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Thread: Hercus +rebuild with DRO
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11th Jun 2016, 11:47 PM #1New Member
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Hercus +rebuild with DRO
Hi All,
I've recently inherited a Hercus Lathe from work I think it's early 60s. Its all imperial and being a young lad (<50) I'm a metric person. There was a lot of slop in the cross feed so I thought about getting a new nut for it, but then thoughts changed to thoughts of upgrade to metric. But the cost would be about $500, and I thought would it better to stick with imperial new nut only and get a DRO attached to it.
Does any one have experience of attaching DRO to Hercus?
Thanks
Nick
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12th Jun 2016, 10:19 AM #2Senior Member
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I cant weigh in on the DRO question, but you can machine out some of the backlash from the nut / dial assembly. If you can get your hands on a copy of the Hercus textbook of turning, it covers it there. Only trick is, because the cross slide will be out of action, youll have to set the compound to 90° and use that to face the relevant features. It wont get rid of all of it, some of the backlash will be in the bronze nut. Another place you might find some slop is if the special round nuts dont fit down snugly. When I bought mine, it was crappy in all three spots, but with the dial and the threaded ends / nuts tidied up, its now tight enough to satisfy me.
Personally, id be tidying it all up before going to a DRO anyway.
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12th Jun 2016, 02:56 PM #3Product designer retired
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Nick, if I were you I would replace the worn nut with a new one from here, Hercus 9 or 260 imperial crosslide spindle nut --part Nos.22, 5H725
Mal is one of our members and has a fair range of Hercus spares. Any photos of your lathe?
Incidentally, send your lathe serial No. to Mal for inclusion on the Hercus register.
Ken
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12th Jun 2016, 03:02 PM #4New Member
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Thanks for the reply, Yes I could see the cross slide handle moving in and out especially during initial truing up of a bar. My love for DRO comes from my computer science/embedded electronics background.
I have disassembled the cross slide and there is noticeable movement in the nut on the thread, but the tread looks good seems to have the same play on any section of the thread. So I think I will invest in a new nut and some dome nuts + tool to tighten everything up!
Yep see how we go...
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12th Jun 2016, 04:59 PM #5australian metalworking hobbyist
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This is a modified example of the Textbook of turning instructions.
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12th Jun 2016, 08:36 PM #6New Member
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Thanks for that, yep I think I've talked to Mal. The problem with this is that I've taken things apart and now I want to use the lathe! Always the way. I have attached a few pics. I will order the nut and get her back together!
20160608_222154.jpg20160608_221432.jpg20160608_221355.jpg
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16th Jun 2016, 10:37 PM #7Most Valued Member
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Hercus +rebuild with DRO
Thanks for the info Mal. This is something I've wanted to do for a while, but this part of the instructions has never made sense to me:
The shank of the screw is then gripped in a 3 jaw chuck in the lathe and a light cut taken across the rear face of the graduated dial and screw at "C" making sure to do a light undercut on the screw shaft to give clearance for the crank handle.
To my mind the area marked C is the front face of the graduated dial, not the rear face.
Also, does anyone know where I can get a smallish piece of 0.03mm shim stock?
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17th Jun 2016, 08:47 AM #8Senior Member
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- Griffith NSW
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I did some at work (a highschool) with baking paper, worked fine. Rollie paper is also quite thin and works well.
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17th Jun 2016, 09:14 AM #9Most Valued Member
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Thanks Scotty.
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