with the work stop. Tighten
the vise, mill through the un-machined work (with a little overlap),
loosen the vise, crank the Y-axis back to where it was before, and clamp
the next half-done workpiece against the stop. Repeat until all are
done on that end. Then carefully cut to final length on one side of the
other end of all parts (perhaps setting the stop at the already milled
in now if all are to be the same length), and machine each one top flip
bottom and on to the next.

Dumb question: after the first cut puts the machined surface right at
the edge of the tool, right? Would not a stop set against it (firm but
not deformed) be in just the right place w/o moving the table? I need
to read it a few more times, but you appear to have added a step. What
does that fix?

Thanks!

Bill

Don,

From what I have read, the gear-head machines have been made
with more attention to such matters than the belt-driven ones from the
same source -- and the larger lathes better made than the smaller ones.
All that extra money pays for more than just more cast iron. :-)

FWIW, I have gotten to know one of the Enco techs, and he seems to think
the lathe I bought is a good one. I will ask him about this, but
suspect he will agree with you.


I would suggest taking apart and checking the compound and the
cross slide. If those are well done, you probably have pretty good
chances with the rest. Maybe take apart and check the tailstock as
well.

That seems reasonable.


Taking apart the gear-head headstock to sufficient level of
detail is a major undertaking.

I feared as much. Is there a good compromise: open a panel and look for
signs of trouble?


Bill

No, we don't have a jag.... Chevy and Pontiac here.... Yea, we do go a
little deep sometimes, but this thing wasn't that bad. Not like an engine
rebuild or anything.

My brother did take lots of pictures and if your really interested, I can
get him to load them on his ftp site.

no real special tools, a bench buffer was used to really clean out the gears
and get the edge burrs off.

Torque was not really a concern as some of the nuts and bolts were only
finger tight... we just watched what we were doing and tried to use common
sense.

we did use lots of lube (I don't remember what it was, but he does I am
sure) and changed the head oil a couple of times, in short order after a
self described break in period. This lathe has a sight glass for oil level
and since we got the insides really clean the glass has stayed clean a
readable. The oil color has not changed at all.

Like I said before, this is a great lathe!!! but consider it a lathe kit
as it comes from the factory!!!!!!!!

bob



"Bill Schwab" wrote in message
...
Bob,

I can tell you that about 1 year ago my younger brother took delivery of
the same lathe (12 x 26 gap bed) from HF at their store about 20 miles
away. He got it on a Friday night and after work, he and I took it off of
his truck by hand... We did it by taking it apart. The motor, the ways,
the head stock, etc. It was still very heavy, but us two 40 year old lads
did it, but it was heavy.

What followed next was a full on disassembly of all parts of that
machine.
[snip]

Are you two the types who rebuild Jaguar engines for fun? I'm at the
replace the water pump level. Any special tools required? It looks like
I would want to finally get a pair of c-clip pliers. Otherwise I'm
guessing it's the usual stuff any good tool freak will have on hand. Did
you find any torque specs? Do you have any photos of the re-assembly?

Thanks,

Bill

Bob,

No, we don't have a jag.... Chevy and Pontiac here.... Yea, we do go a
little deep sometimes,

I knew it My beat up '96 F-150 that I bought a couple of years ago
is less beat up than it was - mostly by my hand, so I can no longer
claim to be a complete wimp. But as Dirty Harry said "A man's got to
know his limitations."


My brother did take lots of pictures and if your really interested, I can
get him to load them on his ftp site.

Whether or not I decide to tear it down, I would greatly enjoy seeing
the pictures, and I am probably not alone.


no real special tools, a bench buffer was used to really clean out the gears
and get the edge burrs off.

That's probably just a new wheel for my grinder. From the diagrams, I'd
blow for a proper c-clip tool.



we did use lots of lube (I don't remember what it was, but he does I am
sure)

That would be good to know. I am aware that people slather engine parts
with assembly lube - I have yet to get that far into one.


and changed the head oil a couple of times, in short order after a
self described break in period.

The manual refers to one too - a certain number of hours below a
specified speed.

Thanks!

Bill

On Fri, 21 Mar 2008 22:08:56 -0500, Bill Schwab
wrote:

Hello all,

Overlapping sales and the likelihood of more weakening of the dollar
pushed me over the edge on the Enco 12x36 geared head lathe; the spindle
is D1-4. You might recall that I got pretty close to buying the
belt-driven threaded-spindle version of the machine back in the fall.
Long story short: I just couldn't go through with it, and ended up
getting a better machine for the same (perhaps less) money than I would
have paid for the lesser one in the fall.

Presumably in a matter of days, a lift-gated truck will appear at my
curb. I am planning to use an engine hoist to lift the lathe (the
manual has pictures of how to sling it), back my F-150 under it, drive
the 50ft to the garage (it's the down-hill part that makes it fun w/o a
truck), back in enough to reach level cement, and then again use the
hoist to exchange truck bed for assembled stand. Sound about right? It
weighs around 1000 lb.

I am a little concerned about getting the hoist to straddle the pallet;
suggestions, lessons from the school of hard knocks, etc., would be
appreciated. Enco tells me it holds 3 gallons of hydraulic fluid!!!
That's on the way too. I ended up buying a a Rohm ball bearing chuck
and an arbor. It was a LOT cheaper than the Jacobs chuck that I might
eventually get (and have on an R8 arbor for my mill).

Assuming I know nothing about running a lathe (not far from the truth),
any good reading assignments? I have a couple of Audel books, but I
find them to be short on teaching: great references though. The Home
Machinist's Handbook by Brinney looks helpful.

I will probably end up doing this on my mill, but is there a good way to
face the ends of square tubing on a lathe? The pieces I have in mind
are 2" square, 1/8" wall thickness, and vary from 11 to 14 inches or so.
I assume the trick would be to make/get a rest for square tubing???
Beyond an opportunity to fiddle with the new toy, the cross-section is
too deep to easily side mill (should have thought to buy long end-mills
while I was at it), but with an R8 collet (to save vertical space) and
some cranking, my mill should do the job with a fly cutter.

Bill


For me the scariest part of the job is getting the heavy stuff off
the truck on to the ground. I ended up renting a forklift for that.
If they can put it on the ground for you, I'd consider that half
the battle. I don't know how steep your driveway is or if it is
paved. I'd arrange to put 1x6 as runners on the bottom of the pallet,
then put it all on pipes. Alternately use strong casters.
I'd tie the lathe to the truck to keep it from rolling downhill.
Then having one person on each side of the lathe, back the truck up
slowly, and move the pipes as they come out to the other
side. Once in the garage, move it wherever you want. After that
use different size blocks of wood and a 50" pry bar to slowly
lower it down. You'd end up cutting away the pallet. Use the
hoist if you can get it in place. My friend had an older hoist
that wasn't vee shaped, so it could stradle the lathe.

I did the reverse process of pulling a lathe out of a unpaved
driveway uphill. Used a truck to pull it and 2 2'x4' sheets
of 3/4" plywood.


Wayne D.

On 2008-03-23, Bob in Phx wrote:
don, I agree that taking the headstock apart was very hard, but the amount
of grit we found warranted the work. The biggest culprit was that the
factory had painted over, on the inside, pockets of grit. Once the paint was
touched at all, it opened up and let the grit go.

Ouch! I had not read reports of grit in the gearhead versions
of the lathe until a couple of articles after I posted the one to which
you just replied. Had I read that first, I obviously would not have
posted it as it sat.

I would think that by just
running the lathe, that the painted in grit pockets would have released and
caused issues. Just my opinion as a sort of owner ( I go and use the Big
lathe just about every weekend, when my little atlas wont do the job).

O.K. No certainty whether the paint would have released the
grit without testing it -- which is rather an expensive test if it
fails.

Enjoy,
DoN.

--
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On 2008-03-23, Bill Schwab wrote:
Don,

They do not sell it online because they had problems with people
buying the wrong one. Wanting to cash in on the extra 10% off for web
orders, I figured I'd wait. However, I will get one to have on hand.

If you have a spare on hand, you are less likely to need it. :-)

My thinking exactly, sir!

Knowing Murphy's law does help. :-)

[ ... ]

I had no instructions (a used lathe, after all, but what I did
was to jack up each end of the pallet and put cribbing under it -- first
2x4, then 4x4 then 2x4 on top of 4x4. Once I could do that, I could
slide the legs under the long custom pallet to which the lathe was
bolted.
That makes sense, and I will probably end up doing that. Did you start
out with a pry-bar to get it off the ground, or is there a slicker way?

A pry-bar plus a length of 2x4 acting as a longer pry-bar. But
it was easier to get hooked into the upper layer of the pallet for the
first motion.

Dumb question: any trick to keeping the pull from simply tearing apart
the pallet? One thought I had was a 2x4 shoved in the pallet and a
sling over it up to the hoist - that should get it going, assuming the
wood can take it.

Well ... I was watching for things pulling out, and didn't have
them. I think that I can thank the pallet being assembled with rusty
nails. :-)

I would have used the engine hoist from the start for unloading
from the pickup --

Good to know. At the risk of appearing to cross-examine (in reality I
simply want to understand to get the most out of your helpful
descriptions), unload from the _pickup_??? Would you still have done
the ramp transfer, or would you have gone flatbed-ground-hoist?

The delivery truck had a bed which was about at the height of my
forehead, with no hydraulic tailgate. The lathe was simply one of a
number of machines and other loads strapped to the bed of the truck and
under tarps. The trip down the ramp from the delivery truck's bed to
the pickup (a tall 4WD 3/4 ton pickup by Mazda) was the shortest
descent, helped by the steep driveway. The truck pulled up across my
driveway at the street, and I backed the pickup down the driveway until
one end of the ramp was on the edge of the delivery truck and the other
end was against the front of the bed of my pickup so it could not slide.
We set up high density foam to protect the front of the bed and the cab,
and gently slid the lathe down the ramp after levering the end of the
pallet up just enough to start it onto the top of the ramp. He had
places to anchor a rope for tailing so we could control the rate of
descent.

And the bed of the delivery truck was *way* too high for the
engine hoist to have lifted the lathe clear when you add the height of
the lathe plus the sling to the 5'5" of bed height from pavement. Also,
there was no way to back the delivery truck (an 18-wheeler flatbed) up
the driveway for delivery -- even ignoring all of the other stuff on the
delivery truck.



except that I had to unload the pickup to drive over
to a friend's place to borrow the engine hoist. I've since acquired my
own. :-)

Ok, now I'm starting to think that you would have done the ramp between
the two trucks, and then used to hoist from your pickup to the ground.
Is that it?

Yes. The hoist just could not have done the other end, unless I
had some way to mount it on the pickup, which I did not.

If that
orientation had not been possible, I would have lowered it onto cribbing
again, removed the engine hoist, and using a rolling floor jack, removed
2" of cribbing height per cycle.
I can largely picture that, but what is the goal? If you can't straddle
the lathe with the legs, would not want to keep it on cribbing and/or
just lift it to your truck? Or, are you simply giving instructions for
getting back down in that case?

It had to be lifted to unbolt the pallet. Once it was in the
air, the choices were to lower it onto the legs of the hoist (counter
productive) or onto cribbing so the hoist could be removed.

I still do not quite follow (sorry). Unless the idea was to lower onto
cribbing to have stable foundation while you unbolted the pallet?

No. The lathe with pallet was lowered onto the legs of the
engine hoist, giving easier access to removing the bolts which held it
to the pallet. Then it was lifted just enough to allow the pallet to be
slid out from under it, then rotated so the headstock end would fit
between the extended legs, and lowered to the concrete floor.

If it would not fit between the legs, the only choice would have
been to lower it onto cribbing, remove the hoist, and then lower it to
the floor one piece of cribbing at a time. Without the cribbing, the
lathe would held the hoist captive forever, since it would have to sit
on the legs.

