@@jrfisherco I am going to send them in and try getting them fixed. I do wonder how worn out they can get before it's not worth fixing them.

I don't think CNC would be worth it for me. I normally just to small one off parts and I don't do a lot of threading. I did some CNC programing 25 years ago in HS but I am sure I would have to re-learn a bunch of stuff.

The dial face could easily be un-screwed and flipped over. I will probably just do that and make my own marks with a sharpie. Then tell myself that I will make a nice dial face sometime in the future.

I bet it was wrong from the factory but we'll never know. I got the lathe and a Mill from the same guy who said he got them for practically nothing from a business near him. They were upgrading machines and wanted these gone. He put them on his trailer and posted an ad saying I need them off my trailer soon, make me an offer. I paid $1800 for the lathe and a Bridgeport clone milling machine. He put in very little effort into marketing them and I basically bought them sight unseen.

The part of the threading dial that has the numbers on it is just a piece of sheet metal with some numbers screen printed on. It's held on to the dial with a single Philips screw. My lathe has a few other things that show it wasn't very carefully made. I suspect that someone in China got a deal on the threading face plates with 6 divisions and either didn't know it was wrong or didn't care. I suspect that the faceplate of the dial was for a lathe that had a lead screw with 6tpi. Every other quality lathe that I have seen that has a 4tpi lead screw has 8 divisions on the thread dial. I will check out your video on metric threading with an imperial lathe. I saw another video of how to do it and I am curious if you use the same method.

@@diyVT I’d say both. Didn’t know and didn’t care! China is very much a take the money and run kind of business market. I watched my own video again last night. Not very exciting but hey screw cutting on a 90 year old lathe is a little bit of a niche market 🤠 Let me know what you think of my take on it. I think if I did it again I’d edit it a bit harder.

This one does also. You need to switch them if you are cutting a MOD thread pitch whatever that is.

@@diyVT MOD is the european standard for gear pitch. It applies if you are cutting a metric worm gear on the lathe. DP or diametral pitch is the imperial equivilent.

There also should be a wheel Z =127. This is the smallest multiple of 25,4 mm (25,4 mm = 1”, and 5x25,4=127.) Are you sure the lead screw isn’t metric? You rather crudely measured 4” on the bed and assumed the lead screw to be imperial, but if it is metric, you could be talking 100 mm which is only 1,6 mm less than 4”. A difference you wouldn’t notice the way you measured. A dial with 6 devisions would be for 150mm. -It’s all decades ago for me, and being brought up in the metric system I have to do some reverse reasoning for which I am frankly too lazy right now… wishing you success nonetheless.

Yeah I just need to make a new dial face with 8 divisions. It wouldn't be hard to do a very simple one. It's just held on with the middle screw. I will probably flip it over and draw new marks with a sharpie. I want to make a nice new dial but I also have a hundred other projects to do.

I think the dial is for a lathe that has a 6tpi lead screw. I am not sure how threading dials work on metric lathes but dividing by 6 in a base 10 system seems unlikely. The rest of the lathe is pretty questionably made. There were certainly some corners cut in its construction. I suspect that someone just put the wrong face plate on the thread dial because the one with 6 divisions was cheaper.

You can't go wrong engaging on the same number every time but you can waste time waiting for the number to come around on the dial. If you have a 4tpi lead screw you and the tpi you are cutting is divisible by 4 you can engage at any of the 16 possible locations. If it's divisible by 2 you can engage every 1/8 of a turn of the threading dial. If you are cutting and odd number TPI you can engage every 1/4 turn of the threading dial. If you are cutting a X.5 pitch you can engage every 1/2 turn of the dial. and if you are cutting a X.25 pitch you have to wait a whole revolution of the threading dial.

Yes you need to find out which gear train is fitted to headstock. But trying to reference to the bed won’t work as it is referenced to the thread pitch which it turning try doing a scratch run I would think that would show more

@@extractengineeringltd the issue with the thread dial has nothing to do with the rest of the gear train. Thankfully the chart for setting up the leavers to select a thread pitch is correct. That would be a really pain to recreate. My thread dial is incorrect because in one full revolution the carriage travels 4" and I have a 4TPI lead screw so I have 16 possible places where I can engage the lead screw. My thread dial has 6 divisions and 16 possible engagements. If you divide 16/6 you get 8/3 mean each division on the dial represents 8/3 of a thread on the lead screw. Which is ridiculous, it means you can't even engage on 4 of the 6 marks. There should be 8 divisions, 16/8 is 2. Two threads per division on the dial makes perfect sense.

It's not worn and it's pretty clearly 4TPI. I think the dial is for a lathe that has a 6TPI lead screw.

@@diyVT This lathe is copy of a Colchester 1550. The imperial versions had the faceplate riveted to the dial stem. You have a phillips head screw so that's a giveaway that it has been tampered with.

@@goat9875 it's a "copy" but a slightly fuzzy copy. There were certainly corners cut in its manufacturing. I can tell it's a well designed lathe but it's not a very well built lathe. There was another issue in the main gearbox where two bushings came out of the gears. It looked like there was a grove for a retaining wire but the bushings were too long and covered the groove. There are quite a few other things as well if you start looking closely. I haven't seen a really Colchester lathe but I would be surprised if they were as crude as mine.

My modern turn lathe has both metric and imperial marks on the dial. I was confused about it at first but I realized that only the imperial marking lines end at a whole number after a full revolution. So if you zero the dial you can move the cross slide up to 12.7 mm before things get difficult. So my lathe has an imperial cross slide lead screw.

@@diyVT I will tell you, you are dong it with the wrong hand...;)

I would suspect that it's for a lathe that had a lead screw with 6 threads per inch. I am not sure what type of thread dials lathes with metric lead screws have but 6 divisions would be weird to have in a base 10 system. Metric threading with an inch lead screw pretty much requires that you don't disengage the half nut. Or if you do disengage it that it gets engaged at exactly the same place in the lead screw that you disengaged it.

You are right. Oh well I guess I should have done the math out before hand rather than doing it while recording. I am kinda surprised that someone made it that far into my explanation of fractions and was paying enough attention to catch my mistake. You deserve some sort of prize. 😂

@@diyVT Haha! & I should have said 36 over 9 - oops. Thanks for the sub 👍

I got my first pair around 4 years ago and wore out that pair and got a second that's almost worn out. So I am averaging 2 years per pair or ~$50 per year. My last pair I really worked hard, I used them as pretty much my only work gloves. I threw close to 20 cords of wood into our evaporator during sugaring and used them sawing and handling several thousand board feet of lumber. They are not indestructible but they are very tough and comfortable. For me they are totally worth the cost.

I am not sure, it was several years ago. Probably e-replacement parts.

Nevermind, I seen the setup afterwards.

Yes, my mill has a tree milling head and the base from a mystery machine.