I’ve made a minor upgrade to the 30 year old Enco lathe.
The old Enco was (and remains) a bit of a basket case (and was priced as such). I’ve made improvements to it, but all it was really good for was turning a couple of simple parts, teaching me a lot about how these things work, and teaching me just how much I want to get a better machine. This one was fixes most of the issues the old one had in one fell swoop, and, as it’s a Grizzly, it actually has parts support in the US.
It also has VFD and all the parts & bits it should come with: steady rests, threading change gears, a manual, a quick-adjust tail-stock, a manual. Just about all the actual money I spent on the other one (tooling, quick change tool post, etc) will transfer over to this one.
I was able to re-use the pedestal / chip pan base from the ol’ Enco. I just needed to drill and tap a couple of new holes. I used the Grizzly’s bench-top chip pan (that has holes pre-drilled to bolt to the lathe) as a template to get lined up:
Used the engine hoist to get it into position on the pedestal:
Then hung an LED fixture over the lathe.
Mounted the chuck key holder I made for the Enco on the Grizzly with a pair of rivnuts:
This thing is SO much nicer than the 30 year old Enco. I mean, it SHOULD be, but the results are telling. On the left side (in the chuck) is the *best finish* I was ever able to get on the Enco on aluminum. On the right is the finish from the new one that I was able to get without adjusting ANYTHING but the slop in the cross slide feed screw, which was really bad out of the box. No gibs adjusted, none of that. Hell, you can even see the stock 4-way tool post is too low, and with the quick change tool post going in before too long, I didn’t really feel like messing with shimming the tool, so the geometry there isn’t even quite right.
The Left side is rough to the touch, right side is smooth as you’d expect out of a machined part. I think I’m going to like this little machine.
The next big job was getting the QCTP in place. Given that the Grizzly and Enco both have M10 tool posts, it *should* *have been straight forward, but because of that stupid boss on the top-slide that locates the stock 4-way post, it was going to need a bit of work.
After some research, I found out that the stock tool-post presses out.
Since some machine work would be needed at the Right Honourable Reverend Dave Hardy, Esquire’s shop, to knock off that boss, we decided to go ahead and forgo the stock tool post all together and drill and tap the cross-slide to 9/16-18 and use the solid tool post that came with the QCTP. This should be QUITE a bit more rigid. Mmmm, girthy.
So we (…Dave…) machined down the boss, and drilled & tapped the hole wider to 9/16:
Quick Change Tool Post accomplished!
Now all that’s left is to cut a cone on the chuck to align the tailstock, and get the gibs adjusted, and I can start making parts!