More help required

[Joe McKeanParticipant @joemckean81940]

Hi and thanks to everyone for their opinions on my last question.

I have now purchased a Sieg super C3 without any tooling or accessories so that I would not be tempted to cut corners and have a little play, it is now stripped down and cleaned which brings me to my next question(s)

1) What do I use to lap the cross and topsides with and do I use any lubricant with it.

2)What size centre drill should I use to drill the leadscrew bearing with to help with lubrication.

3)What size tooling should I start off with and what is the difference in use between 4, 6, and 8mm sizes.

and finally (well for the moment anyway) is the starter tool set sold by arceurotrade half decent for a total beginner to start off with.

as I have already mentioned I am a total beginner so please go easy on me for asking what you might think is stupid questions.

Regards

Joe

[Joe McKeanParticipant @joemckean81940]

[AjohnwParticipant @ajohnw51620]

Why don't you just use it and find out a bit more about that area before doing other things ?

Lapping can be beneficial. If you look around for the Taig assembly instructions they give a decent description. I think they are on Taig's site. It's done with the lead screw out, pushing by hand while slowly tightening the gibe screws. In the UK a mix of CIF and oil 50/50 is the best option. 3in1 or cycle oil will be fine for that. You will just be guilding the lilly, don't expect to be able to cure any errors. It's not meant to do that. Then clean it all off thoroughly. It's then worth getting some slideway oil off ebay and using that for lubrication setting the slides up with the leadscrews out. When pushed by hand there should be a bit of resistance to movement.

If you want HSS tooling I don't know what the tool height of the lathe is. It might be in the manual.

John

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[Ian S CParticipant @iansc]

Joe, looks as though you have a nice wee lathe. What do you want to lap the top slide, and cross slide for? Seems a bit odd. If the lead screw has no oiling point it's probably got an Oilite bush, and you don't want to drill that. For a lathe tool, I'd buy a piece of 1/4" / 6 mm square HHS, and grind my own tool, even on my large lathe I more often than not use that size on small stuff, less metal to grind off when sharpening compared to the 5/8" tool I can use for heavy going. Out here I have never been offered a set of tools, but I think if you go that way, you may find you never use some shapes, but they can be reground to suit your work.

Good luck, work carefully.

Ian S C

[HOWARDTParticipant @howardt]

Slideways would be ground and then scrapped in the past, but that would be on high use machines. Scrapeing was used to break the surface and remove high spots, this also created pockets of for oil. Lapping is of no benefit as you would create too smooth a surface which means oil would wipe off and not go between the surfaces.

I have a new C3, just started retirement hobby, and have done nothing to it other than turn steel. As a life long machine tool designer I will use it until I find something wrong rather than look for errors. I have clocked it to see how true everything was and that is all.

Howard

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Don't assume any slides need lapping until you have used the lathe. You may cause more issues than you solve – and you won't know whether you have made any improvement unless you find out what its like before.

8mm or 5/16" tools will be at or close to centre height when used in the toolpost so you will need minimal packing.

If it's a new SC3, are you sure the leadscrew bearings don't have oil points? I know there was a period when they were coming through without any oil points but my 1998 one has an oil hole at the headstock and an oil point at the far end. Photos below show leadscrew oil points on an Arc Euro Super C3. Note you squirt oil in, it isn't meant as a reservoir.

Neil

[Ketan SwaliParticipant @ketanswali79440]

Hi Neil,

Those oil points were put in by us in the days when we used to offer a prep.service. The standard SC3s does not have them in place. Still not a big deal to put them in with a centre drill.

Regarding the OP, dismantle, lapping etc., I would suggest as Howard has done. Just put it back together, use it and deal with issues as and when they arise, rather then on the outset.

Ketan at ARC.

[MWParticipant @mw27036]

Hi,

It's a decent choice for a lathe and i commend you on that. As far as the lapping issue goes i would take it easy and not worry too much about that, normally the finish on these machines is good enough for general use and wont need any further working unless you're doing extremely fine work with microscopic tolerancing.

It would be far more prudent to worry first about the grip/tighteness on the gibs on the top slide as shaky movement can contribute to furrows and lines in your work as this movement all gets transfered to the tooling tip. Look up how to grind tools as this is a good skill to learn and can improve the finish of your work, but dont worry about that for now. Make sure the movement of the slides is smooth but firm, it's a tricky balancing act but just slowly adjust the gib screws to get the right tension on them.

Listen to some of these ironsides on here too, they've got alot of pearls to give.

Michael W

[AjohnwParticipant @ajohnw51620]

Me too Ketan which is why I suggested using it. There is too much around concerning buying a lathe and then maybe wrecking it with various cures for problems that might not exist or fixing the wrong one,

Lapping with what I suggested is very unlikely to do any harm especially if the instructions I suggested are read. There is no way that it will remove any machining marks if there are any and can't be expected to. If some one did it long enough for that they might well mess it up. Trouble is though that it can make things smoother but often it's just guilding the lilly it wont make silk purse out of a sows ear.

Neil has one bit of Taig slide machining so knows what sort of quality levels the achieve and on the other slides it does improve them.

John

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[John PParticipant @johnp77052]

Hi Joe,

For lapping use Timesaver non imbedding abrasive
available from "Heritage steam " its the proper
stuff to use for these sort of jobs , available in various
grades for ferrous and non ferrous materials.

John

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