Hello all,

It's here; it actually arrived yesterday. The arrival was not nearly
the big deal it could have been, thanks to a terrific driver and a
pallet jack.

I *know* I asked about the dials. They have both imperial and metric
labels on separate "sub-rings" that are staggered, and with staggered
pointers, but I still strongly suspect that it is an imperial machine;
the thread selections are strongly tilted toward imperial. When US
hardware stores switch, I'll _think_ about doing mechanics in metric
units BTW, the metric units for heat transfer beat the daylights out
of BTUs and friends - no argument there.

Back to the lathe. I will check the screws against an indicator, but
one thing that is clear is that they are 0.125/rev vs. the 0.1/rev I was
told to expect. Somehow I suspect it won't bother me as much as it
would on a mill. I like being able to pick off the last two digits to
get the dial reading; it seems as though I could easily adapt to
0.2/rev, but 0.125???? I know many of you say it comes naturally, and
you are typically bang on right; I still think it would bother me. No
DROs please. I'm too cheap first offg, and secondly I recently did
some RT work that I probably could not have done had I not practiced
with scales and dials. The manual approach works for me. I admit to
sometimes printing and cutting templates from 1:1 drawings to help
locate features when things get tricky.

Gently prodding some of the headstock levers, they appear to be a little
stubborn at times. Hopefully I have been clever enough to avoid
breaking it, but let me know if I should be worried about levers that
appear not to want to move to specific positions. I am assuming that
much of it is gear teeth in the way, and that one would move the spindle
to obtain favorable alignment??? I have yet to put power to it; there
are wiring puzzles to ponder before I can safely do that. I have
hydraulic oil on hand, but have yet to transfer the 3 GALLONS it is
supposed to hold ~:0

The 4-jaw chuck is quite nice - it looks about as well-made as my
Phase-II RT, which is saying something. Overall, the lathe looks like a
very stocky machine. From the little I have seen of the cross and
compound, they look nicely assembled - cosmoline everywhere, but no
obvious grit yet.

What I believe to be the face plate is (if I gave it a fair shake with a
quick inspection) not a thing of beauty, but it should serve. Is that
for the lathe analog of clamping to a mill table? Dare I ask how to do
precision setups on it? I suspect that most of my work will start out
held in the chucks. A few years from now, when I start spending money
againg, I will look for a 5C setup of some sort.

That's about all the crowing I have time to do right now - gotta go to
work in the morning. However, I will pick up with questions later. For
now, the lathe is safely in my garage, the crate is removed, and the
lathe sits on a skid (I guess that is what one would call it???) on top
of a pallet. Standing at the headstock end, the lathe is against the
right side of the pallet. So, I am thinking of cribbing the skid just
enough to unload the pallet, at which point I think I will be able to
break away the pallet and straddle the lathe/skid with my hoist and
sling the lathe. I promise not to burn bridges until I measure it. The
only problem I see is that from the tailstock end, the skid is not
sticking out very far, leaving what appears to be an angled bottom
surface. Would you recommend cribbing that end "inside the pallet," or
would you simply crib the pallet enough to get the hoist legs under it.
Cribbing just the skid would save a fair amount of lifting distance,
provided it works. However, maybe I need the practice with cribbing
anyway. Having the pallet adds lateral stability (I hope!), so it might
be a good option until the lathe is balanced on the slings.

Comments? The lathe (or life - foot for sure) you save could be my own.

MANY dumb questions to come.

Bill