Creepy Dial.

[Tinkerer]

Anyone else have dial creep. Seems like when I making a bunch of parts. I can set the dial to zero out the start and after so many part 10 of so I get like .002 to .004 creep from the starting zero. Does not matter how tight I tighten the set screw either ( with in reason mind ya ). I'm starting to think it's sticksion between the knob and dial. I'm gona pull it apart and give it a good cleaning and hope for the best. If I can't fix this I'll have to make a good rig for a dial indicator or a cheap HF digital caliper. But was wondering if anyone else has this happen.

[Your Old Dog]

Mine will do that on the cross slide if the gibs are too sloopy. In fact, I've traced many vibration problems back to the cross slide gib adjustment screws.

[SGW]

What brand machine? My South Bend 10K lathe dials never give me a problem. The dials on my Jet milling machine, on the other hand, aren't nearly as precisely made. They are better than the dials on some imports I've seen, which are truly horrible, but the setscrew locks on my Jet dials were pretty basic. I finally reworked them to give more precise action, which helped considerably.

[Paul Alciatore]

Are you sure this isn't tool wear? The cutting edge will wear down when making multiple parts. Not so much in aluminum but in a hard steel it can be a lot; perhaps even enough to show up in a single pass. I think this is one of the reasons why shops use carbide tooling.

Paul A.

[nheng]

Some larger crossfeed dials can turn on their own from vibration if not adjusted tight enough (whether thrust bearings or bushings or whatever).

Are you talking about a change in the dial only or a change in part diameter? Den

[Darrp]

I’ve got a Standard-Modern that I had the same problem. I also had what I thought was a backlash problem too. I just assumed that I needed a new acme nut on my cross slide because of the backlash. Finally I decided to take the assembly apart and I found that the graduated collar (dial) on the cross slide was not tight to the bushing, which in turn caused “play†I felt. It was not backlash but poor adjustment by the last owner. When I took everything apart I found that there was also an extra spacer that the previous owner must have installed. I took it out and snugged up the collar, and then I tightened the lock screws. This removed all but .017†which is dam good.
When I had everything apart I took the tension spring and bent it out a bit to add some extra resistance to the dial. This fixed my “creepy†dial.

When your dial creeps is it the setscrew slipping? On my old lathe, the dials slipped because I couldn’t tighten setscrews enough, so I made setscrews with a little bigger heads and a coarser knurl. This helped a lot.

Darren

[Tinkerer]

The lathe is a 10F Atlas. I remove the handle and dial. I do believe it was a case of sticksion caused by old gummy oil. I cleaned all the mating surfaces and noticed a small hole in the back face of the dial that held four drops of oil placed the dial back on and gave it a spin and removed oil leeched onto the faces from the weep hole. So this looks like it could solve it. I'll be running some more parts and see if the creep is gone. Oh did check all jibs everything set up ok. However I do see a slight fray starting on the drive belt so I'll be needing to replace it as well as the one from the jack shaft to the head. Any recommendations at to good belts. I'd thought about using those link belts but wonder if they would make the lathe vibrate.

Thanks

[egpace]

Tinkerer,
As far as a link belt transmitting vibration, you'll find just the opposite, the link belt will dampen vibration! Check out their website. I swear by them. Even If I had my Atlas headstock apart I would still use the link belt! Got mine through Grizzley.

Cheers,
Ed

http://www.fennerindustrial.com/prod...twist_ind.html

[gzig5]

Link belts.. I did a lot of checking, and I think Grizzly has the best deal, unless you need 25 feet. Took care of 80-90% of the vibration on my 12x36 Craftsman.
Greg