Help Needed!

[Anonymous]

Hi All,
I am desparatley in need of some advice. I have dabbled in turning for nearly 4 years on and off. I own a Record DML 36SH lathe. I recently discovered that it was not running true, it had a slight wobble is the only way i could describe it. When a larger blank is mounted this exaggerates the problem. I returned it to where i bought it and they have replaced the spindle??? in the head stock on which the chuck is bolted. It is a Super Nova chuck. The lathe has not been damaged but why should this problem occur. I have been working on the lathe tonight and it is still not right. Everything is tight and appears ok but if anyone has any ideas what i or the lathe could be doing wrong i would be very grateful for some advice.#

PS enjoy reading discussions in the forum

 

[mudman]

Hi Buck,

Do you have the wobble without the chuck?
I would check that the headstock is aligned correctly first by removing the chuck, putting a drive centre in and a centre in the tailstock. Bring the tailstock up to the headstock and the two points should align exactly.

If the lathe is running true, then I guess it must be the chuck.
Is it possible that it has incurred some damage from the previous 'wobble'?

Other thing I thought of though was to check that your jaws are installed correctly. I have a Supernova and when I put my jaws on the first time, I didn't follow the instructions exactly and this resulted in some misalignment. Wind them right in and check that there are no gaps. If there are, then the jaws aren't installed correctly. Might be worth removing and reinstalling the jaws anyway.

Not sure how to check the chuck is running true without the proper engineer's measuring equipment. I would probably try to rig up something to see if the chuck is deviating from centre as you rotate it by hand.

If the lathe and the chuck are running true, then I guess it must be the way the work is being held. Have a look at some of the threads here as there has been some discussion recently.

Well, those are my thoughts. I expect somebody else will be able to come up with something else but I would try to determine just where in the whole system that the 'wobble' is being introduced. Only then can you come up with a fix for it.

 

[Newbie_Neil]

Hi Buck

Sorry I can't help, but welcome to the forum.

Cheers
Neil

 

[Anonymous]

Barry,
Thanks for your advice. I will go through your points one by one and see if anything is glaringley obvious that i am doing wrong. One thing that i did to determine that the lathe was not running true was to use a permanent marker pen and resting on the tool rest gently placed knib of pen on to chuck and it showed up that it was touching on about 50% of chuck.
Even with problems like this i really enjoy turning.

Many Thanks

Buck

PS Hi to you too Neil