MrFluffy
Hot Rolled
- Joined
- Jan 14, 2006
- Location
- Nomadic in Europe
Does anyone have any links to a guide to setting up the headstock alignment on a harrison (or any for that matter) lathe?
My lathe cannot cut straight and everything I do I have to turn a fitting in situ to hold the final workpiece and not remove it. If I put a bar in the three jaw and centre drill it, I can get more accuracy by eye using the drill press and a regular centre punch its that badly aligned and dead centres in the spindle and tailstock are a few mm off centre to each other.
Now, I know in the past the headstock was dismounted from the lathe bed for repair to the spindle, so my concern is how to make sure it is aligned straight. I did have a machinist friend of a friend come over a while back, and he made a few sample pieces on it and proclaimed it badly aligned but then after a few hours of hitting the chuck with a lump hammer trying to get it to run true told me it was beyond his talents (he didnt slacken any of the headstock->bed clamping bolts).
Most of the guides I have found by searching mention setting over the tailstock (which as far as I can tell isnt actually adjustable)to suit the headstock, but Im thinking its a problem with the head alignment (or worse, potentially both, or a bent headstock spindle.)
Ive got rid of all the play in the various slides etc, and fitted a T slotted table and amassed tooling to suit it, so Id quite like to spend time getting it right rather than just buying a "better" lathe that potentially will have problems of its own.
It has the heavy fabricated steel harrison solid stand, (1/4 a metric tonnes worth!) so the mountings are onto a rigid platform.
Any links/suggestions?
My lathe cannot cut straight and everything I do I have to turn a fitting in situ to hold the final workpiece and not remove it. If I put a bar in the three jaw and centre drill it, I can get more accuracy by eye using the drill press and a regular centre punch its that badly aligned and dead centres in the spindle and tailstock are a few mm off centre to each other.
Now, I know in the past the headstock was dismounted from the lathe bed for repair to the spindle, so my concern is how to make sure it is aligned straight. I did have a machinist friend of a friend come over a while back, and he made a few sample pieces on it and proclaimed it badly aligned but then after a few hours of hitting the chuck with a lump hammer trying to get it to run true told me it was beyond his talents (he didnt slacken any of the headstock->bed clamping bolts).
Most of the guides I have found by searching mention setting over the tailstock (which as far as I can tell isnt actually adjustable)to suit the headstock, but Im thinking its a problem with the head alignment (or worse, potentially both, or a bent headstock spindle.)
Ive got rid of all the play in the various slides etc, and fitted a T slotted table and amassed tooling to suit it, so Id quite like to spend time getting it right rather than just buying a "better" lathe that potentially will have problems of its own.
It has the heavy fabricated steel harrison solid stand, (1/4 a metric tonnes worth!) so the mountings are onto a rigid platform.
Any links/suggestions?