Now that you mention it..... :)

If only the lathe makers in china thought at all about any of this. I doubt any of them even use the products.. sherline makes sherline lathe parts with sherline machines. These mini lathes are just a tad worse than hit/miss. I had to go through 3 to get a working one, first had a major defect in the bed, it was knife thin on am inside section and snapped when l clamped the tailstock, had to pay $15 restock fee. Second one, the spindle runout was terrible, chuck was mounted within 20 thou, another $15 restocking fee. Third one has minor versions of these two problems but l figure l already wasted money, the threading feature is outright useless, slop all over. I have a very old and beatup unimat that is about as clapped out as a new mini lathe. Their qc department is more interested in bat guano flavored bubblegum and sticking their peckers into dead freshwater fish than pushing through true lathes. I hope their business tanks and out of its ashes other lathemakers pop up. Their quality is a joke, a product should not require that much modification just to work properly, guess this is the chinese way..

Thanks 👍

Thanks for watching!

That's quite intriguing. Being an American, I had no idea there was another pronunciation for "gib". 🤔 I suppose I never questioned it because I'm used to the German pronunciation of "gib" (Deutsch for "give".) How do you pronounce "jib" then? (Nautical term) Seems a bit like a recipe for confusion, in such an instance where both words would be used in the same sentence.

It’s fantastic. Robert, how are you.

Thanks for the comment 👍 The pitches (and other sizes) aren't supposed to be direct equivalents, they're just to give someone who isn't metric-familiar a rough idea what they're like.

@@TheRecreationalMachinist I very much appreciate that as well as US Americans doing it the other way around. I'm a metric German and found many US and UK machinist channels well worth watching and always appreciate when they do metric conversions of their imperial units (be it audio or visual). This was a pretty great video overall, I'll have a look at your back catalogue now. :D

Go for it, one thing that helped a lot on mine was lapping down the tool marks. The surface finish was so rough on the cross slide it was like sliding two dull files across each other. It would skip and jump around, literally makes me feel bad for people in china. After cleaning up the tool marks, surface finish improved a tad, gibs brass, the "stainless steel" one in there had speckled rust on it and had tool marks as deep as a trench. Lol _chinese century_

That shape they seem to be called inverted dovetail cutters. They're not especially common, it took me ages to find a second hand one that was still useable, but worth the wait it's really handy for breaking corners on things without having to set the work or the machine at an angle. Smaller ones get called chamfer mills, and are more like countersinks. Not quite as useful, but easier to find. Thanks for watching 👍 🇬🇧

The base of the factory tailstock was hopeless. I binned it and replaced it with a piece of cast iron I machined up. I've lost the ability to move it over to cut tapers, but it's such a faff to setup afterwards I avoid doing it anyway. The brass-capped centre clamping screw on each side is through drilled (as I did on the cross slide mod) as an oiling point. It's a long way off perfect but infinitely better than it was.

@@TheRecreationalMachinist ohhhh Isee good thinking i will try do something similar. Many thanks for taking the time out to explain

That's part of the fun of ownership! Once I've got a nice, tight, accurate machine I'll have nothing to make with it! 😂

@@TheRecreationalMachinist Buy an old new bigger one and start all over again using the the tight accurate machine to help you. Lots of fun guaranteed.

Exactly what I thought when I saw the brass disc go in.

I had the same thought actually. There's very little real estate to accommodate modifications of this type, and at the time I took the path of least resistance to get the machine back up and running. If I ever re-visit the gib (the brass one from the video is still in service and working ok) this is something I'll consider. Thanks for watching 👍 🇬🇧

why not make one? after all you have a lathe :))

18 months on, the bearings I fitted in the video are still in use with no issues so far. Thanks for watching 👍 🇬🇧

I'd go 3/8th personally. Depending on your setup, the top of the 1/2" may be above centreline so you'll be grinding away just to get your cutting edge low enough. If you're on a mini lathe you won't have the power or machine rigidity to take heavy enough cuts to need more than the smaller (and less expensive) tooling.

@@TheRecreationalMachinist Thank you for that great info. It helps me greatly.

My first ports of call would be www.arceurotrade.co.uk/Catalogue/Machine-Spares or www.amadeal.co.uk/acatalog/Spares.html Good luck 👍 🇬🇧