[Galane]

I posted a wanted ad on Craigslist, looking for a small CNC lathe like a Compact 5, ORAC, Magnaturn 612, DM3000 or similar.

I get an e-mail offering me a lathe with four grainy cellphone pics taken in a dim garage. It's not a CNC lathe and some looking and squinting at the pics reveals it to be some variety of 9x20 or 8x16 clone.

So just for the heck of it I reply asking how much. He wants $50. Can *not* turn down a metal lathe for only $50! Didn't know the brand of it until I got there. When did JET paint their machines grey??? I've only ever seen them green or off white. Got it home evening of the 28th, it's still in my pickup truck.

Since the ORAC is just a copy of a Compact 8 and the 9x20's are embiggened clones of the Compact 8, a CNC 9x20 should be at least as good, especially if I modify the spindle drive with a multi rib belt.

[Fastest1]

Great find, not sure of the necessity of a ribbed belt though. Convert it, should be cheap to do at that price.

[lcvette]

Nice score! Pics please!

[Galane]

I'm thinking of thermoforming Acetal nuts on the stock screws to start with, to get it going soonest and cheapest. I found some good teardown pics of an ORAC showing how much was hogged out of the saddle to fit a ballscrew larger than a pencil in there. They didn't leave much connecting the dovetails to the rest of the saddle. That also showed me Denford cut off about 1/3 the length of the cross slide and the bearing and motor mounting plate allows no travel past the back end of the saddle.

I want as much cross slide travel as possible, to make things like gang tooling and a rear mounted, inverted parting tool possible.

[rythmnbls]

I used acetal nuts on my mini mill conversion, they worked out very well, no backlash. There's a thread here with a lot of info and tips. Making Acetal leadscrew nuts the easy way

Steve.

[Fastest1]

I have read nothing but good about Acetal nuts.

I used a product called Moglice on my Sherline and got very good results though I think an improved application technique on my part, it would be even better. The odd thing is I dont trust it. It has worked well but mentally the idea that an epoxy like substance could hold up is beyond my comprehension. I guess I will just have to test it til it breaks or til I believe in it.