Adjusting a tailstock

[ajmw89]

Hello all,

I have a bit of a problem. I have a rexxon 12D lathe (Similar to any other brand that has a single long round bar) and the tailstock is about 1-2mm out of alignment with the headstock. Does anyone have an advice on how to sort this problem out? I know it's not much, but it would be nice to be able to use my lathe to drill out my pen blanks and I'm worried that the innaccuracy will make the hole bigger than it needs to be...

Will try and a get proper picture when I'm next in the workshop

Cheers,

Adam

 

[chill]

Hi, in which direction is it out of alignment? vertical or horizontal or a bit of both? On this type of lathe their is normally an alignment strip fixed on the underneath of the bar which locates in the headstock and allows the tail stock to travel backwards and forwards but not side to side, these are notoriously inaccurate and require careful setting up. If your misalignment is in both directions a slight turn of the bed bar in the correct direction should help to alleviate this problem. think of the head stock as a clock face, if the tailstock is pointing towards say 1 o`clock turning the bed bar anti clockwise should ease the problem, hope this helps,

 

[ajmw89]

Thanks, it's the horizontal alignment that is out. It was worse when I first picked it up (2nd hand of ebay), but since taking it apart and cleaning, everything is much smoother, but I still can't quite get the alignment. Will give that ago, it's out slightly to the left if you look from above (11 o'clock), so will see if giving the bar a twist will work.

Cheers