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  1. #1
    Join Date
    May 2012
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    Default Cross slide reconditioning

    G'day gang,
    Before I get to the point of the title I am seeking help. The wife and I are off on holiday next week, Thailand and Malaysia, first holiday without the kids, Max is 19 and has his own agenda and Sophie who is 15 will be in the US with a school group, how are we going to cope????

    Seriously it will be great and we are looking forward to it.

    Now to the important stuff, I would like to get the cross slide of my Elliott lathe dialed in, so I am guessing maybe the dovetails skimmed and then the gib and mating surfaces scraped? Gib may need an addition? after the machining of the dovetails. I could be totally wrong and scraping all the surfaces is all that is required.
    So is there a member out there who would undertake this, or any suggestions of a firm who would do this.
    If I go to a firm I am sure it will cost me more than cash to a member. I am in no huge rush so it could be done at a pace that suits, I have plenty of work to do on the house extension.
    All costs would be met by myself, transport and so on and of course cash to who ever, if someone can help me out.

    Cheers
    Bruce

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Aug 2008
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    Default

    Well, I guess it all depends on what you want in the end.. For me it is not just a cut and dried answer...

    Here are my reasons why....

    Firstly if we talk about reconditioning there is a tolerance for cross slide squareness to the headstock.. For a general purpose machine up to 400mm swing, it is 0-0.02mm/300mm concave only..

    Now here is where it gets tricky.... There is a tolerance for headstock spindle parallel to the ways as well... It is the same 0-0.02mm/300mm but inclined towards the tool pressure only...

    This is why it is not a simple thing to sort out as it depends on what you want in the end... You could send me your cross slide and saddle and I could scrape it in, but what am I referencing it to? Which means you need the rest of the lathe, and is the rest of the lathe able to get reliable consistent measurements from? Or is the bed and saddle worn... Or does it not matter for you in the end if it is out by perhaps 0.1mm or more (I would not do it anyway as I do not have the time)

    Of course one other thing is, are the cross slide ways hardened?

    That is why to me it is not a simple question to answer...
    Gold, the colour of choice for the discerning person.

  3. #3
    Ueee's Avatar
    Ueee is offline Blacksmith, Cabinetmaker, Machinist, Messmaker
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    Dec 2011
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    Default

    I agree with what RC says, it is impossible to do a full reco without all of the lathe....

    However the cross slide can be scraped to be correct to the ways of the lathe by adjusting it to the V ways in the saddle. But if the head is out or the bed is worn it may not be correct to the head.

    What about the slides is "wrong" as they are?

    I could do it for you, and would enjoy myself doing it too, and i think it could be done pretty accurately if you could take some test cuts and do some careful measuring first.

    Someone closer who could do some work with the saddle on the lathe would be preferable though IMHO.

    Cheers,
    Ew
    1915 17"x50" LeBlond heavy duty Lathe, 24" Queen city shaper, 1970's G Vernier FV.3.TO Universal Mill, 1958 Blohm HFS 6 surface grinder, 1942 Rivett 715 Lathe, 14"x40" Antrac Lathe, Startrite H225 Bandsaw, 1949 Hercus Camelback Drill press, 1947 Holbrook C10 Lathe.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Aug 2011
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    Melbourne
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    If you do a thread search you will see that Stuart loves these sort of jobs!

    Enjoy your kid free holidays. Be a while before I can enjoy the same.

    Simon
    Girl, I don't wanna know about your mild-mannered alter ego or anything like that." I mean, you tell me you're, uh, super-mega-ultra-lightning babe? That's all right with me. I'm good. I'm good.

  5. #5
    Join Date
    May 2012
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    Vermont 3133 Victoria
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    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by simonl View Post
    If you do a thread search you will see that Stuart loves these sort of jobs!

    Enjoy your kid free holidays. Be a while before I can enjoy the same.

    Simon
    Thanks Guys for replying,
    The cross slide ways are not hardened,
    For a lathe of its age it has the usual, hard to find a sweet spot with the tapered gib, i.e. What's good in the middle of the travel is too tight at the ends. I can face in a range which gives a great finish but there is a range where it is not so good. I can get concentric circles which I think are in tune with the cross slide feed screw, 5 mm pitch. When I get back from OS I will post a video of the movement of the cross slide as it is traversed through its travel, you can clearly see how it moves towards the head. I am still a bit lost as the mass of the cross slide is not small. Not all that
    long ago I was machining up some parts for a guy from work and I had the saddle locked and the cross slide ran into the spanner that locks the saddle, basically pushed it down but I thought it must have bent the feed screw. Stripped it down and tweeked the feed screw on my ground plate and V blocks, maybe .5 of a thou deviation, but as I said the cross slide with the compound is quite a mass. The pattern on the face is more than this.

    Ewan, I now have 3 B series Mulitfix so maybe we can work something into the equation if you are up for the challenge.
    Cheers
    Bruce

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