I told a friend to cut the tang .He did, too short and I had to go over there and remove the arbor. I chucked the arbor and used the rest to hold up the tang end . Faced the end and bored and tapped for a 3/8/ 16 machine bolt. Then adjusted the bolt so the arbor would pop out . The arbor would set tight at 1/2" and pop out at about 9/16".
OH, I am having this problem myself about the so called "200 series" quick change tool posts. In some publications, they talk about such and such being in the "200 series" qc, but I have another "200 series" qc on another lathe and the two things are different sizes. So the 200 series words are not accurate enough to describe the actual tool. So I figure "250" means some kind of adjustment in the so called 200 series. Does anyone know the exact meaning of these numbers? Such as the above 250-100?
Yes, I thimk I am going to try to use India made stuff when I can. I thimpfk, however, that they have quality troubles and that may come from the fact that the Indians have tiny manufactories, like mom&pop manufactories. They needs to get bigger to be better.
Exactly. I bought a milling attachment for a small lathe from India. It had good workmanship where it mattered, but the metal was relatively soft. It was also some re-used material they must have found on the railroad track. The screw handle had not been properly center hole drilled and that was broken off when it arrived. The gib screw holes were done like a child had done the job and there were other small errors. When I opened the package, the first thing that happened was that I cut my thumb on the sharp edges of the bed. Ultimately, it works fine but next time I buy from India, I will be more careful in opening the package--LOL.
I bought new Allen screws that are much better for the tool post than the ones that came with it. Not sure where I bought them, Mcmaster Carr, Bolt Depot etc. These are hardened metric screws , the heads are much larger and take a larger hex wrench. I had to turn down the two screw heads next to the knurl as the larger heads interfered with height adjustment. Probably removed .032 or there about. I've been using these for about 4 years and no wear noticed at all. I think the original screw heads cammed out after less than two years. I believe my QCTP is an AXA and the piston type. The wedge types are supposed to be better, don't know as I only have used the piston type.
I believe you do have a carriage stop. Look at the carriage and you will see an Allen wrench screw.I have a problem, and it may not be as large as I see it, but it is a problem nonetheless. This lathe has has no carriage "lock" on it. There is a way to lock the topslide in place and there is a way to lock the cross-slide in place, but there is no way to lock the carriage in place on the ways. This is probably a good marketing strategy for Craftex, because if there was a carriage lock on it, sure as Hell somebody would lock the carriage, forget they had done so, and then engage the power feed and break something. You can "kind of" lock the carriage in place by not engaging the power feed at the gearbox and putting the lever on the front of the apron in "power-feed" position. This stops the carriage from being moved with the big hand-wheel on the front of the apron, but it will move (As measured with dial indicator) 0.019" left to right because of backlash in the power feed mechanism in the apron. This isn't a lot, but it becomes HUGE if you are doing anything like machining the rod journal on a crankshaft, as shown in the pictures. The slot is only .375" wide. The journal when turned to finished diameter will be .375" diameter. This means that to machine it, you must use a tool with a lot of "stick-out" from the tool-holder, because of the offsets in a typical crankshaft. I have machined the "sides" of the journal to finished dimension. Now I have to move the tool in and finish turning the journal to finished size. (It is 0.430" diameter right now.) The tool is .125" wide. So--the tool only has to traverse 0.25" in total left to right to take this finish cut on the diameter. With a good set of carriage stops mounted to the front "way" on the lathe, I could turn the wheel on the apron and move the carriage left to right, depending on the carriage stops to prevent going to far and have the turning crankshaft whack the top of the tool and break something. I find the movement you get by turning the wheel on the front of the apron to be very "coarse" and to not give a very good "feel" for what the tool is actually doing. I prefer to make the tool move left to right or vice-versa by turning the feed handle on the topslide. This gives me a much better control of the tool movement.---I can design and build an adjustable "travel limiter" which I can set up to limit the amount of travel of the topslide very accurately.--But---I still have that damned 0.019" of slop in the carriage to contend with. So--Okay--I can design and build a "carriage lock" that will securely lock the table in place as well---but it must be a "lock" which can slide without damaging the carriage or the ways or the gearbox if the "power feed" does accidentally get engaged. I can do that too--but now it's beginning to become a lot of extra work. This is definitely not a job where the power feed would ever be engaged but, "stuff happens". How do other folks with this lathe, or a clone of it handle this situation?---Brian
Wait a sec. A carraige stop and a lock are different things. I thimpfk you are meaning 'lock'.
And given the location of the two screws with the dowel between them, it's more likely holding the apron to the carriage. Unless there's another screw I don't think there's a lock either. FWIW, I don't have a lathe like that either.
The two types of QCTP, piston:wedge are supposed to use the same tool holders. I see that when I purchase them from Shars they had an issue with tolerance from their China factory. I have some holders that are darn tight. And I've had them to be sloppy loose.
Actually, you've cleared one thing up and yet made it more confusing. I thimpfk the second number in the designation indicates what size lathe swing one has, but it doesn't explain the first number. It was my mistake to thimpfk that the first number (in this case the 251, in my case 250) had to do with the "200 series". In any case, the holding area only designates the size of tool shank to be held, my question is 'what designates the size of the 'V' clamping area?' I have several that are less than a fraction of a mm off. I believe they are US made.
Ah, lack of standardization! What a load of krap, (or is that karp?) originally, I had a few QTs that didn't fit the post I had (still have) then so I took a grinder and gently ground them out and they work fine. But now, I have a second toolpost on another lathe with the same prob. The difference is probably less than 10thou. Maybe i'll grind out one to fit the new post and test to see if it still works on the old one. If that is the case, I could use the QTs for both lathes.
Brian's topic is five years old, he has completed his report, unless he has something new to add after owning it for five years and finding out the long term problems or additions or changes he has made. I would like to hear about it myself, but in the mean time, I thimpfk it is rather a good thing to hear about other people's work or problems on the machines. I find it interesting that you, yourself, found the various QCTP parts workt together. Even so, I still haven't found out what the tiny differences are in such numbers as 251-100 and 250-100. I suppose I will have to break down and go look on Dogpile, or DuckDuckGo. That's where we get the words "doggit" and "dukduk" -- meaning to search on the internet.
251-xxx was the part number of a set (tool post and a few holders) as seen in my post above.
You are correct, I meant carriage lock which I did say later in my post.
