Hey welcome back So some time ago I made video where I
showed you a bunch of modifications and additions that I made for my lathe and
since then I've done a number of new mods and improvements so I figured it's time
for another video to share some of my ideas. There's a bunch of minor stuff
I improved but also some pretty extensive builds like the new accordeon
style way covers for the entire bed. I also updated the control panel once again and
completely rebuilt my previous handwheel gearbox but let's get to those bigger projects in a bit
because I wann start with something simple first so the first mod is more of
a maintenance improvement. every now and then I take everything off the
lathe and give it a good cleaning which can be quite a pain because there's a lot of nooks and
crannies on this machine that chips tend to find their way into and getting them out gets pretty
tedious so that's what I want to tackle first. The worst spot is right under the spindle nose,
if chips fall into this opening here they end up in this hollow part of the base which extends
all the way under the headstock and then there's another opening on the other side and this entire
hollow space under the headstock slowly fills up with chips over time and then you can imagine
how annoying it is to get them out of there then there's another gap in the back which
also extends all the way to the other side so that's another spot where chips build
up over time and are annoying to remove. of course I could just ignore all of
that and just never clean those spots but I like to keep my machines clean and
it just bothers me out of principle so I came up with some ways to close up those gaps
so I just don't have to deal with it again. for the one in the back it turned out
to be really easy, I just cut this piece of square tubing to the right length and
it happens to fit in there nice and snug this area is a little more tricky because I
need to plug it from the top and bottom if I want it to stay clean so for the bottom
I cut a piece of aluminum sheet and just kind of bent that to roughly match
the shape of the casting down there and just kind of jammed it in
there tight so it can'T fall out. For the top I cut another piece of sheet
metal that fits between the bedways to plug up this big hole and then I just
cut this little plug from some plywood and chamfered the edges so that I can
just wedge it in and the screw in the middle is just so I got something I can
grab onto if I need to get it out again These few simple steps have made the cleanup a
lot easier so let's move on to something else in the last video I made this shelf for my
tool holders that attaches to the backsplash of the lathe and sine then I actually made
an addition for that which is a big worklight unfortunately I didn't film that process
but it's not very exciting or complicated, it's basically just a frame I welded
up from aluminum tubing to keep it light and then I strapped a bunch
of LED strips to it. and since it slides into the tubing for the shelf
this thing is also height adjustable. So this was pretty simple to make
but very effective for getting good uniform lighting in this entire area
so I figured I'd just show the result here in case you want to implement
something similar for your machine. and another minor addition here is that I
added another small shelf to the backsplash on the right to put some additional
stuff and also cold blued and painted some of the steel pieces to stop rust
and make it look a little more finished. Next let's get to the most extensive
build today which is the new way covers. In the last video I made these covers which are
just some rubber flaps attached to a plate that I installed on top of the cross slide. This
solution is a bit crude but it did work ok, there's nothing really wrong with it but after a
few years of use it just looks pretty rough and And while it keeps the bulk of the chips off the ways it doesn't provide full coverage
which is something I'd like to change. Also, since these covers are attached to
the cross slide they move back and forth on the x axis which doesn't really make
sense so the plan is to fix that as well. As for why I'm adding covers at all, it's not so much to protect the lathe from its
own chips which it's designed to deal with. The main reason is that my whole
shop is in a single room and that means whenever I have to do
stuff like sanding and grinding, the griding dust that flies around the
room can also settle on the lathe bed. And those abrasive particles are really bad for
anything that has precision ground surfaces like a lathe or mill because they increase
ther wear on the ways to a huge degree unless you constantly clean the machine, so
the way covers should protect against that. But of course in addition, the covers also
make cleaning up chips a lot more convenient. So for the new version I want to use
this accordeon style material which is one of the standard solutions to protect moving
parts on machine tools like on the mill here. There's a lot of different styles of
these collapsible covers but it's kind of a rabbit hole that I don't wanna get into here, I'll just say that this is about the cheapest
and simplest solution within that realm. I bought this cover material on aliexpress and
I'm gonna put a link to that in the description but I think they also sell something like
this at McMaster Carr and similar places. so the idea is to have it cover the ways kind of
like this and while it might seem like a simple job at first it actually got pretty complicated
to do a clean installation, partly because one major aspect I wanted to include is to make these
