help on nova 1624

[jeff oldham]

this is going to be kinda lengthy but I hope yall can help me,,i had a rikon mini lathe which was great,,never gave me a bit of trouble and I got a larger nova 16 24,,well the spindle size was different,,,the rikon was 1x8 and the nova was 1 1/4 x8,,so they gave me the adapter to bring it down and just to mention I do have the nova infinity chuck,,well I mounted a 4 in x 14 in block of wood and it shook so bad the wood came flying off and I was on a lower speed,,i looked at the spindle and it was no where true,,so I took it off,,the adapter that is and it appeared to run very true,,i called woodcraft and nova and woodcraft said the adapter was made by easy way,,not nova,,and the man at nova said that was the problem,,it needed to be a nova reducer,,,so I guess my question is,,has anyone else experienced this or can give me some advice,,actually im ready to take it back and stick to my rikon

[John Grace]

I have the NOVA DVR XP with several SN2 chucks and associated adapters and have never experienced the problem you're describing. Does sound like you have a bad part...any chance you can readily find/borrow a NOVA brand adapter?

[jeff oldham]

woodcraft is supposed to be sending me one,,its just made me sick,,i had high expections of this lathe,,i read on amazon where someone said they had to have the whole head replaced,,something about the bearings

[daryl moses]

A 4X14 inch "block" of wood will make just about any lathe bounce unless it's going very, very slow at least until it's turned to round.
Hopefully you just have a bad spindle adaptor. Did you check the spindle for runout with and without the adaptor?

[Allan Ferguson]

Need a careful diagnosis of the problem. One aspect at a time. Wood in balance or out of balance. Turning speed. Runout on the chuck ect. Bearings should not be a problem. I have run mine hard for seven years without a bearing issue. Do not over react, just think it all though.

[Wade Holloway]

I had some of the same problems you are having but with the Standard 16/44 belt driven lathe. But Allan is right. Work through the problem. You have several potential problems here. The wood, the insert or the lathe. With a block that big you need to start at a very slow RPM. After that work with Woodcraft and Nova. I can say that Nova treated me great with my problems.

[Geoff Whaling]

well I mounted a 4 in x 14 in block of wood and it shook so bad the wood came flying off and I was on a lower speed,,i looked at the spindle and it was no where true,,so I took it off,,the adapter that is and it appeared to run very true,,

Jeff, as the others have said be logical, work through each issue. Does the spindle adaptor and chuck run true without a blank? Put a small disk of wood into the jaws, tighten them up and run the lathe. Is it running true? If it is then it is more likely that particular blank. Try another blank.

As you say "i looked at the spindle and it was no where true" seems to indicate that the male and female threads may not be coaxial or that the spindle adaptor has not been fitted correctly. All spindle accessories that screw onto the spindle nose thread must register on the spindle. The lathe spindle has a registration surface and the accessory should also have a matching registration surface and should meet and align correctly for the spindle & accessory to run true.

Often the so called "run out" issues are not manufacturing faults, but misalignments of the accessories on the lathe. The Nova spindle adaptors do not have large registration surfaces and are easily susceptible to misalignemt due to a damaged registration surface on either mating face, or from debris - page 9 of the Infinity User Manual explains how the Nova insert must mate to the chuck and to the spindle. By using an adaptor accessory from 1 1/4 x 8 to 1 x 8 you have added one more stage and twice the number of potential alignment errors. Unless you have dedicated threaded body chucks it is often better to avoid the spindle adaptor accessory and to purchase new 1 1/4 x 8 inserts for your chucks.

"The chuck body must contact an accurate shoulder on the lathe spindle or bearings (as on NOVA DVR XP) to ensure chuck will run true. "

[david privett]

if I remember right that lathe is not real heavy so maybe some added weight could help if you can not find any other problems. If the wood came off you need more and better screws if you were using a faceplate.

[William C Rogers]

Jeff, I don't have that lathe so this may not be a problem. On my PM 90 a adapter will not screw flat to the spindle shoulder, therefore I need to use a washer. If I don't I will get terrible runout. The PM 90 is heavy, but I added 250 lbs. of sand to it and it does make a difference with out of balance wood.

[Thomas Canfield]

Posting a picture of the block of wood on the lathe would help and also seeing how the lathe is mounted. You should be able to check the run-out of the spindle adapter/chuck fairly easy even by using a smaller bloc of wood. Some adapters are bad. I also have one adapter that has a long 1" thread to the point that it bottoms out against the jaws on one chuck if the chuck is closed to minimum diameter. The adapter should have the 1-1/4 end firmly mating the drive on lathe, and the 1" shoulder end firmly mating the back of chuck.

I use an adapter with my Talon chuck currently and not been an issue with #3 jaws and fairly large sections of wood. I usually will have the wood fairly balanced before going to a chuck, and also will use my tailstock and live center as much as possible.

With the belt drive, you need to start out at the slowest (or know slow speed) and work up the speed. A 14"D would have a suggested speed of about 400 rpm for roughing (rpm x D less than 6000) per Craft Supply.

[Brian Kent]

Is that a 4 x 4 x 14 piece, sticking out 14 inches from the chuck, or a 4 x 14 x 14 piece for a bowl?

[John K Jordan]

I strongly agree with Geoff - if at all possible ditch the spindle adapter and get new inserts for your chucks. If I had chucks that didn't use replaceable inserts I would try to sell them and get different chucks.

To me, spindle adapters are a weak link in holding the work on the lathe. I don't like the extra space they take up since I sometimes turn long spindles - did one 53" last week. I also don't like the way they put the mass further away from the headstock bearings - any stress from imbalance will be "amplified" by the extension. I think the adapters are great to have for occasional use on incompatible lathes but not for everyday use.

The 1-1/4"x8 is a very common size on the larger lathes so if you do buy new inserts now they will likely work if you get an even larger lathe someday. I have three lathes that have this size spindle. I keep several sizes of inserts for when I need to use a chuck on a smaller lathe.

JKJ