Finally, someone makes a crossfeed nut out of actual bearing bronze and not brass! Too many YT machinist channels use brass for this application, which is just wrong. Thank you Randy!

Nice design but one of the two nuts needs to be fixed to the nut holder body. The fixed nut transmits the load to the cross slide and the adjustment screw wedges the other nut to take up the backlash. Without one side fixed the load is held by the force between the adjustment screw wedge and the side of the nuts, which will wear very quickly due to compression forces on a very small area where they contact. You will be constantly tightening the wedge screw as it wears into the 2 nuts. Fixing one side transfers the load to the sides of the lead screw. To fix the one nut you could drill and tap a hole thru the top of the body and fix the nut with a set screw with an oil hole. You could then lube the nuts without removing both screws. Anyway, nice design idea which I will be doing on my 5914 when I get to that part of the rebuild.

5 years later I find this video with an excellent idea to adjust backlash. Thank you.

Pretty genius idea! Enjoyed watching. I may have to make one for my South Bend Lathe in the future.

Nice, I have that exact lathe and need that exact part! Love the adjustment feature.

I love that design Randy , Great work man !

Ah the beauty of fresh turned bronze. Simply gorgeous work Randy. The center punch trick for the real center was very clever. I ran into a similar slightly off square on my shaper downfeef. I screwed up and trusted the builder- then I had to play cobbler to make it work.

Brilliant idea! Thanks for showing this... Cheers

Highly appreciative idea and excellent work done. Thanks Randy Richard for your good work done.

Extremely clever design on the cross feed nut. Great project.

Great build/video, interesting comments on the design

Nice project, Randy. Looking good. Thanks for sharing.

Nice idea and good job. Thanks Randy.

Wow! Clever split nut design, I love it. I've been messing with my Monarch cross slide and this gives me several new ideas. Thanks

more good work . I own a machine shop and frown upon most youtube channels but you have my respect for your nice clean work

Very nice design bit Randy, looks like a huge improvement over stock. Great looking part!

The material looks like 12L14 chips break up nice finish great job need to make one for my old sheldon lathe great looking

Smart solution! huge improvement over the original piece.

Nice project! Nice design on the nut.

Thanks for sharing with us. Great video and work. If watching this kind of perfection doesn't make you want to learn and produce great results than it's just entertainment instead of the real deal.

Very nice Randy, well done!

Outstanding! Given me the incentive to fix the backlash on my Colchester Bantam!!

Hey Randy! Great design and execution! For lube purposes I bet you could drill another passage into the space between the twin bronze nuts, offset in angle to miss the set screws, so you could oil it without taking apart your cross slide - just adjust the cross slide so the lube holes line up. A bit of felt or fuzz could act as a reservoir and filter. A stepped lube bore would store more oil.

Precision work and looks good too. Typical Randy Richard project. Thanks for the video.

Nice project Randy, enjoyed watching it come together. Only wish I found this one sooner I believe I could have used this technique on the rebuilds I have completed. Thanks for sharing.

Hi Randy. I just found you channel this morning and am impressed. You did a fantastic job with the lead screw nut. I am familiar with the method you employed using two nuts but have not yet put it to use. Needless to say, I have an old Southbend 9" that needs similar tune and will be doing as you have none here so wonderfully. Thank you for sharing this.

Nice work as usual. I do agree with others who suggest that your conical setscrew adjuster bears the entire thrust force, and I think there is some chance that the key could works its way out or part way out. May a drop of Loctite would prevent that. Maybe add some kind of retainer to the far end of the bearing holder (steel) part, since that’s the end that has to support the most thrust?

The pop heard on removing a gauge plug from a blind hole is so satisfying. An adjustable parallel could have been used to square up the nut in the crosslide.

Awesome vid.. i recently had to replace the cross feed nut in my '63 Colchester.. For others needing make this part; McMasterCarr anded up having threaded blank stock with the correct ACME internal thread..def saved me a bunch of fab time..

I admire your work very much, may God bless you. Greetings from Egypt, Alexandria

Beautiful work here Randy, and that pas was one of the nicest i've seen :)

That came out great! I need to make or buy one for my lathe as well. Chris

Very good job! Congratulations!🇧🇷

That’s just BRILLIANT Randy. I’m finally getting my 5903 Clausing together and have been checking out some of your videos. This adjustable backlash designed but is by far the most simply clever design I have ever seen. Love your videos. Thanks. And you are a true Craftsman!!!