easy to remove if and when I do need access to the ways for cleaning and maintenance or in case the
covers get in the way for a certain operation. to start with I removed everything
from the cross slide and one thing that makes everything more complicated
is that I also got the glass scale for my DRO installed here so I need to
work around that somehow as well my idea is that instead of the previous
mounting solution for the scale, I'm gonna put an L shaped aluminum profile
down here where the scale can sit inside and then the way covers would be attached to the
outside of that so both can move independently. so first I had to shorten this a little bit and then cut away a few bits and
mill some slots for mounting now it looks like this and I can attach it using the same threads that were already there before and now I need to figure out how to
attach the way covers to the aluminum when you buy these things they pretty much
come without any mounting solutions so it'S up to you to figure out how to attach them
to anything and here's how I solved that first of all I want one piece each on both sides
of the carriage so the entire bed is covered so I'm cutting this piece apart in middle and
it cuts quite easy just using a box cutter. and I did of course check before whether the
pieces are actually long enough because while they can extend quite a bit you don't want
to stretch them out too much so I'd suggest getting them a bit longer than you think
you need since you can always shorten them next I cut a bunch of aluminum strips to the same
width as the covers and drilled a bunch of holes and then the end of the covers gets sandwiched
between two of these strips using small rivets. now this can be attached to the bracket I made before and
that solves the installation on the carriage side so next is figuring out how
to attach the other side to the headstock. As I said I want this to be quickly removable
without tools on at least one side so I figured I'm gonna go with magnets for this one which
will be going into this piece of aluminum. the cover material did come with
a plastic strip glued to each end, so on this side I only had to drill two holes and
then I can just screw it against the magnet bar here's how the finished cover on this
side looks now, we got the magnets on one side and the bracket on the
other so lets do a test install and I'm very happy with the magnet solution,
these things are so strong that I had to add this little tab here because the magnets stick
so well you can't pry this off by hand otherwise. since the magnets are recessed into this
aluminum bar there's also no problem with chips getting stuck to it which is the
reason I normally avoid using magnets around these machines but I haven't
had any problems with this solution. now on the other side we can install the
bracket here and then the DRO scale goes inside like this but before I can install that
I have to make a new mounting bracket for it the scale used to be screwed against to
this little part here which installs into the back of one of the T slots
and this worked but was never a great solution and also wouldn't
work with what I'm about to do. so Since I need to add a support piece
back here for the future chip shield to rest on anyway, I'll combine that
with a new way to install the scale. so first let's make a few parts
and then I'll show you what I mean. so this part can screw into the back of the cross
slide now and later on the chip shield will rest on that, and then the scale is also installed
to this part with this little extension. and in front it can be mounted the same way as
before by directly screwing it to the cross slide. now I can also attach the reading head for the
scale again and as you can see the cross slide now moves independently from the attachment point
for the covers which was the main goal here. so now I can also attach the covers on this side and
try it out and it looks to be working well so far. but like I said I want to cover the
bedways completely so the next task is to figure out how to put covers
between the carriage and the tailstock again this comes with its own set of challenges,
there's also a bunch of stuff on this side that needs to be accessible. We got this screw
here which operates the carriage lock, then theres a bunch of gib adjustment screws
and also the lock for the cross slide. I don't use the locks all the time but they do
need to stay somewhat accessible and again I don't want to attach the covers to the cross slide
because I don't want them moving on the X axis. So that means they need to attach directly
to the carriage and I figured my best bet for that would be to make use of this
flat area down here between the ways. To make the covers easy to remove I'm gonna
use magnets again which will attach down here somewhat like this so I need to create sort
of a T-shaped plate to achieve that and I already measured and sketched out the basic
shape here so let's make this part next. I keep a whole bunch of different styles of
magnets around because they often come in handy, especially the ones that actually
come with a good attachment method, and these ones were perfect for this job. now the plate can attach like this and
the carriage lock is actually still usable with this installed and it clears
everything else so that's looking good to attach the covers I cut some threads into the plate and then just drilled into
the plastic strip on the covers again now that this side is solved the next
task is to attach the other side to the tail stock which luckily is quite simple, so
first I added some more aluminum strips to the cover so that I can screw this end
directly into the tail stock casting, which means I need to cut some threads first. It might seem a bit risky to use
