Gingery Lathe Upgrades

I made some upgrades to my Gingery Lathe.  First thing I had to change was the tail stock.  When I bored it out, I did not get a good bore all the way through the tail stock.  This ended up with the tail stock ram being tight in one part and loose in the others.  When I would clamp it down with the set screw, the ram would get put out of alignment.  I started by purchasing a grinding wheel (on sale at Menards for $25.00) and grinding a new cutting bit.  I bored the tail stock until it had a nice consistent bore all the way through.  It ended up at .783" diameter.  I then made a new ram on the Craftsman lathe.  I turned it until it was .001" oversize and sanded with emery cloth until it would slide through with a little bit of force.  I then remade the rear cap and tail stock screw.  It works real well now.  No play anywhere.

As long as I had the lathe torn apart, I added some more screws to hold down the bed ways.  I added 8 flat head cap screws in between the existing bed screws.  This stiffened up the ways tremendously.  When I put a test piece between centers to check for run-out, I put an indicator on the tail stock ram.  There was no movement at all when turning.  I used to be able to see the tail stock move when turning out-of-round stock.  I actually got the best surface finish in steel that I've ever gotten. 

The last thing I did was to turn the outside face of the carriage wheel and stamp numbers on it.  It is much easier to read now.