Lathe Alignment Question

Barry Temple

Member
Messages
19
Location
London, Ontario, Canada
I picked up my lathe today. It's a Craftex B2338; it looks identical to the Grizzly G0584. Craftex doesn't have the best of names in Canada but unfortunately I needed a lathe now and couldn't wait until I could afford a better one.

My question is:

The spur centre and live centre do not line up. They are about 1/32nd to 1/16th off. Is that critical for doing pens or other spindle turnings? I can't see any way to make them line up. I tried loosening off the locking nut all the way but the tailstock will only twist so far. Other than that it appears to be pretty decent. Well, except for the shelf being difficult to bolt to the legs. My mini lathe will line up when I twist the tailstock but I've still gotten pens that are a little off at the nose piece. Any ideas out there? Bringing it back is not the best option as the local store only had one and it's the one I got. Any suggestions / opinions?
 
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Barry, is the mis-alignment side-to-side, or is one tip higher than the other? If it's sideways, you should be able to swivel the headstock a little bit to get them lined up. If one is higher than the other, I believe you can fix it with shims, but I don't know the recommended procedure.

I believe (but could be wrong on this), that 1/32" to 1/16" is indeed enough to cause you problems with pens and other spindle work.
 
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I believe (but could be wrong on this), that 1/32" to 1/16" is indeed enough to cause you problems with pens and other spindle work.

Barry-Vaughn, This should only be a problem if you are trying to drill accurately sized holes in a chuck supported piece of wood with the drill located in a tail stock drill chuck. (the difference will be accentuated by the extra drill chuck/drill overhang)

If you are turning between centres with or without a mandrel there should be no problem when using hand tools as you position the tool cutting radius to suit by hand, any bending of the mandrel will be hard to perceive. (on a metal lathe with a fixed tool post travel it would turn a taper)

Note that a person using a crude pole Lathe cuts perfectly round spindles.
 
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...If you are turning between centres with or without a mandrel there should be no problem when using hand tools as you position the tool cutting radius to suit by hand, any bending of the mandrel will be hard to perceive. (on a metal lathe with a fixed tool post travel it would turn a taper)

Note that a person using a crude pole Lathe cuts perfectly round spindles.
I can see bigger spindles would not pose a problem, but I was wondering if the misalignment would cause flexing of a pen mandrel, particularly where it meets the Morse taper in the headstock, and if that flexing would be a problem. Based on what you're saying, it looks like it isn't.
 
Barry-Vaughn, This should only be a problem if you are trying to drill accurately sized holes in a chuck supported piece of wood with the drill located in a tail stock drill chuck. (the difference will be accentuated by the extra drill chuck/drill overhang)

If you are turning between centres with or without a mandrel there should be no problem when using hand tools as you position the tool cutting radius to suit by hand, any bending of the mandrel will be hard to perceive. (on a metal lathe with a fixed tool post travel it would turn a taper)

Note that a person using a crude pole Lathe cuts perfectly round spindles.

Interesting thread. Also an interesting reply. After much thought I guess I would have to chime in here fearing that my machinist career might put a slant on this. I don't think it should though.

No matter if you are a turner or not, have the mentality of a machinist or not, my experience in metal and wood is that you need to be as accurate as possible early on in the project. It does not matter if this is round work, flat work, parts for a boat or a hollowed out vessel. Initial set-up is critical. Since a lathe is a start-to-finish kind of thing, this falls within this category.

I can see where a good wood lathe operator could turn a perfectly round spindle between centers on a mis-fit lathe, but I wonder how much skill it takes to compensate for that? I wonder if life would be easier if the centers were perfectly aligned? I would think by leaps and bounds.

I would think too that misaligned centers would be a fairly common problem and that adjusting and compensating for that...even on a wood lathe...would be easy to do. My suggestion, and do what you want with this...is to spend some serious time setting up your lathe. I am betting you can get this spot on.
 
I am not a fan of this Grizzly lathe model. The spindle thread size is not standard; the 600 slowest speed is too fast and 3/4 hp motor is anemic for 14½" swing.
This lathe has a pivoting headstock. If the mis-alignment is horizontal, the Morse taper alignment tool would help:
http://www.packardwoodworks.com/Mer..._Code=113121&Category_Code=lathes-acc-mrstool
If you still have problem, the zero detent for the pivoting head may need some adjustment. Please also check the pin of your centers first, they may also be bent.

Chas is right. When turning between center, your spindle rotates around the two points. The axis is the line between the two points; it has no reference to your lathe bed. Alignment only matters when one end is fixed with a chuck or other device.

I was told some pen turners do not use mandrel anymore. They turn one blank at a time between centers to eliminate any run out of the pen mandrel.
 
I agree that it is only when your work is fixed in the chuck that you will have any movement if you centres don't meet. Also as timber is a material which is effected by humidity I doubt whether you can ever get the accuracy to 100%. But an easy way of checking lathe head / tail alignment is to use a double morse taper shaft. Teknatool do a 2 morse taper double ended shaft, and no doubt you can get other sizes around, or if you have a tame engineer around ask him to knock one up for you.
 