a powerdrill to run a small tap like this but I find that if you use
the clutch at a low torque setting, chances of breaking the tap are pretty low and
it's just a lot faster than doing it by hand. I also ended up milling a little step into
the aluminum strip on one side to create some clearance because it was colliding with the
carriage a little bit which limits the travel. and speaking of travel, if you
fully compress these covers, they do still have some thickness,
which is something to keep in mind because it actually keeps me from sliding
the tail stock closer to the carriage here. however you can just flip them up to move
them out of the way and even like this they still interfere with things a lot less than
my previous solution with the rubber flaps. with both sides done we can try this out a
little bit and so far its working out great. I also discovered another little feature
here that I didn't even plan for. If the cover is removed on this side
it can actually be tucked under the tailstock using the magnets which is
very handy if I need it out of the way for a moment or if I need to get
the tailstock in there all the way. The next step is to now close up all those
gaps around the cross slide so the idea is to put some kind of plate there again to act as
a chip shield but this time without covering the surface of the cross slide which means
it needs cutout to fit around the outside. to start with I'm cutting up some aluminum
sheet to size again and I want to put a very accurate rectangular cutout in there
so I'm gonna use the mill for that. But since a big piece of sheet metal
creates a lot of vibrations when you try to mill it I'm screwing this down
onto a sacrificial piece of wood which should keep the vibrations down and also
give me something to hold onto in the vise Now I can start cutting it with a little
endmill and I'm using a little bit of coolant because the wood underneath
can make the endmills run quite hot but looking at those burrs I think this
one is pretty much clapped out anyway I did of course put the screws in
the middle so that the holes are in the piece that I don't use and now
it's just missing some mounting holes doing a test fit here and this came out
really nice it fits around the cross slide with pretty much no gaps so that's gonna
make sure no chips are gonna make it past on the spindle side this gets a folded
edge to go cover the glass scale and my DIY metal brake is a bit too flimsy for this
job but I did manage to get it done somehow before I can install the cover I need
another support in front of the cross slide and to prepare the mounting points for
that I have to unfortunately disassemble the whole handwheel assembly because it turns
out can't get in there with a drill otherwise now I can drill and tap two holes and this is the little support bracket I made
that can be installed there. now I just gotta transfer the mounting
holes from the cover plate and then there's also the satisfying moment
of taking the protective foil off after doing some finishing there's only one thing
missing now, I also need an edge that extends down a little bit on the other side to close the
gap between the chip shield and the way covers but it needs to be able to flip up because
otherwise it would block the magnetic plate that the covers are attached to from being pulled
out so my idea is to make some sort of hinge. instead of using a mechanical hinge
I'm gonna make one from this super tough canvas material here, I'm not sure
what the correct name for this is but I used this in a bunch of projects so I know
it's virtually indestructible and I'm gonna use the same sandwich construction
again to attach it using some rivets so now with this flexible edge finished as
well it's time to do the final installation I also added a little flap in
front of the chip shield which is to cover the cross slide ways
when it's all the way in the back now you can see the reason for that flexible
edge, when I want to attach or remove this cover it simply flips up and when it's down, it
keeps chips from migrating under the chip shield. and at the same time, getting the covers
on and off is still very quick and easy one big advantage of this new chip shield over my
old solution is that this time it doesn't cover the top of the cross slide so the mounting surface
and the t slots are still fully accessible. speaking of T slots, to keep those from
getting clogged up with chips I also made these little things to plug
them up when they're not in use. they also have some clearance
built in at one end and this creates a pocket that allows to keep a
set of T nuts hidden under there so if want install a top slide back here,
I don't need to fumble those in and out. and of course the little gap on the
other side also got some of those plugs. the new solution for the covers is finally
finished now and I'm not sure if it comes across in the video but this task turned out
to be quite a bit of work and involved a lot of problem solving but I think it was well
worth the effort because this feels a lot more like a final proper solution now that I'm
hopefully gonna keep as long as this machine. And if you want to improve
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will also get 20% off an annual membership. next up is another small improvement, the way I
had the DRO display mounted so far was not very elegant and als o a bit wobbly due to using some
flimsy scrap tubing, so I want to make a nicer and more sturdy mounting solution for that by building
a little post that installs onto the headstock. I started by cleaning up this steel tube
