Ended on 08/22/15

I agree completely. I’ve never been part of such a helpful and generous “online” group of people. This was a great demonstration of why this community is such an honor to be a part of… a community that Old Lumens contributed greatly in building. Love it!

Thanks, knowing it was there somewhere made me actually read all the replies. Again, a non-video person here (no, not video problems. Work machine, no speakers)
There’s a great set of stills in post# 135 for us motion-picture-impaired, though.

+1

08/13/15 - The lathe is now ready to run. See the bottom of the OP.

Video of the first cuts with the lathe.

Sweet. Its good to hear that when your machining its talking to you. Now to interpret what its saying.

My gears stick themselves together from the oil and grease between them and if I do have to remove them use a screw driver either side to carefully lever them of the shaft, keep in mind mine isn't a Grizzly.

Try to avoid having so much material hanging out in front of the chuck. A good rule of thumb is to try to limit it to 3x the material diameter.

Yep, thought about that. I spent the afternoon taking it apart. On two of the three sets of gears, there is a shaft, then a bushing, then the gears, which go over the bushing. Both of the bushings were so tight that I had to pop them out with a socket and hammer. These bushings are steel and are keyed, with the key welded to the bushing. When you change gears, you are supposed to be able to remove the U clips, pull off the gears, slip on different gears, pop the U clips on and adjust so the gears all mesh. Good to go. Well, not if the bushings are frozen in the gears. So, a clearance problem in either the bushing OD or the gear ID. I checked all the gears and neither bushing would slide in easily, but on a few of gears, they would start. So, bushings not made to spec and gears not made to spec. Why am I surprised here, in a Chinese made machine? I’m not surprised at all.

I decided to remove material from both bushings instead of opening the IDs of the gears. Easier to control the bushing diameter, at least for me, so with fine files and sand paper, I got them to where the fit is just snug and you can push them in and out of the gears. Now, all the gears can be changed, like they should be.

I am sincerely thinking about just stripping this machine down to the bare casting and checking everything from scratch. With the shortcuts and workarounds I have found in the compound, the crossover, the tail stock, the chuck, the drive belts and drive pulleys - and now the change gears..., I absolutely do not have any faith in how the main transmission gears were fitted and assembled, inside the casting. It would probably be worth my time to just take it all the way down and put it back together, checking everything as I went. Probably would mean the difference in running for a few years, versus running a few days or months.

I'm not bitching guys, I am just stating fact. With the things that have been wrong so far, Murphy's law would suggest that there's more on the way, so why not do some good old preventative, before disaster. We all know what Chinese made goods can be and while I think overall, they probably make a good, inexpensive lathe, I think it's a lottery, just like flashlights and anything else there. You get a good one, or you don't. but it can be checked completely and I think I will go ahead and plan on that. I am concerned on making sure the lathe lasts for a long time and I think the only way I will know, is if I go through it. I know, I'm not a machinist, but I've been doing all my own stuff since childhood and I have no worries about tackling it. I can do car transmissions and engines, so I can do this.

Its unfortunate that you would have to do all that, but very fortunate that you have the ability to do so. I suppose it is a good idea, since you know how to do it. Otherwise you will never really know what will come up next.

It doesn’t seem uncommon for rebuilt to be better than new.

My Lathes in the mail for a service OL. What would you estimate the turn around time to be?

what does the update in the OP mean?

the end… ?

The end of the beginning,
maybe better understood as “the finish of the start”

Cheers David

OL what do you mean by a new beginning for someone ELSE at BLF??? :open_mouth:

It sounds like there is a brand new OL's. Does this make the old new OL's MK2?

OMFG

Sincerely hope that not chucking it all up because major new problems were found.

Yeah, what’s going on? Is everything okay?

The end? I'm confused? What's going on here?

+1 :open_mouth: Hope everything is ok

Old-Lumens Grizzly Lathe—-A Must Read