I am
assuming that you slung the lathe, and the pallet is just along for the
ride;

Yes. in my case, there was no way to make a support clamp (as
has been shown by someone else for a lathe similar to yours (I think
that was one of Fitch's postings perhaps six to ten years ago.) So,
what I did was to take some 2" webbing (military surplus with two
sliding eyes on it), sling it under the chip pan (the chip pan, lathe,
and pedestal were a single piece, unlike your kit delivery) and bring
the two sliding eyes up -- one behind and one in front of the lathe,
slid towards the headstock end, so the straps at that end held the
headstock upright, and so the balance was mostly at the headstock end.
There was no tailstock at the time, but there was a turret, which I
believe that I removed. I can't be sure now, however.

one could then unbolt with the whole thing swinging, but it would
be very dangerous to do that - the load could fall, or shift and then
fall as the pallet does weirdness being partially attached to that
lathe. However, I would probably leave the hoist holding some tension
on the lathe, just in case all hell broke loose with the pallet while I
was unbolting it.

The pallet was resting on the legs of the engine hoist, with
tension on the strap to keep the lathe upright when the bolts were
undone. As it was, nothing shifted until I had all the bolts out (and
the steel strapping cut) and I started to lift the lathe clear of the
pallet. then, once I had enough clearance, I slid the pallet out, swung
the headstock towards the column (I had started with the column on the
operator's side of the lathe IIRC. The balance was pretty even front to
back, because the motor lived low in the pedestal, along with the big
step reduction pulleys.



We had no choice -- since the work needed to remove not only
that room's raised floor, but the one before it through which it came
would have been a major problem -- especially with the conduit and
plumbing below the floor. At least there was a nice long ramp before
the first room which would serve as the first test of whether it would
support what was being moved.

Scary thought, but I get the idea.

And -- it was pros doing the delivery. I just stood back and
watched. They had a lot less difficulty moving the lathe and the
milling machine (a Bridgeport clone with Anilam CNC) than they did
moving the optical tables -- honeycomb aluminum between steel plates of
about 1/4" thickness or perhaps 5/16", with 1/4-20 holes drilled and
tapped about every two inches in a grid pattern on the top. The
honeycomb was 12" high between the plates. Then the bottom plate was
attached to six steel column legs with pneumatic height control in each
leg to isolate from floor vibration. They even made moving those look
pretty easy -- but they took their time, and never got themselves
between the load and anything else. :-)

I really enjoy my Jacobs chuck, and will probably end up buying another
one to live on a 3MT arbor - later.

Wait until you've done a few projects with the Rohm keyless
chuck. (I do presume that the Rohm is keyless and the Jacobs is keyed,
though both make both styles. And I have a nice Jacobs keyless on my
drill press (which came with a 5/8" or 3/4" clone of a Jacobs chuck --
always too big for metalworking with the slowest speed available from
the spindle. :-)

Please be careful, as my evil twin is the one who buys all this stuff; I
am fairly certain he settled for a keyed chuck Humor aside, I might
be in for a pleasant surprise, but I was trying to balance price and
quality, and the Enco tech suggested the Rohm as a worthy compromise.
Worst case, it will become a backup to my Jacobs.

I've got a 3/8" Rohm which is the largest of three tailstock
chucks in my little Emco-Maier Compact-5/CNC lathe. The other two are a
1/4" Albrecht an a 1/8" Albrecht -- each giving progressively more room
between the headstock and the chuck, and progressively better gripping
of smaller drills. I've comfortably used a #70 drill bit in the 1/8"
chuck, and would feel comfortable with even a #80 -- it was just that
the #70 was the smallest that I needed to use at that time.

The Rohm is pretty much equal in quality to the Albrecht, and is
the keyless chuck which I have had the longest.

Remember, to *properly* tighten a Jacobs style keyed chuck, you
are supposed to tighten it in each of the three key stations. Not much
of a problem in a drill press, but awkward to reach when mounted on the
tailstock. The keyless tightens by a twist of the wrist, with no tool
(key) to get lost in the chip tray. And, if it needs to be any tighter,
the work load tightens it automatically.

Some of the cheaper clones can over-tighten and need a strap
wrench to loosen, but the real Albrecht and the Rhom have never needed
that -- nor the 1/2" Jacobs keyless which is in the drill press (except
when a tapping head is in it. :-)

[ ... ]

True, but it still has been useful at times.

For that matter, I learned a lot from the manual for my Unimat
SL-1000, including tricks which I have not seen documented in manuals
for larger machines. :-)

The "manual" with the lathe will give you details about the
lathe, but not instructions on how to use it.
It is actually pretty good - one of the best I have seen on a Chinese
machine.

Hmm ... a significant improvement from one for the Jet from
around 1980-85.

I bought my last Jet machine a couple of years ago. The clincher was
when I called them to point out that they had an safety latch that
needed to remain in place bolted at one point, and that it would
eventually pivot. Nutty me, I thought they would want to know - they
didn't care, nor did they seem to even grasp how stupid the design might
be, nor that they might want to find somebody who might understand same.
Anyway, it *did* fail as I predicted.

Oops!

BTW I would suggest that you retire the 4-station turret toolpost
And instead get a BXA sized quick-change toolpost to put on
there. If you've got the money, start with an Aloris starter

[ ... ]

I believe that to be excellent advice. It sounds very familiar from my
earlier research on this purchase. Given what the IRS is going to do to
me in a few weeks, it will have to wait. I almost didn't buy the lathe
to be honest.

O.K. So keep your eyes open for sales for the Phase-II wedge
style set. I got mine from such a sale -- choosing to pay more for the
wedge style over the piston style.

Great minds... I fully expect to go that route,

I was lucky that Dave Ficken had a sale on the Phase II sets
shortly after I got the lathe. And -- I still had enough money to get
it. :-) He has stopped being a machine seller (mostly used, but some new
accessories like the quick-change toolposts), and gone back to merchant
marine work.

I just have to slow
down the flow of green stuff out of my wallet for a while. If the
Phase-II is anything like the RT they make, it will be very much worth
the money. I assume/hope that I will be able to function with the
existing post while I fumble my way along with learning what the new toy
can do.

O.K. Stock up on shim stock of various thicknesses, as you will
need a stack of shims to bring each tool to the proper height. At least
some who use such toolposts make a practice of keeping each tool in a
pill bottle with the needed stack of shims, so they don't lose the time
needed to select the right shims each time. And for inexpensive shim
stock, cut open a soda can. I think that you will find the aluminum
walls to be 0.001" thick.

