Cardiff Lathe Bolt

[Onoff]

The fixings dead centre of the red square on this Cardiff Lathe, one front, one back. You loosen/tighten with a spanner to adjust the angle:

Would anyone know what size they are, normal bolts, T bolts etc? The back bolt has stripped.

(Not the actual Cardiff lathe I use in the photo but one similar. I couldn't for the life of me the other day figure why the "tool" kept moving. When I found the problem the lathe owner says it's been like it since he got it and keeps meaning to fix it!

Feeling sorry for myself with man flu (hopefully) and just thought of it.

Cheers

 

[Pete.]

Normally a T bolt with a curved tee section to match the circular groove in the cross slide below. To remove them normally involves winding the cross slide right off. If yours in stripped then you can probably cut off the threaded bit, drill and tap the tee then weld or loctite a new thread in.

When it's off you might want to investigate the reason for it being stripped. It could be that the swivel is convex on the bottom causing it to rotate despite being very tight.

 

[frank horton]

my Colchester swivel bolts are 3/8 diameter....if that helps...
" Myford S7 " 5/16 "

 

[Agroshield]

The fixings dead centre of the red square on this Cardiff Lathe, one front, one back. You loosen/tighten with a spanner to adjust the angle:

What is the fixing? Is it a nut (i.e the male threaded bit is coming upwards from the cross-slide) or a bolt (the male threaded bit is going downwards)?

If it is a bolt, as above, removal is slightly more difficult as the top slide has to go to make room. You can then determine what the bolts thread into and how the nuts are inserted into the cross slide curved T-slot. If they go in from above, the T-slot will be discontinuous to allow them to enter. It is worth noting what the angular reading on the top slide would be when one of the nuts is opposite the discontinuity and writing it down somewhere safe. That is the one angular reading you should avoid setting your top slide to.

If it is a nut, just remove the good one and then some slight upwards pressure on the top slide as you undo the stripped one should get it off. There will be a centre dowel in the top slide so you have to pry evenly from both sides so it lifts square.

Assuming a nut, Once the slide is off, again determine how the circular T-slot is configured and see if there is any 'no go' angular setting for the top slide.

 

[Onoff]

The fixing is a "bolt" coming up with a nut on top.

Not looked at it, just told the owner the other day before I came down with man flu. A bit disconcerting in use it was. I touched the end of the tool to the end of the bit of st/st stud I wanted to face off set it up to take off 10 thou. The "tool" appeared to move and it started taking off like 2mm when I engaged the cross feed. Before then the quality of cut was erratic. I even turned down one 12dia x 36lg shaft end that looked like a Coke bottle, it bellowed out about halfway along. Apparently it's been like it all the years I've been going along to borrow the lathe.

Basically relying on the front fixing which itself was loose!

 

[fizzy]

Lovely lathes!

 

[Pete.]

TBH that sounds like a 10 minute repair. Cut the bolt off the nut, drill, tap, screw in a new bolt from the underside with some loctit on it. Wait for the loctite to go off then cut the head off.

No reason not to do it really.