That's a beautiful tandem nut design, Randall

neat stuff as always Randy!

Top. Muito legal esta técnica para eliminar backlach. Aprendi bastante. Parabéns por ensinarmos alguns truques de mecânica e tornearia

Great Job Randy. Thanks for sharing. Gary, 74-Year-Old Home Shop Machinist

Great idea on my must do list

Great start to the weekend. Thanks for sharing the project. I've seen that wedge action wear adjustment on something before. I believe it was something Mr. Pete either made or demonstrated, but I feel like there were springs pushing the two halves apart, and maybe the set screw was brass tipped as well. I don't know, I could be wrong, but it's cool all the same.

Very smart solution ! I will try the same to fix my old machine. Many thanks ❤

Wow! Awesome job. My Clausing lathe has the same massive amount of backlash on the cross slide and screw. I wish I had the skills to make a new one like you, but I'm just beginning in machining, so I'm not confident enough to do this. Great video though. I'll probably come back to this once I get a bit more experience on the late and mill.

Looks and works great, Bravo Randy. Nice design. My lathe has next to no backlash on the cross slide and Im used to that, I was at Pierre's this week working on his lathe ( helping him catch up on out WIYB project) and i had to be careful not to scrap parts, his has some backlash which i'm not used to dealing with... Did all that in half an hour..... LOL no wonder, you nailed the 4 jaw on the first try, turned at 3000 rpm's with a .04 feed I didn't think your mill could hit 10k rpm's sheesh haha how about a full day instead.. Loved the video, hope everyone is fine. take care

This is a great design. I need to replace the leadscrew and nut on the crosslide of an old Enco lathe i recently won in an auction, I'm stealing this! 😎👍

Really nice work Randy! Until I watched to the end of your (30 mins build LOL) I was curious as to where this was going. I see the end result & am happy to say great repair/modification to the Lathe. I was not aware of backlash systems on Lathes, first I heard of this was on a Cincinnati Mill, Don't know if they were the first to do this, perhaps their method is different. End result, it works! Cheers from John Australia.

Very nice, Thank You for the video.

Great idea im doing that when its worn from my repair

Nice looking parts and a brave move threading the nuts. Small internal ACMEs are never easy. Not convinced with the pointed grub screw and the inherent small bearing area into the bronze nuts. I'm predicting rapid wear from cutting forces especially from intermittent cuts. Might I suggest an internal circlip and end plate either end of one of the bronze nuts to act as thrust faces.

Good job Randy.

lovely job

I used a trio of pilot bushings for my S10 to make bushings for the mixer, now I'm wondering if a pair of them would have worked for those nuts. It certainly reminded me of that when you had the pair laying on the bench. Something to remember, as a quick source when you're stock is low or if you want to reserve it for the more unusual projects that show up from time to time.

Nice work!

I know this an old thread but lovely work Randy. Man i need to get on with this lathe of mine. I finished the tailstock a year ago. Got so much to do. And not enough time to do it.

Great project.

pretty smart ............. I like it

Hay randy, I love the split nut concept and despite concerns from some viewers you seem to be pleased with it. If you want to get a laugh check out how the voice to text translator (CC) deciphers your comments. It's a hoot! Wakodahatchee Chris

randy very nice work.

That Randy is another fine piece of work. A lot of pretty critical operations. For sure threading the bush internally is super needy of concentration - I'm sure many of us have screwed up such in the past - and often at the last stage as we can get careless! Wow, that backlash on the old one was certainly extreme! Kudos dude! :)

Superb job

the design is overall good, my concern is about the spreader set screw VS the threaded bushings, all the force exerted by the lead screw is concentrated to that small area so I suspect the creeping of the bushing bronze and a rapid loss of the initial setting and of course the icrease of the lead screw backlash

NICE! I like it

The cross-feed nut in my workshop stands in front of my lathe on two legs. Sometimes he is very cross. He is always a nut. But he handles the feed pretty well.

