I drove 3 hours to look at the lathe and it's good to go. I'm in Homestead (1 hour farther south) for the night and will get cash tomorrow and put it in my pickup bed. Not enough time to load it and drive another 3 hours back home tonight.

The guy was super-nice and might have more goodies for me. He has more gunsmithing equipment at his home. I'll post pics when it's in place.

Tony.

Sounds like a good guy to buy from.
Just be sure to strap it down well and remember when driving, that's a lot of weight high up in the bed of your truck.

I brought her home tonight! The guy said he was really surprised that a)I got it all done mostly by myself, and b) that it all fit in my shortbed F150 and still got the tonneau cover closed! I was soaked with sweat when it was all done, but we got it in there!

I bought an engine hoist before I left yesterday and left it at the house. I just have to put it together tomorrow morning and unload it from the pickup bed. We drove through rain most of the way here and nothing got wet. I'll post more as I get it installed. I have a friend coming over tomorrow to help me get it out of the truck bed.









All closed up!


I'm beat!

Tony.

Nice!

Dang that's a nice lathe.
I wasn't familiar with PM till now.
You got a good machine.

https://www.precisionmatthews.com/shop/pm-1236/

.

quote:

Originally posted by Greymann:
Dang that's a nice lathe.
I wasn't familiar with PM till now.
You got a good machine.

https://www.precisionmatthews.com/shop/pm-1236/

.

^^^^^That's the base lathe. I got the "Ultra-Precision" version!

https://www.precisionmatthews.com/shop/pm-1236t/

I'd say with all the accessories, it was over $10k if I bought new, and I haven't even included the phase converter he threw in.

Unloading this morning...





Other goodies...











Tony.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: benny6,

Can someone tell me what they think of this mill?

https://sarasota.craigslist.or...hine/7512339791.html

He e-mailed me this additional picture...


He's an hour away from me.

And there's this one a little closer...
https://lakeland.craigslist.or...hine/7514506386.html

Also, I got my lathe unloaded by myself last week. The 2-ton engine hoist made a huge difference!







Tony.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: benny6,

Hard to say, but the 3hp one may have needed the power for heavy cutting.

Check backlash, slop (movement) in gibs. Check the ways for damage .

Watch some youtube on nut and gib adjustment. What to check on used machine.

You don't want to get the ways rescraped or need a lead screw.

.

Mill: DRO (digital read out) will negate any issues with leadscrew wear. Since you won't be relying on the dials at the cranks any longer. Their backlash can give you an idea of wear to the ways however. If you were to zero both the DRO and crank dial, crank the table an inch according to the dial and compare to the DRO. If the DRO is displaying 0.995" it might indicate 0.005" of slop. Do this for both the X and Y axis.

In addition, you could mount a dial indicator to the quill and see how parallel the X and y are across their range of movement.

Both X and Y axisis will generally be pretty tight at their extremes of travel since most work tends to be in the center of their travel and therefore see the most wear.

Lathe:

Do you plan on HSS (high speed steel) or carbide insert cutting tools?

If carbide, don't buy the Chinese brazed tools. When I transitioned to inserts from HHS, Latheinserts.com made the selection pretty easy for an amateur like me as there's a lot of options. My understanding is that carbide is best suited for high horse power machines at high surface feet per minute. The site I mentioned has selected inserts best suited for hobby type equipment. HSS is still needed for some things but for general turning, facing and boring I like the ease of inserts.

Well, I looked at a Bridgeport today and I'm meeting a wrecker tomorrow to have it delivered. It's got the 1-shot lube and the DRO. It also has a static 3 phase converter. This should complete my machinery needed to get up and running again. Had the electricians in yesterday and they wired my garage for 220VAC.





It's pretty clean and it comes with a Kurt vise. $4,800 with the static converter included. Delivery is costing me $300. The last 2 weeks have been very expensive!

Tony.

Killer!

Hey Tony,

Here is a trick that worked well that I found online with the Bridgeport mill...

Remove the quill lock, flipping the parts around so that the quill lock is towards the base of the machine. The lock will work as you twist it upward. Spindle will less likely move as you are doing heavy cuts with this mod. Some will cut the quill parts to hold on the diameter rather than the flats. I didn't need to go that far to get the benefit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-tzXV0DuiU

If you want to go all out...
https://bbs.homeshopmachinist....k-handle#post1637580

BTW, the collet setup on the lathe is awesome for holding tiny parts and concentricity is vastly improved over using a three jaw chuck.
Get some "emergency" blank collets so you can custom make any size or shape as needed.

Just noticed that you have four of them in your picture. They are the ones with the pin holes at the collet splits.

In case you are not familiar with them...you would clamp onto pins at those holes. This allows you to cut whatever shape to nest your parts. Then remove pins to use as normal to hold your parts.

Tony, you have email headed your way.

That Bridgeport looks to be in very good condition. If the spindle has more runout that desired, it is relatively easy to replace the bearings. The quill can wear on the outside, and probably the cast iron ID can wear as well. However your new machine looks great, so probably there will be no problems with excessive wear.

I was told by a service guy to run through the full range of spindle speeds once a day to keep those parts functioning smoothly.

Since you are buying a used vise...

Many do not know that the vise has a half-sphere inside that directs the clamping force. They also don't know that it is a good idea to clean it and apply new grease once in a while. Frequency is up to you, but I do mine about every five years. Who knows when or if it was ever done on a used vise. I also clean and grease the screw shaft and bearings.

When putting it all back together, you can adjust the tightness of the moving jaw block by the center screw on it.

In the pic at the following link, the half-sphere is item #8, the adjustment screw is item #28, and the moving jaw block is item #2.

https://2fkp3u2iouqr3w74v5k31x...ew-rev-a-495x640.jpg

Once nice and clean, you can have confidence in it working well.

Well, It's in place now. Just have to connect power and install some lighting in the garage. The seller told me this one has chromed ways as well.





Tony.

My boss won't let me do the following. Since you are your own boss....

Make a curtain set up similar to the one in this link. Keeps the chips contained to a smaller area.

https://singersafetystore.com/...urved-weldvision-kit