here and welded some scrap to the bottom to create a base and then turned it round
and cleaned everything up on the lathe. the bottom gets a mounting hole and then I put a
socket head screw in there and pressed a nut in at the top and welded that in so the screw inside
is a captive screw now and you'll see why in a bit then that gets cleaned up as well
so it all looks like one piece and now I just need to drill and tap
some threads to the cover plates on the headstock that I made in
the last video to install this Since I'm indecisive I made three mounting
holes so I can change the position later if I want to or attach something else
up there and now comes the neat part. The nut I welded on top is big enough
so I can stick an allen key in there that fits the screw inside which I
can now use to attach this to the plate here and then on top I can install
this arm I just made from some flat bar. And with the display installed I can
now swing this around to bring it into a comfortable position, so overall a pretty
quick an easy but effective improvement. so the next one is again kind of a redo of a
previous improvement. In the last lathe video I briefly talked about how I exchanged the
original control panel for this lathe and installed new switches because I didn't like the
controls it had before. this was definitely an improvement but after using it for some
time I still wasn't 100% happy with it. while these up down switches make sense for the
speed and direction control, having a single up and down switch to start and stop the spindle
always felt a bit unintuitive, so I want to change up the panel once more and install these
dedicated buttons for the spindle control. one more thing I want to change
is the the main power switch. This is actually a two way switch, so it
has two on and one off position and the reason is that you can in theory buy a
milling attachment for this lathe even though I've never actually seen it for sale, and
that's why the power switch has two positions but for me this switch is pretty pointless
and since I want to install more buttons I need to free up some space on this
panel anyway so I want to replace that with this switch here because it's not
as big, it fits with the other switches, it makes more sense, and it looks like it
came out of an airplane which is awesome. so I want to put all switches in a row with even
spaces but I don't want to make an entirely new plate so to deal with the existing holes that
don't match the new layout I figured I'm just gonna weld them shut and then machine
everything flat and drill new holes. for the bigger hole in the middle I made this little plug and then the smaller
ones I can just fill up directly then I took off most of the material
with an endmill and cleaned up the rest with an orbital sander because
those are a lot better for leaving a flat uniform surface compared to an angle grinder and now the plate is looking nice and clean
and you can barely tell there were ever any holes there so it's time to drill two additional
holes and enlarge the ones for the new buttons. I also decided to clean up the
cutout for the display a little bit because when I first made this
plate it didn't come out super clean, especially the chamfers were a bit rough
because I just made them with a file back then so this time I machined some chamfers
which immediately made this look a lot cleaner. I also decided to paint the plate
black because it matches the rest of the lathe a lot better and now I can
start installing all the switches again so this circuit board here talks to the VFD that
controls the motor and it has all the little switches for the original touch buttons on it.
Just like last time I'm not gonna mess with those, all I'm doing is simply soldering all
the cables for my new buttons onto the contacts for the original buttons from
the back so I'm just bypassing them, which means if I wanted to I could remove all
of this and restore it to its original state now it's time to reinstall
this whole mess and this time I also got some nicer screws for that
which are actually the right length the controls all seem to work
correctly so the only thing left to do is to print some labels and
with that the new panel is finished now. everything works and I don't think I could improve
this further at this point but while I was working on this area there was one more small
potential improvement that caught my attention. so for some reason the manufacturer of
this lathe decided to put the threading tables on top of the gearbox cover
here, which doesn't make a lot of sense because it's one of the places you
always put tools and other stuff so it's gonna get scratched up over time and it's
also kind of inconvenient to read up there so that's not ideal because this table contains
some pretty important information for running the lathe but it turns out there is a much
better spot for this so I decided to move it. so down they put this useless sticker
telling you the specs of the lathe, the table actually fits perfectly, almost
like that's how it was planned originally. So I just removed the sticker and cleaned
everything up and and drilled a few small holes so that I can reattach it properly using
rivets and this was just a really small quick improvement but it just makes a lot more sense
now compared to how it came out of the box. for the last major build I'm once again
revisiting an older modification. in the last lathe video I showed this
handwheel mod which is basically a little gearbox I built that changes the
gear ratio for the carriage handwheel. the reason for that is that sometimes with
these import machines, some really strange and inexplicable design decisions
are made and in its stock condition the gearing for the handwheel on
this machine is just way too high, meaning the carriage moves a pretty huge
distance for each revolution of the handwheel. that's good if you want to move the carriage
really fast which is largely irrelevant for a lathe though, but it's absolutely terrible
for moving it with precision which is a lot more important because the whole point
of a metal lathe is to be accurate. so this gearbox reduces that speed by
a factor of one to four which gives me much finer control and that helped a
lot for actually hitting dimensions. that being said there are a few things about
this I don't like, one is that since I used two gears to keep it simple, the gearbox reverses
the feed direction so the handwheel spins the other way compared to before, which is not a
huge deal because you get used to it quickly but it's very confusing for anyone who
isn't used to this lathe and vice versa. but what bothers me more is just that the
build quality on this is thing is quite bad because I built it a long time ago
with less experience so it just feels a bit wonky and also introduces quite a bit of
drag so I feel like I could make a much more refined version of this now that fixes those
things so that's what I'm gonna tackle next. the solution for the feed direction problem is actually really simple and somehow
just didn't occur to me back then. I can just use a drive belt instead of gears. In
that case both pulleys turn in the same direction and this also eliminates any play in the mechanism
and should feel a lot smoother overall, plus it doesn't even need any lubrication so I think
it's a way better better solution in this case. this time I made a quick little
mockup in cad just to figure out some dimensions and where everything needs to go. the idea is that this time instead of putting the handwheel axle on the front face of the cross
slide I'm gonna put it on the side and that way I also solve another issue I had with the
old gearbox which was that the handwheels were too close together and would sometimes get
in each others way when grabbing the handle. so let's start by making that bearing
support block that goes on the side with the basic shape finished it
just needs a hole now for a bushing. I'm gonna make the bushing from some POM because for this
application I don't think ball bearings are even necessary and this is
a very inexpensive and easy solution. this part is now done so next
I need to make a little shaft. the one I'm making here actually got scrapped
later, I ended up making a second shaft but I didn't film that one so I'm showing you the first
one because it was essentially the same process. the only thing I changed is that I added a flange
on one side but you'll see that in a second after turning everything to the
right diameter it gets some keyseats, one for the handwheel and one for the belt pulley I know I should really get some new
endmills looking at these burrs but it's not as bad as it looks once you get them off next I need to modify this little pulley a bit
and since it has those flanges on the outside this is super awkward to hold in a lathe chuck
because there's virtually nothing to grab onto I tried it anyway and it's
definitely a bit sketchy but at least for some careful drilling it worked but eventually I made these sleeves because I also need to do some facing and I think that
would have launched it from the chuck it's a bit wobbly now but should be good enough
since I just need to trim down the end here now this also needs a keyway and
luckily I did happen to have the right size keyway broach this
time so making this one was easy now I'm reaming the bigger gear to the right
diameter and this also needs a keyway but unfortunately I didn't have a broach for that
size but there's another trick you can use. I used and endmill the same size as the key
and just cut a round keyway like this and then I could just file the corners square with a
needle file, takes a bit more work than broaching but it defintely comes out a lot straighter
than if you try to file the entire keyway. so here's the second version of the
shaft that I talked about earlier, like I said it's basically the same
except for that flange in the middle which the handwheel can be screwed against
and that just helped to secure it better and make it run more true because it
was a bit wobbly with the first shaft. so with all the parts done it's
now time to install everything so there's a locknut in the
back here to set the preload and once that's adjusted there's
absolutely zero play in the bushing and the shaft turns very smooth and true so
I#m happy with the fit and that's already a big improvement over the old one. And what's also
nice is that if this bushing ever gets worn out, I can make a new one in like 10 minutes for almost
no cost so it's very easy to service this as well. now I just need to drill and tap
some threads again to mount this and before drilling into anything on the
lathe I check the drawings in the manual and make sure there's nothing
behind here that I might damage the big pulley now goes onto the shaft
where the handwheel would normally sit and then this assembly goes on the side and
I made slots there instead of holes because that allows for just enough adjustment
to put some tension on the drive belt. now the handhweel can go on and upon
the first test it feels very good but the install is not quite finished
because I actually made a cover for this as well which is one of those
things where 3d printing is just perfect because it's a highly custom part but it
doesn't need much structural strength. and what I especially like about this is
that I was able to design this so that it gets attached to the threads that I used
for the old gearbox so that way I don't have useless holes in the carriage and also don't
need to drill any new ones to install this. there's still enough space to adjust
the belt in there and of course it also has a front cover which just
pops in with a very satisfying click there's only last minor thing I want
to fix now and that is the handle. if you watched this channel before
you know I have pet peeve about cheap noisy handles on machines which
is why I keep replacing them. the original handle works fine but
the rattling each time you use it just drives me nuts and these things are
just a crappy design because they always have too much play on that shaft
and there's no way to adjust it. so once again I'm making a
knurled replacement handle which I have made countless
versions of at this point and they're pretty easy to make, it's just an
aluminum sleeve that a socket head screw drops into and then it has a locknut on the end to
adjust it and take out the play and combined with a generous amount of grease in there that's
really all you need for a quiet smooth handle. and now finally, with the new gearbox and the
new handle this whole mechanism makes it almost feel like a different machine, I almost couldn't
believe how smoother it feels compared to before. the movement is super smooth, the drag is way
down, the feed direction is now correct again, and there's a lot more space around the handwheel. So overall I'm just really happy
I revisited this because at this point I would almost call this a perfect solution. So that concludes the last build
for this round of improvements, but before I end the video there's
a few footnotes I want to add. First of all there is a bunch of other minor stuff
I improved that didn't make it into the video, like improving the fit and finish on some
stock parts like the feed selection mechanism here and I also made some more handles
and overhauled the entire tailstock. but this is a pretty long video and there is
some extra stuff I quickly wanna mention so the build part is over now in case you don't want
to sit through 5 more minutes of me talking. There's one potential issue with
the way covers that you probably should know about if you also want to
install accordeon covers on your lathe. Since these covers are only folded in one
direction they do have a tendency to sort of pop up when they're either quickly
compressed or clogged up with chips. for the rear cover this is not really a problem
and like I showed it can even be helpful to flip up the covers so they don't limit the travel,
but near the chuck it's a different story because if they pop up here there is a chance they might
get caught or hit by the chuck or by a workpiece. So I tried a few solutions to fix
that and the first was to use a bunch of pieces of flat bar to act
as weights to keep the covers down this did kind of work but with enough
chips in there they would still pop up sometimes and I also figured that
even if I glue them on or something, having these steel pieces there might
actually be more risky because if those get caught by the chuck they could become a
projectile so this was not a great solution. the best one I found eventually was
to add a small steel rod that sits inside the lathe bed low enough
for the carriage to pass over it, in this case I just attached it to that chip
plug that I hammered in this gap earlier and on the other end it doesn't even need to be attached
to anything so it just kind of floats there. then I punched small holes into the covers
at about every third or second fold and put a zip tie through each one and now
the steel rod runs through those loops and pulls the covers down onto the bed and
this makes it impossible for them to pop up there's probably a much more elegant way to
do the same thing but it does work well and I haven't had any problems with the covers
interfering with anything since then so even though the implementation is a bit quick
and dirty here, I think it's a good proof of concept and I might improve that at
some point too but for now it works fine and I just wanted to show an approach for this
problem in case you want to try the same thing. one other new feature I wanted to quickly
mention because I know people are gonna ask is the chuck on the toolpost. you might
have seen earlier that I was drilling a hole using the carriage rather than
the tailstock and I can't even begin to list how awesome and helpful this is and I
whish I would have found about it way sooner. It's another thing I picked up in a stefan
gotteswinter video where he explains how he set this up in detail which is why I'm
just gonna refer you to his video for that. but just to show you the basic setup, all
I did was to buy this tool holder for my multifix toolpost, which is normally used
for a big boring bar. but instead I just installed this sleeve that has a morse taper
inside and then you can just insert a chuck of your choice and that's pretty much
it. I didn't build any of this stuff, it's all just off the shelf tooling that you
should be able to buy for most toolpost systems. centering this to the spindle is solved by saving
a home position on the DRO and using the height adjustment on the tool holder and like I said
if you want to see that in detail just check out stefans video, I basically just wanted to
let you know that this option exists because I didn't know about it for way too long and it makes
drilling on the lathe so much faster and easier. alright that's all for this one, I
feel like that was a lot of talking this time so hopefully you could take
away some useful ideas from this video. as always, thanks for watching
and see you next time.