Upside down parting tool? I may try that... Glad to see my lathe isn't the only one that sounds like a bag of spanners :)

A lot of work went into that. Turned out great. Clausing would have wanted an arm and a leg for it.

Nice job Randy, wished you would have made two. I have the same machine.

Damn, that's a brilliant design. Now come and do my Clausing 5912. LOL

awesome work and video dude thanks for making! I just got my first lathe a Logan 1955h will be doing something about the backlash, might replace with a ball nut and new acme thread rod. will see how bad the threads are and if I can't just cut the existing nut in half and spread it apart with some set screws to take up the backlash. your old threads were really impressively worn! I'm guessing that if they're really worn down in one area like that, and you spread apart two components of the nut to take up slack, then it's going to bind as you move into the less worn part of the rod? gotta replace the rod I guess

I like your layout lines at 03:03. My ENCO has a lot of backlash in the cross slide. Just got a manual from MSC that says it has an adjustable nut. I hope the lead screw is not worn out like yours. You don't think the key can back out do you. Another good video.

DEINE Selbstgebaute/gefertigte Spinpel ist deffinitiv , ALLEIN schon weger der STEIGUNG des Gewindes , 100% präziser , also das doppelte - Und Dein Spiel in der Lösung von Dir ist minimal - das übliche , wenn man mehrere Meßpunkte hat und die fehlerquote sich summiert . Ich mag Deine Lösung, von der Qualität, von der Fertigung - gefällt mir - Nein , Nein , es gefällt mir wirklich gut. Du solltest vorm einbau Schlau sein und Ich gebe Dir einen Tip , weil Du messing mit stahl verbunden hast ! Ist es eine Presspassung , was Ich nur Hoffen kann , denn wenn ja , dann hast Du die Chance es komplett auf Brünier Temperatur zu bringen , um es in Öl zu brünieren . Das wird nicht SCHWARZ , es wird BLAU und zwar ein unglaubliches BLAU, wegen dem Messing . Vielleicht Aussen wie bei einen würfel , noch kleine Bohrungen machen a 2mm und 3mm tief und messingstifte a 2mm in die löcher Hämmern/pressen - mit der Feile schlichten und dann brünieren - es wird dann 100pro bläulich und wqird nie rosten - Du wirst nie ein schöneres Produkt hinkriegen , als brünierten stahl+ messing - die messingpunkte bleiben gold , das stahl blau - also symetrische bohrungen und Abstände machen es später zu einen "WILL ICH AUCH HABEN" objekt . Leider sieht es keiner unterm Planschlitten . Wieso nicht härten /brünieren , wo Du schon so eine Arbeit gemacht hast , kommt es auch nicht mehr drauf an , es wäre ein würdiges finish gewesen im Video , aber Hey , Ich bin erst bei 24:15 Wer weiß , wie Du es finishen tust ? Bin gespannt

In my view it should give you a brand new cross slide, 4 to 5 thousand is better than what's here... Just worried about the fact that the pin is pretty small instaed of a bigger wedge, but, I guess we'll see it in action soon... Nice machining results... ;)

Pin gages are so handy.

Thank you great job

Genius.

Will you make a keeper for the key? Thanks for the good idea. I might try to make something similar for my mini lathe Thanks for the vids

Randy, Exquisite machining. Have you thought about drilling a 1/16" hole through the setscrews to allow oiling without disturbing the adjustment?

Repaired it and made it a lot better than it was.

Hello Randy. this is a class act. I am just starting out with an old French lathe Hernault Batignolles HN170. Lots of back lash on the lead screw. Could you make the nut for me?

Elegant solution

Transfer punches are 0.002-0.003" undersized, to prevent them from getting stuck in holes. The catalog info doesn't, though, state how precision the undersizing is. I said 2-3 because I can't remember which is was, not to indicate precision. If you bored your guide bushing to size, could the undersizing of the transfer punch be enough to cause the punch mark to be off center? (I wasn't sure if you said it was supposed to be off center, or not.) Oh, in case you read the comment I left on part one, about the drill bit shifting, I saw the center drill moved just a bit on the steel, but not at all on the bronze. I turned some bronze and some steel bushings last week, and I'm thinking I got the same results, movement on the steel, but not on the bronze. BTW, what were you doing with the small rule on the end of the piece? Thanks for posting, and sharing your knowledge

