Shane Sura
04-27-2008, 7:45 PM
I have a slightly weird one. I have the Harbor Freight Lathe. I have had it for some time and so far it has performed great as many on this forum have found. Today while turning pens the pen mandrel was out of alignment with the live center by a full 1/16 of an inch. Obviously this led to slightly out of round pens. I was able to fix it by sanding on the other side and moving the pen closer to the head stock. Now the weird part. When I move the tail stock close to the headstock it is dead on center to center (maybe 1/64).
So naturally I thought it was the pen mandrel and I was going to buy a new on when this job was over. However, using a complicated measuring technique :D the pen mandrel is straight. So I took a jacobs check and a straight machined punch and it was also a 1/16 out of alignment.
The bed of the lathe is straight and level as best as I can tell. I released the rear bolts holding it to the table in case it was introducing a twist and no fix. Any ideas or is this normal the longer you go down the bed?
Shane
So naturally I thought it was the pen mandrel and I was going to buy a new on when this job was over. However, using a complicated measuring technique :D the pen mandrel is straight. So I took a jacobs check and a straight machined punch and it was also a 1/16 out of alignment.
The bed of the lathe is straight and level as best as I can tell. I released the rear bolts holding it to the table in case it was introducing a twist and no fix. Any ideas or is this normal the longer you go down the bed?
Shane