Thread: Pen turning with a metal lathe warning

I have been using a Sieg C2 metal lathe for part of my pen turning for a while. A little trick John (Gawdelpus) taught me and was good enough to make the tools for me. I use it to cut away the bulk of the timber before I move the blank to the wood lathe.

Today I was running my order through and heard a single metal noise. Fortunately, I hit the stop button and had a look. One of the adjustment bolts on the underside of the carriage that set the tension on the bed ways had fallen out and was jammed between the carriage and the lead screw. Damn luck I stopped it quickly or my lead screw might have been a couple of threads short. I managed to get the bolt back in but only after cutting an allen key down and then bending it on a vice so it would fit between the lead screw and the bottom of the carriage. It took me 45 minutes to get it fixed but it was a learning lesson for a novice. A metal turner would probably have fixed it in 5 minutes.

The warning signs I ignored through ignorance of machinery was an unsteady rotation of the Carriage hand wheel about 3/4 of the progess of the carriage along the lead screw. It had been like that for a while. Ezy glide didn't fix the problem Oddly enough that unsteady rotation or shuddering is now gone.

I am not an expert on this machinery but the moral of the story is to regularly check the bolts I have described as they can come loose. Don't over-tighten them or the carriage won't move smoothly. I am sure others with far more expertise than me can give better instructions on what to do.

I must have done something right because the lathe is cutting the timber a lot better now.