Sieg C2 mini-lathe mods

Gallery, Projects and General > Project Logs

<< < (7/9) > >>

Chuck in E. TN:
Well done, Tim! :headbang: :beer:
I am collecting the material to do the same to my 7x14. But, you made it look easy!
Chuck

vtsteam:
Great job! Well photgraphed, too! :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap:

S. Heslop:
Fantastic work. Yeah those photos are brilliant. I guess you must have alot of light in your workshop! I need to add way more light to mine but I think i'd have to replace all the existing wires.

It's doubly nice to see photos of these mods too since I was disappointed that the photos from bog's thread all disappeared. I might even save the thread to my hard disc when it's complete!

spuddevans:
Thanks guys, I'm glad you're enjoying it :thumbup:

--- Quote from: S. Heslop on July 16, 2014, 05:21:06 PM ---Fantastic work. Yeah those photos are brilliant. I guess you must have alot of light in your workshop! I need to add way more light to mine but I think i'd have to replace all the existing wires.

--- End quote ---

About 3ft above my mill and lathe I have 2 double and one single 4ft fluorescent fittings end to end, then on the other side of the workshop I have 3 single 4ft flourescent's end to end (the 2 rows of fittings are about 4ft apart. They were all reclaimed fittings, a few of them I replaced the ballast with electronic ballast to fix them, got them off ebay for a few pound each.

All that being said, the photos were all taken with flash, so that's why the workshop looks so bright.

--- Quote ---It's doubly nice to see photos of these mods too since I was disappointed that the photos from bog's thread all disappeared. I might even save the thread to my hard disc when it's complete!

--- End quote ---

When I'm finished with the mini-lathe mods I probably will make a PDF of it all, but organised a bit better.

Tim

spuddevans:
Graham Meek had warned me that the milling on the underneath of the ways does not extend that far in, and to watch out for the gibs being too wide as they would jam up on the un-machined casting. He was dead right, I had left about 1.5mm gap on the back gib and about 0.75-1mm on the front gib, but noticed that when the gibs were snugged up with the carriage at the tailstock end, the carriage would jam up when about 4" from the headstock.

So I loosened the gibs enough to be able to smoothly push the carriage the full length of the bed, then put a light behind it and took a pic of the back gib

See how the rough casting has pushed the gib away. So I removed the gib and milled a little off just that corner (about 0.75mm wide by 0.5mm deep) Then replaced it and took another pic.

That's better, I am now able to snug up the rear gib and it runs smoothly the whole length. I also discovered that the front gib had the same problem, so I did the same for it and took 0.5mm x 0.5mm edge off the length that faces the casting.

If I was doing it again I would make sure there was at least 2mm gap between the casting and the gibs.

Another little issue that reared it's head in this mod is a little interference

The top half-nut catches on one of the cap screws holding the gib bracket on the carriage.

A simple solution was to thin the cap screw, which was a simple turning job.

Compared with a normal cap screw

That did the trick, the half-nut clears the new cap-screw.

I had considered adding a couple of "counter" screws to the other end of the gibs to lock the gibs, and I may well install one on the front gib. But if I put one on the rear I will lose about 1" of travel at the headstock end (it butts up to the backsplash) and if I am using a faceplate I may not be able to get close enough to it.

I think I may have another solution though, I'll let you all know when/if it works.

Anyway, on to the next mod.

I chucked up a 20mm steel bar

and turned down a 14mm section and then a 6mm section

I was amazed at how well the lathe cut with the new gibs, I was easily able to take a full 1mm deep cut per pass (2mm off the diameter)

Then I die-cut M6 thread and knurled a section.

Then it was cut off in the bandsaw and I repeated the process a couple more times. Then I reversed them and faced the cut end on all 3, and also cut a shallow groove (just enough to remove the knurl) on one (the one that was threaded M5)

And this is what they were all for

That should make changing the gear train a little easier, save having to dig out 2 different allen keys.

That's all for now, and sadly for the next couple of weeks I don't expect to get back into the workshop due to real life getting in the road of hobby-time.

Annoyingly my camera lens has started to fail, doing a google on the symptoms shows that it is a common enough problem, but at least there is a few "How-to" tutorials on fixing it (once the replacement part gets here from china). So hopefully that will arrive when I can get back into the workshop, then the camera can be the next mod!!

Thanks for watching,
Tim

Navigation

 Message Index

Go to full version