After I recover from April 15 and brace for the local guys
mugging me later in the year, I can start looking for sales.

Hmm ... your state. like Virginia, has the state tax deadline
later than the federal? I wonder how many states do that these days?

[ ... ]

If you had two side by side, and firmly clamped that way, it
would be a lot better than one at a time.

That is what I did. One of the parts is a singleton, but I would no
doubt give it a shorter peer to help stabilize it. The other reason to
cut two at a time was that I wanted them to be the same length, whatever
that turned out to be. Now that I think about it, if I put that
improvised stop in the center, it should be able to work for both tubes,
allowing me to the lengths the same - I think

O.K.

Mount it sideways in the vise, mill one side of each (plus
a little over half-way through the other two sides, then set up a stop
on the table so you can mount each piece to line up with the previous
cut when you do the final cut.
To clarify, I would bring the stop into contact with the lower end of
the first cut, tighten, and then move the part, right? My usual stops
would probably trick me; they work nicely, but always seem to move a
little when tightened - not a problem the way I use them. However, a
v-block and a parallel or something held in place with clamps should do it.

I would just make a cut through a bit over half of the height of
each one not worrying about the end stop then. Then rotate one piece 90
degrees, so there is both a top and a bottom section machined together.
Set the stop to press on a bottom section of the machined area, lock it,
and then move the X-axis to bring the edge of the end mill just barely
contact with the end. IIRC, cigarette rolling papers are supposed to be
good for this -- moisten one, and stick it on the end of the machined
surface, and bring the X-axis in until the endmill just whisks the paper
away -- you are then within 0.001".

Now -- lock the X-axis, stop the spindle, crank the Y-axis clear
in such a direction so you will be doing conventional milling not climb
milling when you bring the mill back into contact, loosen the vise, and
rotate the workpiece so the long un-milled part is on top and the long
machined part is on the bottom in contact with the work stop. Tighten
the vise, mill through the un-machined work (with a little overlap),
loosen the vise, crank the Y-axis back to where it was before, and clamp
the next half-done workpiece against the stop. Repeat until all are
done on that end. Then carefully cut to final length on one side of the
other end of all parts (perhaps setting the stop at the already milled
in now if all are to be the same length), and machine each one top flip
bottom and on to the next.

Dumb question: after the first cut puts the machined surface right at
the edge of the tool, right?

Only at the top and a little over half-way down each side.

Would not a stop set against it (firm but
not deformed) be in just the right place w/o moving the table? I need
to read it a few more times, but you appear to have added a step. What
does that fix?

1) You have to unclamp the workpiece and rotate it 90 degrees and
reclamp to bring a portion of the machined edge to the bottom
for setting the stop there.. If you have the stop set at the
top, it will be setting with the rough saw cut material, not the
machined material from the first pass. You want the stop set at
the bottom, where it can be setting from the already-machined
edge to keep things lined up for the next cut. (And then you
have to rotate the first workpiece another 90 degrees before you
actually cut, so the fully machined edge is at the bottom, and
the fully un-machined edge is at the top.

2) You said that you were having problems with the stop moving
a bit as you tightened it, so this was to allow you to
compensate for that motion (once) by re-establishing your zero
point.

Enjoy,
DoN.

--
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--- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---

On 2008-03-23, Bill Schwab wrote:
Don,

From what I have read, the gear-head machines have been made
with more attention to such matters than the belt-driven ones from the
same source -- and the larger lathes better made than the smaller ones.
All that extra money pays for more than just more cast iron. :-)

FWIW, I have gotten to know one of the Enco techs, and he seems to think
the lathe I bought is a good one. I will ask him about this, but
suspect he will agree with you.

O.K.

I would suggest taking apart and checking the compound and the
cross slide. If those are well done, you probably have pretty good
chances with the rest. Maybe take apart and check the tailstock as
well.

That seems reasonable.

Except that another posting shows that there can be significant
grit trapped inside a gearhead lathe.

Taking apart the gear-head headstock to sufficient level of
detail is a major undertaking.

I feared as much. Is there a good compromise: open a panel and look for
signs of trouble?

You'll have to ask the fellow who has done it, and who posted
last night (unless he has already answered in this thread). What he
found was blisters of paint holding large clumps of sand in the corners
of the gearcase. If that is the case, it *might* stay put with only
slow cutting all the time, but with high spindle speeds stirring up the
lubricant, it might well pop those blisters and let the sand get into
circulation with the oil. I wonder whether there is a filter to capture
that grit?

I've never seen the inside of a gear-head lathe.

Good luck,
DoN.

--
Email: | Voice (all times): (703) 938-4564
(too) near Washington D.C. | http://www.d-and-d.com/dnichols/DoN.html
--- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---

Don,

I would have used the engine hoist from the start for unloading
from the pickup --
Good to know. At the risk of appearing to cross-examine (in reality I
simply want to understand to get the most out of your helpful
descriptions), unload from the _pickup_??? Would you still have done
the ramp transfer, or would you have gone flatbed-ground-hoist?

The delivery truck had a bed which was about at the height of my
forehead, with no hydraulic tailgate. The lathe was simply one of a
number of machines and other loads strapped to the bed of the truck and
under tarps.

That is a somewhat scary picture considering that the truck has to turn
=:0 I have never looked at the dynamics, but I am left wondering
whether the weight of the tractor is somehow responsible for keeping the
whole mess from tipping over.


The trip down the ramp from the delivery truck's bed to
the pickup (a tall 4WD 3/4 ton pickup by Mazda) was the shortest
descent, helped by the steep driveway. The truck pulled up across my
driveway at the street, and I backed the pickup down the driveway until
one end of the ramp was on the edge of the delivery truck and the other
end was against the front of the bed of my pickup so it could not slide.
We set up high density foam to protect the front of the bed and the cab,
and gently slid the lathe down the ramp after levering the end of the
pallet up just enough to start it onto the top of the ramp. He had
places to anchor a rope for tailing so we could control the rate of
descent.

Thanks for the detail. My remaining question is how you got the ramp
off the flatbed? Was it simply that the lathe was far enough away to
give you mechanical advantage, or did this involve the classic "Hey
ya'll, watch this!" - wait, you survived, so it couldn't have been that



Yes. The hoist just could not have done the other end, unless I
had some way to mount it on the pickup, which I did not.

