Lathe Progress

Makin' a little headway around here of late. In the photo above is the new drill chuck and arbor. I bought it off EBay for a song. Maybe not the same quality as a Jacobs but I'm sure it'll do fine for what I'm planning on working on and as often as that'll happen. The pieces for the compound and cross slide both had some pieces missing to hold the gibs in place.

The lock nuts for the setscrews are smaller than standard machine screw nuts. The one on the compound is for an 8-32 screw but the nut size is as if it were a #4 screw. I had one in house so I drilled and tapped it for the larger size screw to match what was on there. Likewise the cross slide - 8-32 nuts drilled and tapped for 10-32 screws. I was missing one of the setscrews but I had one of those as well. The new one has a hex head instead of a screwdriver slot and the other end needs to be machined down a bit still, but it's coming along.

The micrometer in the photo is one that I've had for years and years. It's a mechanical digital, if there is such a thing. It reads to the thousandth with the numbers coming up visible in the three little windows. It also has a Vernier scale to read out to the ten-thousandths. It was packed in its foam lined little plastic box and when I opened it up I found that most of the foam had disintegrated, some of which had stuck to the mic like glue. I got it cleaned up and by coincidence, the Missus was tossing a glasses case that is just the right size for the mic to fit in. I learned that trick from an old millwright. Put the mic in the glasses case and it'll fit nice and handy in the top pocket of your bibs. If it happens to fall out, it'll be protected and it'll stay clean.

I ordered a quick change tool holder for the lathe that should be here any day also. It comes with the tool post and a few different tool holders. I probably won't need to buy much else for tooling. Won't matter if I don't get the rest of the lathe repaired but I plan to spend a couple of days out in the shop during Thanksgiving break working on lathe parts as well as a couple of other machining jobs I've got going.