Hi Larry, I really respect someone who takes the time to teach the next generation! Good on ya! Thanks for watching and leaving a note.

My mistake, thanks for the correction!

Excellent! Easier and more simple is better

Thanks for watching and posting Brian.

Thanks for watching and leaving a note.

I'm glad it helped. Thank you for watching and posting.

Thank you for your kind words and thanks for watching.

Me also subscibe

I'm glad it helped. It works much better when the tailback is aligned. Thanks for your note and for watching.

Thank you, I appreciate you watching.

I'm glad you stopped by and watched the video. So glad to hear you enjoy learning. Thanks for leaving a message.

Thanks for your note glad you watched!

I'm glad you like it. Thanks for watching and your message.

I'm glad you found it helpful. Thank you for your note.

I'm glad you liked it, thanks for watching.

Thanks you for watching.

Awesome, glad it helped. Thanks for watching.

Ours has identical tail stock making it easier. Im down to .0025 runnout in 15". Good enough for now...thanks

Glad it helped. This can be tricky if the bed has a twist in it.

I'm glad you liked it. Thanks for watching

Hi Charles, that will work also as long as you are on center. I like the large flat surface of the tail stock and it is not in the way of the machining. Thanks for watching.

Thanks Tim, its fast and often close enough!

Thank you. It is always a pleasure hearing from people around the world.

Thanks

Thanks for watching and your observations.

It's a Colchester, I'm in Canada.

Between centers would be ideal, then you need a drive dog. This video showed aligning the tailstock to the chuck. Thank you for watching.

Do you have a taper turning attachment? That is the best solution to turn a taper in a lathe.

The focus was on adjusting the tailstock, center and a lathe dog would have been a better setup.

I prefer holding the part by it's centers rather than the chuck. That represents the spindles axis.

machiningmoments thank you for a quick reply 👍👍👍

It is a 0-1inch Starrett micrometer.

Great lathe

Thank you for watching.

It is the tail stock that needs to move.

Sounds like the things you mentioned would only really come into play in high or super high precision work. Most at home or hobbyist machinists rarely if ever need that level of precision. This sounds like a basic procedure that will get a level of straightness that will suit most applications not requiring super high precision. Of course older machines are going to have run out and such but if your skill set is half way decent you learn how to work with that kind of stuff.

Nope, what I mentioned is just basic set up for any lathe you expect to turn parallel. And certainly running the full set of Schlesingers tests should be SOP for any new or used machine you buy. I mounted my first lathe (a little Emco compact 5) on a 1" thick steel plate. With some adjustments had it within 2/10ths over 12" Sadly with the standard stick built type floor construction my shop floor has it would only keep those adjustments over a few hrs until the temperature and/or humidity changed a few points. I don't consider what I did as pushing the limits of high precision at all. Exact part size to a few 10ths may be of less importance in a hobbists shop, but I do disagree that it's unimportant not to have a machine properly set up so it's movements are as close as possible. Model steam or IC engines produce very little power given that you can't scale physics. Correct machine tool alignment is just part of what goes into building one that operates as well as it should. More than a few people are trying to set records with model competitive engines both IC and flash steam with home built designs. You can bet they've had to learn to set up there equipment and compensate for the equipment's inaccuracys as well. It really doesn't take that long once you understand the order to do it in and what effect those adjustments will have. I also had a really poorly machined Seig C6 that broke every tip off of every center drill used in the tailstock. Then I didn't know enough to run the proper checks as soon as I got it. An indicator on the tailstocks quill showed it pointing uphill over .009" in just over 2". Without that check and remachining the tailstock would have been unusable. Add maybe 2" for a drill chuck, then lets say another 4" for a reamer and then try reaming a straight hole with a tailstock that far out and you get a seriously tapered hole.The less you pay for a machine the more checks you have to do. And you can't properly compensate for those inaccurcy's unless you know where and how much they are. The very first step done in industry while installing a new machine is proper alignment and accuracy checks to verify the machine is correct. And these are very heavily built and rigid machines. Yet we expect our somewhat limp noodle machines in home shops to get bolted down and produce good results? Sorry it just ain't that easy and my tests show that more than well enough at least to myself. A bit of educated tuning can make some huge differences in what a machine can produce. What does take the time is learning how and what needs to be done. I've spent years learning the little I do know. There's probably more misinformation on the hobbist's forums and YT about machine tool alignment than there is correct information. Unless your parts are being checked as good enough with a tape measure then those checks and alignments are required.

Turning Point, I 100% agree with you. If the lathe is not accurately setup to start you can set the tailstock all day and never get it right. Your post is the first step, or a check if the lathe is not responding correctly. My video only speaks to aligning a tailstock that has been moved off of center. Thanks for taking the time to write about this important first step!

+Turning Point Of course you are right in what say, but you were talking about an unknown/new to you machine. I never took this video as that. I thought it was inferred that he was familiar with his machine and he said this method can be used for turning tapers w/o a taper attachment available. Seems like you know your stuff and are willing to share, if you believe there's that much misinformation on YT have you ever considered starting your own channel to try and curve that problem. You prob could have shot one in not to much more time than it took to type all that especially if you type as fast as I do. =) Thanks for the vid machiningmoments.

LOL, I type more than slow. And I'm just barely computer smart enough to get YT to come up. Shooting a video is the easy part. Editing and uploading is very likely way outside my limits. But thanks for the vote of confidence. I have thought about it and maybe someday. It's taken me years to find the little I think I might know about machine tool alignment. Bits and pieces here and there is what takes the time. Those Schlesinger tests and maybe the Machine Tool Reconditioning book are a good start though. That misinformation or maybe a better term would be misunderstood information would explain a bit better about what I was meaning. Lathe leveling is a prime example on the forums. All your doing is using the easiest method of getting the lathes bed into an unstressed condition. Half decent lathes would have had the bare lathe bed ground on a carefully leveled grinder so your just trying to set it up the way it would have been when it was first ground. The lathe could be at a 45 degree angle as long as the bed was straight and it would still work accurately. Testing with a good level is just the easiest method. There's no real magic in the level part. At-Man Unlimited has an extremely good series of videos about properly aligning a Fadal cnc bed mill and most of what's there could be applied to almost any mill. There's very few videos around with that high level of information. I can say my equipment seemed a whole lot better when I knew a bit less though. :-)

Colchester

machiningmoments yes, it’s the same :) I’m in the U.K. Were they made in USA or U.K.?

I believe they are a British lathe.