Got it.



I still do not quite follow (sorry). Unless the idea was to lower onto
cribbing to have stable foundation while you unbolted the pallet?

No. The lathe with pallet was lowered onto the legs of the
engine hoist, giving easier access to removing the bolts which held it
to the pallet. Then it was lifted just enough to allow the pallet to be
slid out from under it, then rotated so the headstock end would fit
between the extended legs, and lowered to the concrete floor.

If it would not fit between the legs, the only choice would have
been to lower it onto cribbing, remove the hoist, and then lower it to
the floor one piece of cribbing at a time.

Understood.


Without the cribbing, the
lathe would held the hoist captive forever, since it would have to sit
on the legs.

I think I (finally!!! - thanks for patience) follow. I guess what I
should have been asking is, ok, the lathe's on the ground and you have
removed the hoist - now what? However, if you could not straddle it, I
suppose the hoist would be useless for mounting on a stand?? I guess
one could crib the stand?



The pallet was resting on the legs of the engine hoist, with
tension on the strap to keep the lathe upright when the bolts were
undone. As it was, nothing shifted until I had all the bolts out (and
the steel strapping cut) and I started to lift the lathe clear of the
pallet.

Makes sense.


then, once I had enough clearance, I slid the pallet out, swung
the headstock towards the column (I had started with the column on the
operator's side of the lathe IIRC. The balance was pretty even front to
back, because the motor lived low in the pedestal, along with the big
step reduction pulleys.

Front to back balance will be interesting. Hope springs eternal It
suddenly occurs to me that I might be able to run the slings to make the
lathe want to be in the headstock-near-column position. I often end up
putting slings over the bolt on my hoist vs. catching them with the hook.


And -- it was pros doing the delivery. I just stood back and
watched. They had a lot less difficulty moving the lathe and the
milling machine (a Bridgeport clone with Anilam CNC) than they did
moving the optical tables -- honeycomb aluminum between steel plates of
about 1/4" thickness or perhaps 5/16", with 1/4-20 holes drilled and
tapped about every two inches in a grid pattern on the top. The
honeycomb was 12" high between the plates. Then the bottom plate was
attached to six steel column legs with pneumatic height control in each
leg to isolate from floor vibration. They even made moving those look
pretty easy -- but they took their time, and never got themselves
between the load and anything else. :-)

Those isolation tables are great fun if you like making holograms.
IIRC, the one in my lab of old was delivered via crane and somehow poked
through the 3rd floor window.



Remember, to *properly* tighten a Jacobs style keyed chuck, you
are supposed to tighten it in each of the three key stations.

I actually do that. Really


Not much
of a problem in a drill press, but awkward to reach when mounted on the
tailstock.

I hadn't thought of that. I knew there was a reason I went the cheaper
route. Would it be reasonable to simply remove the chuck from the
tailstock, tighten, and then re-mount it? Annoyance aside, will the MT
arbor re-align properly?




I bought my last Jet machine a couple of years ago. The clincher was
when I called them to point out that they had an safety latch that
needed to remain in place bolted at one point, and that it would
eventually pivot. Nutty me, I thought they would want to know - they
didn't care, nor did they seem to even grasp how stupid the design might
be, nor that they might want to find somebody who might understand same.
Anyway, it *did* fail as I predicted.

Oops!

Hopefully I am not the only one who looks at it and realizes it will
fail when most needed. Like I said, it was my last purchase from Jet.




O.K. Stock up on shim stock of various thicknesses, as you will
need a stack of shims to bring each tool to the proper height. At least
some who use such toolposts make a practice of keeping each tool in a
pill bottle with the needed stack of shims, so they don't lose the time
needed to select the right shims each time.

Nice. I keep my taps and associated drill bits in plastic bags, so that
shouldn't bother me too much.


And for inexpensive shim
stock, cut open a soda can. I think that you will find the aluminum
walls to be 0.001" thick.

Thanks for mentioning that.



After I recover from April 15 and brace for the local guys
mugging me later in the year, I can start looking for sales.

Hmm ... your state. like Virginia, has the state tax deadline
later than the federal? I wonder how many states do that these days?

FL has been smart enough to avoid taxing income. However, they really
smack us around on property taxes.




Dumb question: after the first cut puts the machined surface right at
the edge of the tool, right?

Only at the top and a little over half-way down each side.

That's the part that has been machined, and rotating brings the "surface
formerly known as the top" into contact with the stop.


Would not a stop set against it (firm but
not deformed) be in just the right place w/o moving the table? I need
to read it a few more times, but you appear to have added a step. What
does that fix?

1) You have to unclamp the workpiece and rotate it 90 degrees and
reclamp to bring a portion of the machined edge to the bottom
for setting the stop there.. If you have the stop set at the
top, it will be setting with the rough saw cut material, not the
machined material from the first pass. You want the stop set at
the bottom, where it can be setting from the already-machined
edge to keep things lined up for the next cut. (And then you
have to rotate the first workpiece another 90 degrees before you
actually cut, so the fully machined edge is at the bottom, and
the fully un-machined edge is at the top.

I think what I might end up doing is setting the stop under the top
surface but on the machined portion from the first pass, at center line
of the two pieces. I _think_ if I rotate them in opposite directions,
it will allow me to clean them up using the one stop.


2) You said that you were having problems with the stop moving
a bit as you tightened it,

Very true - thanks for following that closely. I bought the $18 wonders
from Enco, and ended up with two of them, one configured for something
small in the center of my vise, and the other expecting a longer part
"spilling out" of the vise. Because they move when tightened, I set
them and then put a clean edge in contact with them to edge find and
zero the x-axis.

However, I think I can improvise something with a block, a parallel or
similar item, and a clamp. I should be able to tap the stop into
contact and then tighten the clamp w/o too much fear of storing up
strain energy.



so this was to allow you to
compensate for that motion (once) by re-establishing your zero
point.

That helps. I will re-read with that in mind.


Thanks!!!

