My fellow Creekers...
I am struggling with my new "used" Jet 1642 lathe. The machine is so smooth and so well powered that I am having a great time roughing out wood on the lathe. Love love love that part of the process now!
But after a few weeks of alcohol soaking followed by drying I have started finish turning the bowl blanks I roughed out. And in doing so I have run into some troubles. I mentioned this before in a thread but now it has gotten so bad and I have gotten so confused trying to deal with it that I thought I would post here about my questions. But when the bowl is dry and I am finish turning it I hear what sounds a lot like chatter. But isn't. Remove the tool and you can see the bowl coming and going. And this is after removing 1/2" from the outside of the bowl. This is the same technique and same wood I was using on the old lathe and it quick turned down to true. In this case it is straight up wobble. And it is driving me nuts.
Ok. That is wobble is just too weird. I saw this lathe running in the shop of the guy I bought it from and it appeared to have no wobble in the spindle or visible with his SuperNova2 chuck mounted on it. I have tried 3 thread adapters now with 2 of my own chucks it wobbles like mad. Same with my face plate. And frustrating enough the same with the chuck that was on it in the shop when I bought it. (Came with the lathe). So I borrowed a G3 chuck from the local Woodcraft. I am on really good terms with some of the guys that work there and they were happy to let me take one home for a week. That g3 wobbles here too. I have not take the lathe in to have it checked by a repair shop.
Note: I put my old chucks back on the other lathe just to see. Just like you they have NO wobble on the old lathe. Not a bit. They spin just as true as they did before. Having used 3 seperate adapters I doubt they are all bad. So it has something to do with the lathe.
So I downloaded the manual to the lathe off of the WMH website and read through their very short trouble shooting section. There were 2 pieces of advice for my problem. Option #1 - "Replace the spindle and bearings" and option #2 - "Level the lathe".
So I did some internet research on leveling the lathe and found a ton of posts suggesting using a precision machinists level and the #1 recommended item was to be had for the bargain price of $399. I just don't have that kind of money at the moment. Nor do I know anyone I could borrow something like that from. So I got out my cheap plastic 2' to 3' bubble level.
My results:
I am pretty close left to right across the bed. Maybe a 1/16th of a inch low on the left so that the right is a tad higher.
BUT, and here is the bad part, I measure from front to back across the ways and holy cow I am out by almost 1/2 a bubble. So it is way off but not twists, just off. Probably what was needed to be level on the floor it was set up on before.
But it really is fairly uniformly out of level across the whole bed of the lathe.
From the experience of the rest of you guys would this be enough to induce wobble or problems, given that it is "evenly off" would it not be the cause of the problem for me?
I am not entirely certain how to level the lathe. So before I got started I thought I would ask for any expert opinions or advice. It has the leveling feet one the bottom with the bolts coming up thru with nuts on them. Since I didn't put them together I am just trying to recall what I saw when moving it and I think there are just 2 nuts one above and 1 below. So it should be simple enough physically to make that adjustment. But what is the best way to actually detect where to set things and when it is truly level? And how close it "close enough" when trying to level it?
So other than using my big bar level, a Harbor Freight special, and suggestions or instructions on leveling the lathe? Any more reasonably priced type of level I should buy and try using?
Also for any who have experienced anything like this is replacing the bearings and or spindle worth doing/having done? I checked the prices and availability from WMH and the bearings seem to be a standard size. They are quite a bit cheaper from other reputable firms. But then there are some much higher end ones form about $200 a piece. I wonder if they would make any difference.
If you have any advice/suggestions I would love to hear about them.
Thanks,
Joshua