Very cool design. I like it. (Good thing the castings had room for it, although you probably could have opened them up a bit if that had been needed.) Did you say whether you had pressed the fixed (non-gib) side of the dovetail against the carriage body when transferring the bore location? If so I must have missed it. At one point you said you hoped the nuts would wear before the shaft, but usually it's the harder object that wears. Any grit embeds in the softer substance and wears away the harder substance. You could tell that the threads on the shaft had taken most of the wear by how much difference in endplay there was at different locations on the shaft. Still, I doubt that a toolroom (or hobby) lathe will ever wear out the crossfeed. That happens mostly where there is production facing or parting going on, with a lot of motion under heavy load at the same location. I tend to agree with bcbloc02's observation, and Steve_just_Steve's solution. Even a quarter or third of the circle wedge would have a lot more area than the cone of the setscrew. If it ever wears too much (or causes chatter), it would be possible to make the conversion at a later date.

Freaking Awesome

Nice job Randy, looks great. Sounds like it was a fun project. Did you grind your own acme threading tools or are they purchased?

Nice video Randy, Yeah,30 Minutes to make that seems like a long time, should have taken about 20. I know I could have done it in 5 minutes 😒. Of course I'm joking. Very good video, I really enjoyed it. Going to be a very nice lathe when you are finished.

Excellent work. How has this design performed over the last three years?

Do I understand correctly that the "wedge" set screw is the only thing transferring the axial force between the nuts and the carrier? From a "seat of the pants" first look that seems small. Also, is there anything besides friction keeping the key from walking out of the nut carrier? Perhaps capturing it with the head of a small screw on each end. Or maybe that's looking for problem that doesn't exist. Thirdly, could you center drill your two set screws and add a ball oiler on top? I would think the remove and replace routine would get old. Great Video.

Hello Randy I took the nut out, I am going to measure it for thread, I dont know yet if it is metric or standard.

Funny how things change. When I was in HS Machine Shop 1968-70, only the teacher had a brazed carbide tool, and we were told to never do interrupted cuts with a carbide tool. Now everybody has carbide insert tools, and everybody does interrupted cuts with them. Thanks for the info on the ACME cutting tool. What is the length of cut with that cutting tool?

Great project RR. When u made that broach plug u said depth was critical. I also have to make one, but didn't know it was important, so where did you find the depth info?

Nice job, I may try to make one for my LeBlond Regal, is the drive on your lathe really that noisy, or is the microphone attached to it to the gearbox?

The Takisawa has 2 nuts with a screw between to spread them and take out the backlash.

That is a lot of force going thru the tip of that screw don't you think?I mean really that is the only thing opposing the cutting forces from pushing the cross slide back.

Hey Randy, interesting video, nice looking parts. Am I understanding correctly that the only connection to transfer the force from the screw thread to the cross slide is the surface of the cone on the backlash adjustment screw? Is that sufficient? I have to admit I do not have a better idea off the top of my head.

Witam z Polski szkoda że kolega nie wykonał zamiast klina to wkręcane śruby na bokach to zapobiega wyciągnięciu tuleii z brązu z obudowy mam w namyśli śruby na kluczyk imbusowy bez łba ,natomisat wycentrowanie do toczenia gwintu jednak bym wsadził klin boczny sanek i ustawił bym tak jak do pracy sanek i oznaczył bym dopiero punkt środkowy ogólnie profesjonalnie wykonane pozdrawiam

You can take the engineer out of the ocean but you can't take the engineer our of the engineer!

Very nice work Randy . Can you come out & make a set for my Grizzly?

Randy, man, what is that parting off tool you used near the beginning on the lathe?

Is there anything to keep the key from vibrating or working its way out?

I didn’t read all the comments but it sounds like your colllet closer handle is banging away. If that’s the case I found a video that showed me how to dial indicate that outer spindle the shaft goes into and now my Collett closer handle does not vibrate at all. :-)

Thank you very much for your Ets good aides But I think if you put Paul then put spring after that put screw mapey give good Thank you again

My screw isn't center either. I have a 1960 15x48 colchester. I'm looking for a fallow rest for it.