PD400 - Getting the handwheels to turn

Good progress today.  Managed to get the handwheels on the compound and cross slides (using the terms from mini-lathe.com) to turn rather smoothly.  I stripped out the slides the 3rd time since 3 days ago to clean up and put in more grease this time.  There is a little shoulder on the leadscrews of the compound and cross slides that push against the slide that I added a generous amount of grease. The surfaces between the handwheels and the slides were also greased.  After playing around with different amount of torque on the handwheel nuts, I'm a happy man.

This leaves me with only the main leadscrew and the carriage, which I found a work-around after I disassembled the leadscrew but failed to remove the carriage.  The work-around is rather simple - use both handwheels when cutting along the ways.  It works!

While I was trying to remove the carriage, I saw a plate which I think is to clamp the carriage onto the ways acting as a lock.  There are 2 capscrews underneath and a 3rd on top.  The 3rd capscrew that is accessible locks the carriage when tightened.  The other 2 seems to hold the carriage in place to take out play.  I suspect that the plate may be a little too tight for smooth operation of the carriage.  To slacken them a little requires the lathe to be flipped over.  This, I've no courage to attempt given the weight of the lathe.  I'll need another person to help lift the lathe up with me to remove it from the chip tray and flip it over to access the screws.  Don't think my wife would want to do that and my lower back forbid me from doing it on my own.

I did some test cut of a taper using the compound slide.  Actually, its more of cutting to a point than a taper.  Not too bad a result though I'm off by slighly less than 1 degree in accuracy.

Some pics as usual.

Bought a lamp with goose neck and clip on the way home from church. Can't find those with magnetic base.

The plate that locks the carriage (the black between the yellow and olive green) taken from the spindle side. The 2 mounting holes, from what I read, are for the traveling rest.

Setting the compound to 30 degree for 60 degree included angle.

Measuring the compound angle that was set earlier.  The markings on the compound are pretty accurate.

The cut was made on the same piece of brass stock I used for test cut yesterday.

The result - in between 60 and 61 degree.

That's all I've time for today.  Its a blessing that I'm able to play in the shop for the past few days consecutive.

Its 2am now.  Time to do some reading and rest for more action in the shop tomorrow.  Got to remember to buy a 5.5mm open wrench to do adjustments on the gibs.  I plan to do a test cut using the power feed.