Bill

On 2008-03-24, Bill Schwab wrote:
Don,

[ ... ]

The delivery truck had a bed which was about at the height of my
forehead, with no hydraulic tailgate. The lathe was simply one of a
number of machines and other loads strapped to the bed of the truck and
under tarps.

That is a somewhat scary picture considering that the truck has to turn
=:0 I have never looked at the dynamics, but I am left wondering
whether the weight of the tractor is somehow responsible for keeping the
whole mess from tipping over.

Mostly the weight of the whole load on the flatbed, plus the
wide spread of the rear wheels (two axles with four wheels each).
During a steep turn, two rear axles of the tractor are parallel to the
bed of the truck so they don't offer much help other than the weight of
the engine and cab fighting twisting in one direction and the front
wheels fighting twisting in the other direction. But you don't take
that sharp a turn at any speed at all. (Hmm ... also the distance
between the front and rear-most of the tractor's rear axles might be
enough to help a bit too. But -- I'm not sure how much of a twist load
the fifth-wheel which connects the trailer to the tractor can take.

Depend on trained drivers who know how slow to take turns. :-)

The trip down the ramp from the delivery truck's bed to
the pickup (a tall 4WD 3/4 ton pickup by Mazda) was the shortest
descent, helped by the steep driveway. The truck pulled up across my
driveway at the street, and I backed the pickup down the driveway until
one end of the ramp was on the edge of the delivery truck and the other
end was against the front of the bed of my pickup so it could not slide.
We set up high density foam to protect the front of the bed and the cab,
and gently slid the lathe down the ramp after levering the end of the
pallet up just enough to start it onto the top of the ramp. He had
places to anchor a rope for tailing so we could control the rate of
descent.

Thanks for the detail. My remaining question is how you got the ramp
off the flatbed? Was it simply that the lathe was far enough away to
give you mechanical advantage, or did this involve the classic "Hey
ya'll, watch this!" - wait, you survived, so it couldn't have been that

It was near contacting the tailgate, and with the headstock
weight near the cab, it was not that difficult to lift the tail end of
the pallet a little and close the tailgate under it to hold it up. I
carefully tied the lathe to keep it close to the cab, since I was going
to be driving up a steep driveway with it.

I also had a floor jack which I could have put under the
tailgate end of the pallet to lift it clear.

But I tend to not believe in "Hey ya'll, watch this!" type of
operations. :-) I also won't drink even beer until the task is done,
just as when I go shooting.

[ ... ]

Without the cribbing, the
lathe would held the hoist captive forever, since it would have to sit
on the legs.

I think I (finally!!! - thanks for patience) follow. I guess what I
should have been asking is, ok, the lathe's on the ground and you have
removed the hoist - now what? However, if you could not straddle it, I
suppose the hoist would be useless for mounting on a stand?? I guess
one could crib the stand?

Remember -- the pedestal of this lathe was firmly attached to
the rest of it -- complete with two drawers full of heavy accessories
at the tailstock end.
I never had to even consider lifting the lathe without the pedestal.

[ ... ]

then, once I had enough clearance, I slid the pallet out, swung
the headstock towards the column (I had started with the column on the
operator's side of the lathe IIRC. The balance was pretty even front to
back, because the motor lived low in the pedestal, along with the big
step reduction pulleys.

Front to back balance will be interesting. Hope springs eternal It
suddenly occurs to me that I might be able to run the slings to make the
lathe want to be in the headstock-near-column position. I often end up
putting slings over the bolt on my hoist vs. catching them with the hook.

The thing which Fitch made for lifting his with a hoist was a
pair of thick steel plates to go above and below the bed rails, joined
by a long threaded section of a long eye bolt. The plates were clamped
onto the bed by a nut above and a nut below, and the eye was above the
highest part of the headstock so the weight balance was not such as
would make it easy to turn over. Also -- he clamped it near a
headstock-to-tailstock balance pont and moved the carriage to fine tune
the balance.

[ ... ]

attached to six steel column legs with pneumatic height control in each
leg to isolate from floor vibration. They even made moving those look
pretty easy -- but they took their time, and never got themselves
between the load and anything else. :-)

Those isolation tables are great fun if you like making holograms.
IIRC, the one in my lab of old was delivered via crane and somehow poked
through the 3rd floor window.

Hmm -- something which I certainly would not want to be under.
our building was all concrete floor at a single level. It had been used
during WW-II for experiments with tanks and lighting systems mounted on
them, so the floor was *thick*.

Remember, to *properly* tighten a Jacobs style keyed chuck, you
are supposed to tighten it in each of the three key stations.

I actually do that. Really

Good! As do I. And this is why I don't like Jacobs style in a
tailstock.

Not much
of a problem in a drill press, but awkward to reach when mounted on the
tailstock.

I hadn't thought of that. I knew there was a reason I went the cheaper
route. Would it be reasonable to simply remove the chuck from the
tailstock, tighten, and then re-mount it? Annoyance aside, will the MT
arbor re-align properly?

That depends on how accurate the tailstock taper and the drill
chuck arbor are. With mine, I have only two possible orientations,
because there is a slot in the tailstock ram for the tang on the Morse
taper. However, I've used some lathes where the tailstock ram is bored
to allow the tang to enter at any angle. If you have the slot, install
the chuck to the arbor so in one of the two positions one of the key
holes points straight up, and then you will re-install it in the same
orientation. Then the only thing to worry about is chips getting into
the taper during the operation. But I change from drill chuck to live
center to (sometimes) Morse taper shanked drill bits in the larger sies,
and occasionally other things -- including a small 3-jaw chuck mounted on
an interchangeable point live center to support a tubular workpiece from
the inside while I threaded the end of the OD.

I bought my last Jet machine a couple of years ago. The clincher was
when I called them to point out that they had an safety latch that
needed to remain in place bolted at one point, and that it would
eventually pivot. Nutty me, I thought they would want to know - they
didn't care, nor did they seem to even grasp how stupid the design might
be, nor that they might want to find somebody who might understand same.
Anyway, it *did* fail as I predicted.

Oops!

Hopefully I am not the only one who looks at it and realizes it will
fail when most needed. Like I said, it was my last purchase from Jet.

How big a Jet machine was this? Generally, the larger the
better from what I have seen.

