CX701 Lathe Report

[b.lindsey]

Very nice looking machine Brian. If you are going to use it a your "main" lathe then I am with Jo, put a DRO on your wish list and add that when you can.

Bill

[Brian Rupnow]

Jason-Thank you for the picture. People--Please educate me on DRO available in north america. I have 2 axis set up from DRO-PROS in California on my new mill.--I'm very happy with it, but it was very spendy. I don't think I have ever seen a DRO on a lathe.--No, let me rephrase that.--I've probably seen hundreds of them in all the shops I've been into in 50 years, just never paid any attention.

[Jo]

A 2 channel set on my Prazimat:



Photo attached at the bottom shows the 2L2 channel set on  Mr Silky (but his third channel is not fitted ) and there is a third 3 channel set on my Colchester Master  .


Like all DROs you don't need one but once you have done it you wouldn't go back to the old days 

Jo

[Jasonb]

Brian, that lever on the right selects either screwcutting by driving the leadscrew or feed by turning the lower rod. If you are trying to cut in screwcutting mode I'm not surprised you are scared as it will run much too fast.

I only use the slower of the two spindle speeds,  tried fast once in 6 years. The gear train setup supplied should be the slowest feed rates I use "C" for  cutting along the lathe axis and "A" for facing across the axis. These will be very tame and not scare you but will leave a good finish.

As Jo says the DRO are not a must have and one is not top of the list of things to buy for the workshop as I seem to manage OK without. Give yourself a few months to get used to the new machine before rushing out and spending.

[Jo]

I only use the slower of the two spindle speeds,  tried fast once in 6 years. The gear train setup supplied should be the slowest feed rates I use "C" for  cutting along the lathe axis and "A" for facing across the axis. These will be very tame and not scare you but will leave a good finish.

One of my lathes has two variable spindle speeds (0.5 and 1.5hp respectively    ) I find the lower speed range is a must for thread cutting as one is advised  not to thread cut over 1000rpm but I have taken to sticking to the higher speed range for normal machining operations.

As Jo says the DRO are not a must have and one is not top of the list of things to buy for the workshop as I seem to manage OK without. Give yourself a few months to get used to the new machine before rushing out and spending.

But if you are not strapped for cash you won't ever regret it 

Jo

[ths]

The new lathe looks great, Brian. I have read that Grizzly do good manuals for their machines A- if you can find the equivalent lathe on their website and download the manual, you may find something understandable. Cheers, Hugh.

[Brian Rupnow]

When I purchased the lathe, I also purchased the BusyBee equivalent of an AXA quick change toolpost. This  BusyBee unit is identical in physical  size to one I  purchased a few years ago from Little Machine Shop which I have on my B2227L lathe. Some careful measuring shows that it will work on the new CX701 lathe, but the maximum tool size it will take and still allow me to get the tip of the tool at or very marginally below the center of the spindle axis is a 3/8" square  tool. It also lets me get the the tip of the cut-off tool marginally below center. This doesn't pose a major problem, as the 3/8" square tool is what I have been using for the last 6 years, and it does everything I need it to. I now have to do a bit of head scratching to see what is involved in mounting the quick change toolpost, hopefully without trashing any of the current toolpost parts in case I ever want to change back.

[Brian Rupnow]

Thanks for the pictures Jo. Since the dials on this machine are marked in sensible .001" and .002" increments (and check out as true with my  dial indicator), I am going to try and avoid the hassle of buying and installing a DRO. I couldn't live without them on the mill, but it has screwy increments of travel on the dials.

[kvom]

I use the power feeds on my lathe most of the time, and the resulting finish is better than hand feed.

DROs make lots of things so much easier. Get one!

[Brian Rupnow]

Well!! That little exercise went far, far better than I expected it would!!! When I asked what lathe their quick change toolpost kit from BusyBee would fit, they all hummed, and hawed, and shuffled their feet.--Nobody really knew. This morning I started pulling apart the toolpost which comes on the lathe to see just how things compared to their quick change  toolpost "kit". I absolutely did not want to change either the original lathe toolpost nor the quoick-change toolpost kit in any way. The upshot of it all was that I only had to make one new part to mount the quick change toolpost on my new lathe. i am attaching a drawing of the part I made. With the quick change toolpost mounted in place, I can get the top of a 3/8" HSS cutting tool about 1/16" maximum  below the center of the chuck. It also works fine with my boring tools which mount in the quick change toolpost, and with the 1/2" deep parting off tool. It would NOT work with a 1/2" square HSS because you can't get the tool low enough. This is all fine by me, as 3/8" square cutting tools are what I have been using for the past 6 years.

