Minilathe Setup Part 2

I got a 7x14 Mini-Lathe for Christmas. I’m a complete beginner at using a lathe so this set of videos will mostly about setting up a stepper motor to drive the lathe lead screw. In this video I do a deep dive into the why I choose the lathe I did and how I got it ready for use. Others on YouTube have already posted much videos on things you need to do to these mini lathes before you use them. I do not get into real depth with how you do some of the cleaning and adjustment. I will include links below to videos I found useful and have more info than I show in this video. 00:00 Introduction. This video just focuses on my selecting and setting up my mini lathe. YouTube videos I found useful are listed below (But there is many more on YouTube) 01:31 The reasons I ended up selecting the eBay lathe from premiumautopart. 08:41 The lathe arriving and unboxing 10:09 I use my “ourChecklists” program to make a checklist of things I will do when setting up my lathe. 13:18 The belt on the motor was really tight (the lathe made a funny sound when I first turned it on). I moved the motor to loosen the belt a little to make sure the belt had a little bit of “give”. 13:33 There was paint splashes over places it shouldn’t be. I cleaned the extra paint of the spindle, bed and tailstock using paint stripper (see link below) and plastic scrapers. 13:58 The headstock gears were very tight, one of them looked like it had been hammered on. I got them off, gently, and remove grit and burrs. The original problem seemed to be badly fitted keys in the keyways, so I cleaned these up, ground off the rough edges etc. so they fitted well. While I was at it, I counted the gear teeth and wrote the number on the gears (They didn’t have any markings). 14:54 During inspection I saw the oil fitting was missing from the headstock leadscrew bracket. At some stage I will need to try putting a new one in. (Amazon link below) 15:18 The lead screw would rub against the half nut. This only happened when the lead screw was in a certain direction, it looks like it has a slight bend. For now, I just marked the position the lead screw should face to avoid rubbing. Longer term, I need to adjust the lead screw position or file a little off the half nut. 15:51 The tailstock was mis-aligned with the center of the chuck. There were grub screws and a leveling screw available to get it lined up. 16:12 The chuck made grinding noises and was sticky when I first used it. Based on you tube videos I took it apart, cleaned out all the grit etc., oiled/greased it and deburred the edges. It works smoothly now. 16:43: While the chuck was off, I checked for spindle play. It looked good. BTW: I also did some of these checks for play on the carriage and slides. 17:03: The carriage was a bit wobbly, and I could see the apron rails were not making full contact with the bed. I had seen on other lathes they use grub screes in the rails to act as spacers and get them better aligned. I did this and this helped with the wobble (also I lock the carriage on the lead screw, for most operations, that also helps with rigidity). 17:44: I took the slides completely apart to remove the old gritty grease, clean, deburr them. One of the gibs had a mis drilled indent so I fixed that so the gib would be held straight and not bend. 18:52 I did my first test run by facing off some 1-inch aluminum round stock. It seemed to have no problems with that. I need to get some steel stock to really test the rigidity, but I am happy for now. I see myself mostly using the lathe for plastic, soft metals. YouTube videos (BTW: There is a great community for these mini-lathes and many more videos) This Old Tony – This has to be the gold standard for mini lathe videos, supper funny and informative. Worth a watch even if you have no interest in lathes -    • The Infamous Mini Lathe!   Adventures with a very small lathe. Lots of content on this channel, however I found this video a good run down on initial setup of the lathe    • Disassembling the CJ0618 7x12 Lathe, Clean...   The Aussie workshop - tear down and cleaning the chuck -    • Mini Lathe Chuck Tear Down & Rebuild   Minilathe setup checklist https://github.com/somervda/stepper/b... ourChecklists: https://www.lupincorp.com/ourchecklists Paint stripper : https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07... 6mm ball oiler : https://www.amazon.com/20pcs-6x6mm-Bu... Lathe Options I looked at Ebay: https://www.ebay.com/itm/264694407204 Harbor Freight : https://www.harborfreight.com/7-inch-... Little Machine Shop: https://littlemachineshop.com/product... Grizzly: https://www.grizzly.com/products/griz... Github code: https://github.com/somervda/stepper/t...