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Advice Needed - Damaged Ways on New Lathe

opensourcefan

opensourcefan

OSF
Hey all, need your help to keep me somewhat sane...

I purchased a lathe as you may remember and the review is almost done. It came with some damage on the lathe ways and I want to know how far I should push this or if my expectations of zero damage on the ways is unreasonable. There are other issues and I am fixing them but this I cannot be "fixed" obviously. Here are some photos, please advise if you would tolerate the damage or demand no damage. The areas of damage do not effect operation however I am worried about stresses and cracks later on as it's a hardened and stressed surface.

EDIT: Damage is right in front of the chuck where the carriage is most of the time.

Review of lathe to come...

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I would not consider this as damage effecting accuracy by any means, cosmetic yes, annoying as hell on new equipment absolutely.

Good thing is that you won't care when you do it the first time. :rolleyes:

If that caused a stress crack you have bigger issues to consider. Work hardening I doubt it.
 
If new, I'd have the expection of zero damage. As a practical matter, they aren't significant enough to impede performance. The grind is nothing to write home about, but those dings are easily taken care of with a small Arkansa slip stone (or burr file). All you care about is removing anything around the ding that is proud of the surface.

PS, zero worries about stress or cracking.
 
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I would "stone" each area to make sure there is no distortion of the ways. Precision flat stones are all the rage these days, but any clean stone that has not been worn by use should be fine for the job. Have to admit though, I can't see any evidence of a raised surface. Perhaps it has been stoned already. Usually you would see a small shiny area around the divot thought.
 
Glad to hear you guys aren't worried about issues down the road. That was my biggest fear.

It does greatly disappoint me that a brand new machine has damage on the most important and largest part. Not sure how far to fight it out.
 
Don't worry about it. As Dr. Evil says 'inconsequential'.

When I flipped the carriage on my (Taiwan 14x40) that's when I let out a deflated gasp. Nice shiny hardened ground ways on the visible top side. But something less on the sliding surface. I think an overzealous lubrication scraping man made his marks. I was shocked my machine is as accurate as it is. I feather touched the hilltops with a stone because my OCD would not let it go & left well enough alone. Now I know its dirty underbelly secrets. I'm waiting for @Mcgyver Scraping 101 class registration to open soon LOL
 

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Personally, leave it no issues, however if you have OCD and want to do something put some blue paste on it run the slide over it to see if there are high spots, then and only the go at it with a stone or scraper.

But looking at the picture it, I wouldn't until it has a little use to determine if there is a problem.

Years of experience has taught me, you have no problems until you start looking and when you do, they are bad and just don't stop, worst of all usually your own doing looking for problems!
 
Ian Moss said:
Precision flat stones are all the rage these days,
Click to expand...

They are, and I confess my reaction at first was phht, yeah right....but I think I'm coming around on it. Rob Renz is the one video maker that I think is really worth listening to and he makes a compelling case for them....I think I'll make a pair

PeterT said:
I'm waiting for @Mcgyver Scraping 101 class registration to open soon LOL
Click to expand...

lol, come by for a coffee anytime but don't hold your breath on a class. This reflects my own style of learning perhaps, but imo short courses, seminars and videos are less effective overall than a well done document. The reason I say that is, there is only so much you can take in in a block of time before its overload. And even if you take it in, comprehend it, if you don't use that tidbit for four years you're unlikely to be clear on it. A text on the other hand is concentrated knowledge, you get soak time with and it sits patiently on the shelf when ever its time to refresh on something. Still photos can be studied and words re-read.

I have made a huge effort (and am still making it) to share knowledge. I wrote a 12 part series that ran in Home Shop Machinist for two years and am working on a follow up piece, "reconditioning a lathe" (will cover three lathes, of different bed styles). Because the articles is so much better if it include lots photos, its an an unbelievable amount of work telling the story through multiple projects. The first article probably took 5 years to write, around 350 photos....no way I could cram that into someone's head in a weekend. The second will also be lengthy....3 lathes, thats a lot of content lol

Village press has wanted to make a book from the first series, but I held that off, wanting the book to be the first series, the machine way alignment device and the lathe series....and that will be about everything I know on the topic!
 
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