I've recently bought a second-hand Chester Centurion 3-in-1 (at such a cheap price that usual objections over an all-in-one vs two separate machines were null & void) and would like some advice about commissioning it in my workshop.

Firstly, it's on a stand but is not bolted down to the floor. Is this likely to cause problems?

Secondly, having attempted to turn a 1" dia steel rod (for practice) I'm concerned about the stiffness of my cross and longitudinal travels. The finish on the piece was ripply and could be seen and felt by hand. The crosslide I can even wobble by hand. Does anyone have any experience of adjusting the jib-strips on this model?

Finally, the milling table is miles from the milling head, in order to get anywhere near it the spindle has to be fully down, i.e. in its least stiff position. Anyone got any tips about how I could overcome this shortcoming? Bolting a mounting block would presumably help, but might this introduce more errors (e.g. squareness) than it solves?

Have managed to get hold of some Renishaw magnetic scale and readheads. Anyone got any experience of mounting such devices to this or any other machine? Was planning on using the 2-part extrusion mounting from Machine-dro.

First project is a set of Stuart S50 castings. After that, who knows???

Cheers all,

Joel