........ But an easy way of checking lathe head / tail alignment is to use a double morse taper shaft. Teknatool do a 2 morse taper double ended shaft, and no doubt you can get other sizes around, or if you have a tame engineer around ask him to knock one up for you.

Yes most useful if you have the average hobby wood lathe with rotating headstock, few have adequate alignment detentes, but even this is no guarantee of absolute alignment on most wood lathes, their bed ways, tubes etc. are not produced to metal working engineering standards and unless you set up the bed ways to be accurately aligned with the spindle over their whole length then there is every chance that a tail stock aligned 4" from the headstock will be out at 36".

It is of no consequence anyway as the wood will move more than the average misalignment as soon as you turn your back.

My own lathe which is admittedly only mounted on a substantial wooden bench is of the twin tube variety, it moves 20-30 thou. just with the sun playing on the machine through the windows.

(I only know this because in an idle moment I put a laser alignment aid on it after I had to verify my little metal lathe for a particular task)

Mind you I have seen wood lathes so far out that even a normal headstock drive centre had a job maintaining drive contact.

A quick and dirty alignment aid can be made by turning up a short stubby cylinder from hardwood in your chuck to fit the jaws at ideal grip setting.
Turn a 60deg cone in the front face big enough to accommodate your tail stock centre. (Wrap some fine abrasive around the tail stock centre to do final fit if needed) you can then use this to align the headstock nearer to the centre whenever you feel the need.
 
Put the tail stock close to the head stock with centers as closely aligned as possible. Now manually rotate the spindle while observiing the ends of the two centers. Does the misalignment remain the same or change. If it changes during rotation it could be a bent spindle shaft, a bearing problem and in my humble opinion, be a problem while turning.
 
"I only know this because in an idle moment I put a laser alignment aid on it"

Chas,

I need more moments like that... ;)

Barry,

I'm also not a big fan of that particular model (I have the G0462). No, mine doesn't like up perfectly. If I'd spent thousands on it, I would be upset, but for the price... ;)

The misalignment hasn't been a problem so far, but I mostly just turn very large things. I've never even tried to turn a pen, or any other small object that needed to be exact. My only advice is to try it and see if there's actually a problem... ;)

Thanks,

Bill
 
I agree with Randy. You need to check level from front to back and crossways. My brother had the Grizzly G0584 lathe out by a 1/16" with the headstock center and livecenter points. He adjusted the level with the legs and it came right in.
 
I'm not a fan of grizzly lathes and all the suggestions are good ones.

Cast iron flexes, make sure the lathe is perfectly level (or as close as you can get). If it isn't, it can knock the alignment out.
 
I'm not a fan of grizzly lathes and all the suggestions are good ones.

Cast iron flexes, make sure the lathe is perfectly level (or as close as you can get). If it isn't, it can knock the alignment out.

Actually, most Grizzly lathe beds are not cast iron. They are cast milled steel. :rolleyes:

BTW, for Gordon: What is a standard spindle size? They seem all over the board with different makes.
 
Frank,

May be I should re-phrase as popular spindle sizes.

For me I won't be interested in any spindle other than 1¼" X 8, 1" X 8, MT#2; ( or M33 X 3.5 Morse Taper #3 for huge lathe). I think if you look up in any US woodturning catalog, a lot of accessories only made in these sizes.
3/4" X 16, MT-1 was popular among mini lathes, but I would prefer the larger spindle size.

If you look at the lathe specification chart below, you will find the majority of lathes are 1" X 8 and 1¼" X 8.
http://www.woodturner.org/resources/LatheSpecs.pdf
This is by no means a complete list. You will also see some lathes allow the buyer to have a choice on spindle size.
 
Check on the back side of the tail stock down next to the bottom some lathes have an adjustment bolt or nut there that you turn one way or the other to align the tail stock side to side.

Bart valid observation but I doubt that this machine would have such a nicety, that pattern of castings appears all over the world in various paint and assembly combinations and dependant upon the importers/resellers acceptable quality criteria they can be appalling, and retail price or paint colour used is no real guide to quality. I have had experience of one that had to have a 1/4" machined off one side of the tail stock central 'alignment' tongue to get it to move over enough to match.

I personally think Barry is doing good with his 1/32 or so.
 
Barry, if you take a look at my Gallery all items between May 2005 & 3rd. Nov 2006 (~300) were produced on a very similar lathe with a tail stock as delivered that would make yours look like a Rolls Royce.

So I would say just go turn some wood, worry about the machine quality when you have some $2-3000 splurge on a new machine. Only in very few instances will you be restricted by it, on many older and indeed some current 'How to's' you will see people drilling central holes with a hand held chuck, this was often because of this very problem.
 
Barry, if you take a look at my Gallery all items between May 2005 & 3rd. Nov 2006 (~300) were produced on a very similar lathe with a tail stock as delivered that would make yours look like a Rolls Royce.

So I would say just go turn some wood, worry about the machine quality when you have some $2-3000 splurge on a new machine. Only in very few instances will you be restricted by it, on many older and indeed some current 'How to's' you will see people drilling central holes with a hand held chuck, this was often because of this very problem.
Sounds like a learned voice of experience. ;) Good advice.
 
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