O.K. Stock up on shim stock of various thicknesses, as you will
need a stack of shims to bring each tool to the proper height. At least
some who use such toolposts make a practice of keeping each tool in a
pill bottle with the needed stack of shims, so they don't lose the time
needed to select the right shims each time.

Nice. I keep my taps and associated drill bits in plastic bags, so that
shouldn't bother me too much.

Good.

And for inexpensive shim
stock, cut open a soda can. I think that you will find the aluminum
walls to be 0.001" thick.

Thanks for mentioning that.

It is useful for sudden needs for shim stock when the stores are
either closed or too long a drive.



After I recover from April 15 and brace for the local guys
mugging me later in the year, I can start looking for sales.

Hmm ... your state. like Virginia, has the state tax deadline
later than the federal? I wonder how many states do that these days?

FL has been smart enough to avoid taxing income. However, they really
smack us around on property taxes.

Hmm ... IIRC, Texas had no income tax, too -- though I don't
know whether that has changed since.

Dumb question: after the first cut puts the machined surface right at
the edge of the tool, right?

Only at the top and a little over half-way down each side.

That's the part that has been machined, and rotating brings the "surface
formerly known as the top" into contact with the stop.

Yes -- but the rotating means that you have lost the position
which you already had, which is why you have to re-set it.

Would not a stop set against it (firm but
not deformed) be in just the right place w/o moving the table? I need
to read it a few more times, but you appear to have added a step. What
does that fix?

1) You have to unclamp the workpiece and rotate it 90 degrees and
reclamp to bring a portion of the machined edge to the bottom
for setting the stop there.. If you have the stop set at the
top, it will be setting with the rough saw cut material, not the
machined material from the first pass. You want the stop set at
the bottom, where it can be setting from the already-machined
edge to keep things lined up for the next cut. (And then you
have to rotate the first workpiece another 90 degrees before you
actually cut, so the fully machined edge is at the bottom, and
the fully un-machined edge is at the top.

I think what I might end up doing is setting the stop under the top
surface but on the machined portion from the first pass, at center line
of the two pieces.

So you can cheerfully machine away the stop, too? :-) I see it
as run through all of the pieces machining the top with just a rough
setting, then establish the position for the stop, and finally machine
the new top once the stop can assure that it remains in line with the
first.

I _think_ if I rotate them in opposite directions,
it will allow me to clean them up using the one stop.

??? -- three cuts instead of two? The original cut full width
at the top, then two other positions for subsequent cuts? I think that
the way I have it would take fewer changes and thus less time and less
chance for errors.

2) You said that you were having problems with the stop moving
a bit as you tightened it,

Very true - thanks for following that closely. I bought the $18 wonders
from Enco, and ended up with two of them, one configured for something
small in the center of my vise, and the other expecting a longer part
"spilling out" of the vise. Because they move when tightened, I set
them and then put a clean edge in contact with them to edge find and
zero the x-axis.

Which was what I was expecting, with nothing other than the
stock you are machining to transfer the positions.

However, I think I can improvise something with a block, a parallel or
similar item, and a clamp. I should be able to tap the stop into
contact and then tighten the clamp w/o too much fear of storing up
strain energy.

I would not trust it if it is one of those stops which have an
angled piece holding the stop rod above the table and closer to the
workpiece.



so this was to allow you to
compensate for that motion (once) by re-establishing your zero
point.

That helps. I will re-read with that in mind.

Good Luck,
DoN.

--
Email: | Voice (all times): (703) 938-4564
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--- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---

Don,

Mostly the weight of the whole load on the flatbed, plus the
wide spread of the rear wheels (two axles with four wheels each).
During a steep turn, two rear axles of the tractor are parallel to the
bed of the truck so they don't offer much help other than the weight of
the engine and cab fighting twisting in one direction and the front
wheels fighting twisting in the other direction. But you don't take
that sharp a turn at any speed at all. (Hmm ... also the distance
between the front and rear-most of the tractor's rear axles might be
enough to help a bit too. But -- I'm not sure how much of a twist load
the fifth-wheel which connects the trailer to the tractor can take.

Depend on trained drivers who know how slow to take turns. :-)

I watched a truck make a turn in front of me just last night. Sad to
say, I had never thought about it before, but the turn does create a
wider wheelbase and the engine is at least in a position to provide a
counter weight. I suspect this is why the truck/tractor connection is
done with plates: transfer torque to exploit that counter weight, not to
mention control the tractor. That said, the driver indeed took it easy
on speed during the turn



It was near contacting the tailgate, and with the headstock
weight near the cab, it was not that difficult to lift the tail end of
the pallet a little and close the tailgate under it to hold it up. I
carefully tied the lathe to keep it close to the cab, since I was going
to be driving up a steep driveway with it.

Got it.



But I tend to not believe in "Hey ya'll, watch this!" type of
operations. :-) I also won't drink even beer until the task is done,
just as when I go shooting.

Words to (continue to) live by.



Without the cribbing, the
lathe would held the hoist captive forever, since it would have to sit
on the legs.
I think I (finally!!! - thanks for patience) follow. I guess what I
should have been asking is, ok, the lathe's on the ground and you have
removed the hoist - now what? However, if you could not straddle it, I
suppose the hoist would be useless for mounting on a stand?? I guess
one could crib the stand?

Remember -- the pedestal of this lathe was firmly attached to
the rest of it -- complete with two drawers full of heavy accessories
at the tailstock end.
I never had to even consider lifting the lathe without the pedestal.

You did say that Thanks for saying it again.



The thing which Fitch made for lifting his with a hoist was a
pair of thick steel plates to go above and below the bed rails, joined
by a long threaded section of a long eye bolt. The plates were clamped
onto the bed by a nut above and a nut below, and the eye was above the
highest part of the headstock so the weight balance was not such as
would make it easy to turn over. Also -- he clamped it near a
headstock-to-tailstock balance pont and moved the carriage to fine tune
the balance.

Ok.




Good! As do I. And this is why I don't like Jacobs style in a
tailstock.

I'm glad I went easy on the cash. The chuck and live center arrived
yesterday; they look pretty good.



