Brand New LittleMachineShop Lathe Owner

[oxford]

I strongly suspect that he engaged the half nuts, got one feed rate, then tried the power feed and got another, slower rate, without realising that he has to change gears under the end cover to vary feeds.

I suspect this as well but he did mention the change gears in the OP so I’m not quite sure what he has going on.

[wmgeorge]

No!
Introduce and keep someone is the hobby?
The right way would be ask questions first and guide the new person into an informed choice
The opposite of I've bought X and I can't get it t do what I want, no manual,etc. Now what??

Most of the advice on here about buying a new lathe is buy some worn out old junk from the 1940's (like I did) and spend 3x the price of a new Grizzly or Sieg rebuilding it. Then like I did, spent 6 months trying to sell the old one and lose a couple thousand in the process. No Thanks. He's got a manual and one to download If he needs.

[Fasturn]

Most of the advice on here about buying a new lathe is buy some worn out old junk from the 1940's (like I did) and spend 3x the price of a new Grizzly or Sieg rebuilding it. .

I agree with this. I didnt want to get caught up in referbing someone else's problem. Some sites wont even let you mention import machinery " China "
The HF mini lathes are very poor, but my 8x12 lathe is a crazy good machine for $ 900 deliverd to my shop. That's good for my requirements!! The OP should find lots of info on the C4 online. I bet LMS would answer any questions better than we have done here?

Some think about metal
Some know how to cut metal
Some think they know how to cut metal ?

[wmgeorge]

It was kind of fun to rebuild that old Heavy Ten, but it sure was not cost effective. I needed to run carbide tooling to make a item I was selling and the SB was not the lathe for the job. There is close to zero interest in machinery in the Midwest and I ended up getting an Emco Super 11 off eBay and paying to ship it here. It was a wonderful machine after I got done replacing some gears. Even that machine I sold at a loss!!

[Jammer Six]

Let’s get this back on track for him. Jammer Six, what did you do or how did you determine that there was only 2 speeds for the power feed?

Is there a chart either on the lathe or in some paper work that gives you what gears give you what thread pitches? Does that one or is there another one that has anything expressed in decimals? That would be your feed advanced in either inches (or millimeters) per revolution.

I saw this chart on the top of the machine:



In the lower right, it has a double headed arrow that indicates "per spindle turn" that I decided indicated the speed of the feed.

I didn't see anything else on the chart that I recognized as a speed, and I didn't realize that on this chart, they're all different speeds. Since there are only two speeds listed for imperial and two speeds listed for metric, I concluded I only had two speeds available, .002 and .005.

[The Metal Butcher]

I saw this chart on the top of the machine:

snip

In the lower right, it has a double headed arrow that indicates "per spindle turn" that I decided indicated the speed of the feed.

I didn't see anything else on the chart that I recognized as a speed, and I didn't realize that on this chart, they're all different speeds. Since there are only two speeds listed for imperial and two speeds listed for metric, I concluded I only had two speeds available, .002 and .005.

No, all you have is an incomplete chart. Some lathes are bad about that. They only tell you the feeds they want to you to use, or leave some out for room savings. Dad's Lagun for example has a over 700 feed (some may be repeats), but the chart only has about 30.

The important thing is that we learned that the ratio from your leadscrew to your feed is 55:1. So for any TPI range listed above you can take the TPI, multiply it by 5.5 and take the inverse. Alternately, take the inverse and divide it by 55. Eg. 13 TPI will give you a feed of 1/(13*5.5) = .014" per rev. Too steep. Any gear setups from about 32 down will work ok.

Some fellas on here have a calculator that will take all of the gears you have and give you every combination possible. Then you could whip up and print out a little excel cheatsheet with all of your feeds listed and what gear to put where. That's the un-fun part of change gear machines. But, once you've done all the legwork, do a little practice, figure out what feeds you like, plan your parts out in advance so you don't have to change it 100 times, and you'll be off to the races.

[oxford]

If you don’t want to do the leg work just use the metric threading chart as a reference for your feed rates. Notice .25 is the same gears as .002 ipr and .7 is the same gears as .005 ipr.

Using that as a reference you have 6 other feeds rates between .002” and .005” and a whole lot more faster than .005”

[oxford]

And fwiw, my Clausing has a qcgb and for the most part I leave it the setting that I can get .0011”- .0022”- and .0046” with the turn of 1 knob and use those as my feed rates.

[RB211]

Yes the chi-com machines have gone up 25- 50% in price over the last 2 years. It's a SIEG SC4 Bench Lathe. Pretty easy to work around the issue of feed gears. Little gears drive the big gears to slow down the feed screw. I have the HF lathe and run gears , not shown to slow the feed rate. Small lathe, so I hand feed most things. Leave the Banjo set for 20 tpi which is the most common thread for me. Pretty amazing what can be done on these lathes if you are experienced ? Mine was $900.00

I still have a mental image from the Grizzly catalog of a 12x36 lathe for $1999. I’ll admit, my brain doesn’t think with regards to inflation. Still though, $2700 for an SC4 is highway robbery. Chris over at “Little Overpriced Junk Shop” must of found his target audience.

[Fasturn]

$2700 for an SC4 is highway robbery ?

It is now , back when I was looking it was $1800. Still more than I wanted to pay for a Toy Lathe. Very happy with the one I bought for now, just a hobby machine! After owning a real machine shop and contracting work, I am happy with the Toys. I hope the OP get his lathe going and frequents HSM for more information than he needs > lol !!

Happy Holidays All-

[oxford]

I still have a mental image from the Grizzly catalog of a 12x36 lathe for $1999. I’ll admit, my brain doesn’t think with regards to inflation. Still though, $2700 for an SC4 is highway robbery. Chris over at “Little Overpriced Junk Shop” must of found his target audience.

To put this into perspective a little. A SouthBend 9 in 1936 with a chuck and drive setup was roughy $120.

That $120 ran through the inflation calculator comes out to $2400. I am not positive that the inflation calculator I used is accurate to the rate things have gone up in the last 12 months either.

[PStechPaul]

I have a spreadsheet showing gears for my HF9x20 lathe for both inch and metric threads:

http://enginuitysystems.com/pix/tools/9x20ThreadChart.xls

Some images:

[nickel-city-fab]

P.S. I still don't understand the difference between the power feed and the half-nut. It sounds to me like they do the same thing.

Simple difference:
the power feed is meant for longitudinal cuts, going along the length of the part. It could be anything, arbitrarily.
The half-nut is used *exclusively* for threading, and nothing else -- it "locks" the travel of the machine to the speed of the lead screw, in a definite ratio. The ratio between the spindle revolutions, and the lead screw revolutions, is what gives you your thread.

[nickel-city-fab]

Running a Seig C4 would make me feel like
asking for a ride from an 70 year old hooker, driving a Yugo.
Just dirty all over. Just no fun at all. But hey, I gotta be me.

-D

LOL
The secret is to be comfy with yourself
And they're good listeners too

[JRouche]

[QUOTE=Fasturn;n1975221]

Your both right...
comparing to a Monarch 10EE, its junk.
In the hobby machine types, its considered very good.
I have studied these bench lathes for years and came close to buying the C4 .
For me, the HF 8x12 was the best price and capable for my home shop. I worked many years on a 10/QUOTE]

I agree 100 percent,

In the Home Show Machinist place we are on I'd take the C4 before the 10EE. It just works better.

Yiu guys run a very nice 10EE?

I had to go through all the electronics on mine, Old tubes and everything/ I was lucky, the metal was good. JR