[Brian Rupnow]

Today we got very bold, and tried out the power feeds. I think I have the levers on the front sorted out. The left hand lever lets you choose which direction the table moves, right of left. The center lever has three positions, and gives you 3 choices of table speed. .0025" per revolution, .005" per revolution,  and .010" per revolution. (I'm not sure if that is inches of travel per revolution of the spindle or inches per minute. Since it is tied in with a gear train to the spindle which is variable speed, it only makes sense that it would be inches per revolution of the spindle.) The right hand lever appears to be a two position lever that either rotates the lead screw for threading or the feed screw for moving the carriage. There are a number of signs proclaiming dire consequences if you manage to engage the "feed lever" and the "threading lever" at the same time. I think they might be talking about the half nut lever on the apron, but I'm not sure.--Maybe someone can help me out with that. Since I have no intention of threading in the immediate future, I may remove that half nut lever and store it somewhere so I don't make a mistake and engage it.---Or put that right hand lever away somewhere after putting the feed screw into the "on" position.---Whatever guarantees that I don't inadvertently engage both "threading lever" and "feed lever"at the same time and wreck things. It might be my imagination, but it looked as if the travel speed of the crossfeed was a different rate of travel than that of the carriage.--It seemed to be a lot slower.--Would that be right?  Now that I have tried out most of the things there are to try out on this lathe, I will vacuum up all the chips and give it a good bath with odorless solvent to get rid of all the "Chinese Gunk" that came on it and oil all of the many ball oilers.

[Jasonb]

Yes its travel per rev

The half nut lever on the carrage needs quite a firm push down to engage so I doubt you will be at risk of engaging by mistake.

Yes cross travel is half teh longditudinal travel, your table on the front of the machine should give the two rates

[Brian Rupnow]

Thank you Jason  ---A question--I would say that 95 percent of the work I do on a lathe is either turning an o.d. up to a shoulder or boring in a blind hole. I wouldn't dare to use the power feed on a blind boring job. On my old lathe with the handle on the leadscrew (complete with graduations) I would bring the tool up to the face of the work being turned or bored, then back the tool out clear of the part, advance the carriage towards the chuck by turning the leadscrew handle until it was at the distance I required from the face, then move my carriage stop up to the side of the carriage and lock it in position. Then I would manually advance the carriage while taking cuts until it came up against the carriage stop. If the distance was especially critical, I had made provision for attaching an altered digital caliper to the carriage and to an adjustable stop mounted to the lathe bed on the right hand side of the carriage. As long as I can keep the compound rest set perfectly parallel to the headstock on this new lathe, then I can effectively repeat the same process for turning and/or boring as I did on my old lathe. However, if I choose to use the power feed for turning an o.d. up to a shoulder, first, without a DRO (which I don't want to buy) how do I know where to stop my first cut, other than scribing a line on the part and using it as a visual reference? Secondly, if I then want to make more cuts using power feed, do I depend on the visual cue to know when to disengage the power feed or do I just get "close" to the shoulder, then disengage the power feed and finish the cut with the big wheel on the front of the apron?

[Jasonb]

Couple of ways you can do it.

Wind the topslide out to the right, then move your carrage to the left until the tool almost touches the end of the work an dset your carrage stop. Now wind in the topslide so tool just touches the work.  Now move carrage away from the work and wind in the topslide to the required depth and lock it off. You will now have a tool that will cut to exactly that depth when the carrage is touching the carrage stop.

Its easy to power feed and stop just before the carrage stop then use the carrage handwheel to move it until you touch the stop.

The other way which is easier on an external cut is to cut a little longer than needed then back the topslide out the required amount and face off the remaining part.

[Brian Rupnow]

Well, unless something truly horrible or unusual happens, I am not going to post any more on this lathe. It runs good, it does everything it is advertised as doing, and seems like a tight, well engineered lathe. The manual could be a lot better, but it does cover the basics. When I purchased the lathe, I also purchased the stand it is setting on in the picture. The lathe comes with 3 jaw chuck, 4 jaw chuck, steady rest, follow rest, and faceplate and all of the change gears. I also purchased a 5/8" tailstock chuck and arbor, a tailstock live center, and a quick change toolpost. My total cost, including the hateful 13% goods and services tax come to $4500 Canadian. In spite of some of the bad press I managed to dig up on the internet about this lathe, I would recomend it to others to buy. I am happy with my purchase.----Brian