Not much
of a problem in a drill press, but awkward to reach when mounted on the
tailstock.
I hadn't thought of that. I knew there was a reason I went the cheaper
route. Would it be reasonable to simply remove the chuck from the
tailstock, tighten, and then re-mount it? Annoyance aside, will the MT
arbor re-align properly?

That depends on how accurate the tailstock taper and the drill
chuck arbor are. With mine, I have only two possible orientations,
because there is a slot in the tailstock ram for the tang on the Morse
taper. However, I've used some lathes where the tailstock ram is bored
to allow the tang to enter at any angle. If you have the slot, install
the chuck to the arbor so in one of the two positions one of the key
holes points straight up, and then you will re-install it in the same
orientation.

Excellent idea!


Then the only thing to worry about is chips getting into
the taper during the operation.

That is always a risk. I use a shop vac to remove what I can before
removing anything that might let chips have a party.



How big a Jet machine was this? Generally, the larger the
better from what I have seen.

A bandsaw, nothing huge. Still, the damn thing is just plain dangerous
as designed.



I think what I might end up doing is setting the stop under the top
surface but on the machined portion from the first pass, at center line
of the two pieces.

So you can cheerfully machine away the stop, too? :-) I see it
as run through all of the pieces machining the top with just a rough
setting, then establish the position for the stop, and finally machine
the new top once the stop can assure that it remains in line with the
first.

I _think_ if I rotate them in opposite directions,
it will allow me to clean them up using the one stop.

??? -- three cuts instead of two? The original cut full width
at the top, then two other positions for subsequent cuts? I think that
the way I have it would take fewer changes and thus less time and less
chance for errors.

I might change my tune when I try it, but I do not think the stop gets
clobbered, as the subsequent cuts would be shallow by comparison to the
first/witness cut. If I am visualizing it properly, machined surfaces
index into place to contact the stop which lives below the endmill.



I would not trust it if it is one of those stops which have an
angled piece holding the stop rod above the table and closer to the
workpiece.

That sounds about right for my normal stops, and yes, I would not trust
them in this situation. When I tighten them "in the breeze" there is no
problem, but against a clamped part, I would expect them to deform with
error as the result.

Thanks!!

Bill

On 2008-03-26, Bill Schwab wrote:
Don,

[ ... ]

Depend on trained drivers who know how slow to take turns. :-)

I watched a truck make a turn in front of me just last night. Sad to
say, I had never thought about it before, but the turn does create a
wider wheelbase and the engine is at least in a position to provide a
counter weight. I suspect this is why the truck/tractor connection is
done with plates: transfer torque to exploit that counter weight, not to
mention control the tractor. That said, the driver indeed took it easy
on speed during the turn

As any good driver should. I guess that a lowboy flatbed would
allow a bit more speed, but still not a good idea.

[ ... ]

But I tend to not believe in "Hey ya'll, watch this!" type of
operations. :-) I also won't drink even beer until the task is done,
just as when I go shooting.

Words to (continue to) live by.

:-)

[ ... ]

Good! As do I. And this is why I don't like Jacobs style in a
tailstock.

I'm glad I went easy on the cash. The chuck and live center arrived
yesterday; they look pretty good.

Great! I know that Rhom is good based on what I have (the 3/8"
one). Not sure who made our live center, but hopefully that is also a
good one.

[ ... ]

tailstock, tighten, and then re-mount it? Annoyance aside, will the MT
arbor re-align properly?

That depends on how accurate the tailstock taper and the drill
chuck arbor are. With mine, I have only two possible orientations,
because there is a slot in the tailstock ram for the tang on the Morse
taper. However, I've used some lathes where the tailstock ram is bored
to allow the tang to enter at any angle. If you have the slot, install
the chuck to the arbor so in one of the two positions one of the key
holes points straight up, and then you will re-install it in the same
orientation.

Excellent idea!

In my case, the slot for the tang is horizontal -- with access
via a pair of milled slots to allow a drift key to be used to pop things
out at need.

Then the only thing to worry about is chips getting into
the taper during the operation.

That is always a risk. I use a shop vac to remove what I can before
removing anything that might let chips have a party.

Good -- but noisy. :-)

How big a Jet machine was this? Generally, the larger the
better from what I have seen.

A bandsaw, nothing huge. Still, the damn thing is just plain dangerous
as designed.

Hmm ... is this their version of the 4x6 horizontal/vertical
bandsaw? I've got the MSC version and the prop to hold it in the
vertical position is metal and good and solid.

I think what I might end up doing is setting the stop under the top
surface but on the machined portion from the first pass, at center line
of the two pieces.

So you can cheerfully machine away the stop, too? :-) I see it
as run through all of the pieces machining the top with just a rough
setting, then establish the position for the stop, and finally machine
the new top once the stop can assure that it remains in line with the
first.

I _think_ if I rotate them in opposite directions,
it will allow me to clean them up using the one stop.

??? -- three cuts instead of two? The original cut full width
at the top, then two other positions for subsequent cuts? I think that
the way I have it would take fewer changes and thus less time and less
chance for errors.

I might change my tune when I try it, but I do not think the stop gets
clobbered, as the subsequent cuts would be shallow by comparison to the
first/witness cut. If I am visualizing it properly, machined surfaces
index into place to contact the stop which lives below the endmill.

O.K. I was assuming that the height of the endmill would be the
same for both passes -- so anything which the stop could be set to in
the initial orientation would be within reach of the endmill in the
second orientation.



I would not trust it if it is one of those stops which have an
angled piece holding the stop rod above the table and closer to the
workpiece.

That sounds about right for my normal stops, and yes, I would not trust
them in this situation. When I tighten them "in the breeze" there is no
problem, but against a clamped part, I would expect them to deform with
error as the result.

O.K. A solid block which bolts down with a T-stud followed by
adjusting a threaded rod to contact, and tightening a locknut to keep it
there would probably have little deformation -- unless you crank too
hard on the rod before locknuting it. There may still be a 0.001" to
0.002" offset unless you have a constant pressure against the stop each
time. Hmm -- or mount a dial indicator to measure the end of the
workpiece, zero it, and withdraw the contact during machining.

Enjoy,
DoN.

--
Email: | Voice (all times): (703) 938-4564
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--- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---