Thread: The most amazing thing happened..

I was in the shop waiting out the rain storm (and the lightning, tornadoes that hit
about 150 houses ..) and decided to change back to my old bearings on the Jet.
The brand new ones were a bit noisy.

I had a piece of paper that I put down on the bench, and it slid underneath one of
the feet of the lathe.

Huh? It shouldn't slide underneath the foot, the foot should be touching the bench!
Seems when I put the extension bed on the lathe I missed one of the feet when I
was levelling/shimming.

Anyway, I recently got a couple of runout guages and figured I might as well do
everything together. Checked the alignment of the live center against the dead
center, off by about 1.5mm. On two axis.

Borrowed a proper level and re-levelled the bed (had slight warp, too) and then
replaced the spindle bearings. Chucked up a laser pen and marked a board where
the light hit. Moved it back 3 feet and checked where the light hit.

Used shims on the headstock .. front to back, top to bottom and left to right.
Off on 3 axis! Tightened everything up, took some 0000 steel wool and Brasso
to the ways and the bottoms of the tailstock and tool rest. Cleaned with alcohol
and buffed to a nice shine.

Turned on the lathe but didn't hear anything. Maybe I knocked out the plug.
Nope .. still plugged in. Maybe I tripped a fuse .. nope .. the spindle is MOVING!
Couldn't even hear it!

Wow .. That's kind of exciting, as I've never heard a lathe that quiet. I chucked a
piece of myrtle burl (4x4x12) that broke my heart a few months ago when it
cracked and split right after I rounded it out.. Even with a major wobble from the
off center weight, it ran smooth and quiet! The table didn't jump .. I could hear
myself ..I could hear the radio even with the lathe on!

I put a mandrel in and gave it a spin. Still got lots of wobble, but I don't know if
turning the mandrels on a lathe so out of balance did any damage to the mandrels
or not, so I'll get another one before I try another pen.

made a few oil lamps though .. sort of like making lidded boxes but with a smaller
hollow that just holds an oil lamp refill. They came out pretty nice except for the
major cracks in the myrtle. (and that was an $85 chunk of myrtle! grrr...)

I think the next project will be to make some levelling legs and feet. I used to use
something similar on photofinishing equipment and it should work fine for the
lathe. The machines were on 4 casters but had 4 levelling bolts built into the
frame. You put 4 plastic feet under the bolts and just cranked them down with a
wrench till the machine got lifted off of the casters. Then you adjust each one to level
the machine.

OK, enough rambling .. just wanted to say thanks for letting me grumble about my
Jet for the last year or so ..those problems MIGHT even be over now!