jermfab
Cast Iron
- Joined
- Jul 25, 2013
- Location
- atlanta, ga
I made mention of cracking the oil sight glass on my lathe last week. The helpful PM community steered me towards several places, but good ol’ eBay was the one that came through.
My lathe uses a press-in style sight glass as opposed to (what appears to be) the more common NPT or BST threaded sights. The sight glass hole finishes at .875, ironically just undersized for a 3/4” NPT tap. Both the apron and headstock take this same oil glass.
My question: on a scale of one to absolutely stupid, how foolish is the idea of reaming these holes to the 57/64” size for a 3/4” NPT tap and threading these holes?
I like the idea of having the maximum parts availability, always. Additionally, if I tap the parts for 3/4” NPT and have another freak accident I can at least plug the hole with a readily available pipe plug and the machine isn’t DOWN. Conversely there are all the issues with introducing cast iron chips into the lubrication system...
Anyhow, hoping someone older and wiser than myself will chime in with their $.02.
Thanks all
Jeremy
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
My lathe uses a press-in style sight glass as opposed to (what appears to be) the more common NPT or BST threaded sights. The sight glass hole finishes at .875, ironically just undersized for a 3/4” NPT tap. Both the apron and headstock take this same oil glass.
My question: on a scale of one to absolutely stupid, how foolish is the idea of reaming these holes to the 57/64” size for a 3/4” NPT tap and threading these holes?
I like the idea of having the maximum parts availability, always. Additionally, if I tap the parts for 3/4” NPT and have another freak accident I can at least plug the hole with a readily available pipe plug and the machine isn’t DOWN. Conversely there are all the issues with introducing cast iron chips into the lubrication system...
Anyhow, hoping someone older and wiser than myself will chime in with their $.02.
Thanks all
Jeremy
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk