开云体育

So I plugged it in and it ran. On the face of it everything seemed fine.

Then I hand wound the carriage and what a racket. Short story the half nut was catching on the thread. Also when the nut was closed the lead screw obviously bent towards the front!

A least taking it apart is straight forward. Using the bench grinder ground a bit off the edge of the half nuts. This seemed to reduce the catching but not the thread bending? as much. So the two holes through which the front of the saddle is fixed to the bed were filed a bit on the front side. The idea being it brings the front element forwards a bit. It worked. Now no more catching and no bending of lead screw.

I then noticed the top slide was actually at a slight angle. Wound it back, and off. Using a square resent the base. Refitted the top slide fitting the gib strip properly.

Then I found an odd white samll plastic gear that had come out the end. Funny that as it work OK. So end off and it is a spare idler gear! I think that is what it is. There is a spot for it to screw into but it does nothing so left it off.

So now for its first run cutting metal, aluminium. Using a brazed carbide tipped tool. Cannot say I like them but at least it is good enough to test it with. For facing I brought the tail stock up to the saddle and locked it n place. On my previous lathe I used to place a plate between saddle and tail stock. Never got around to making a lock, reckon I need to find that plate again.

As I was expecting having to do some work on it I was not disappointed.? As the prices for these machines seemed to have a wide spread and i got one at the bottom end I am quite happy. Whatever happens they are not going to get any cheaper and it is certainly easy to work on.

I am not bothered about precision work. A Cowell with an extra 0 on the price is beyond my needs.?

I reckon it will do for the odd small turning jobs I do. I will not be doing any long stuff so the 12"/300mm bed is enough, especially with the price difference over 14"/350mm and the chuck in the tail stock does not get in the way.

I saw a tip on line to make a cover for the saddle winding gears; looks a good idea. Guard seems useless as tool post catches it close to chuck.?

Chinese stuff like this is a case of you get what you pay for and if you do not flog it to death will suffice as a amateurs tool. Seems to be the case with the other occasionally use cheap Chinese stuff.?

Thanks for the suggestions from my first post. I am now going to see how things work out. So far I have not bolted it to bench. No problems with the test run and probably light work will be OK. Just have to watch out. Handy being able to push it back.