The Sequel - Oh Blimey I bought a CNC Lathe (Beaver TC 20)

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awemawson:
A bit of progress:

I've inserted PTFE shims in the crane pivots and done the bolts up with lock nuts - previously if tight enough to reduce play, pivoting would undo the nuts making it slack again. Now the pivots can be tightened quite tightly and yet the arms still pivot with minimal play.

Crane now removed from the machine to allow me to install jaws to hold the 170 mm billet of EN24T. In my box of used jaws I found a set that are already very close to size - in an ideal world I'd prefer a bit more jaw thickness on the outside of the billet but the only other ones I had would need masses of material removing precluding their use in the future for small (more usual sized) things. I console myself with the thought that the cutting forces will mainly be towards the chuck in the Z direction pressing the billet into place. I've yet to finish bore them for concentricity but they are very close.

To fit these jaws, previously used by someone else on a different lathe, I had to modify the Tee nuts as they were 'bottoming out' before gripping - not good in use !

This meant steaming up the Beaver Partsmaster for the first time in ages, and darn me the Kurt vice had decided to seize solid so that took a bit of freeing of. Anyway the upright of the Tees was duly reduced by 5 mm and on went the jaws.

. . . but that's enough for today.

Muzzerboy:
I made a swinging arm to hold the entire control cabinet and display unit for my Bridgeport CNC conversion, using a length of 2" square tube. The swing pivot used a couple of Chinesium ball bearings from a set of 10 that I bought for the spindle motor (the one you now have in fact). The main downside is that it swings out of the way if you so much as push it with your finger, so it also requires a stay to hold it at the right position. They are another option worth bearing in mind for this sort of application if you get sick of messing with soggy PTFE bushes etc.

jiihoo:
Nice!

I was staring and then zooming at the picture of the two 26 TPI thread gauge blades and I am quite certain that the first one reads "25". A somewhat smudged "5" but a 5 nonetheless. The upper left of the number looks like it has a sharp corner and it looks like there might be a break below the horizontal bar on middle left.

awemawson:
Jari, looking at it again closely under a magnifying glass I think that you are entirely correct :thumbup:

jiihoo:
Glad to restore your faith in Moore and Wright :D

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