Gunsmithing Lathe advice

[jonaddis84]

Heres my situation.

I work at Gander Mtn, weve gotten rid of the majority of our in house gunsmiths and condensed down to 17 for all the stores. Anyway, all of our tooling is for sale now. Ive already purchased pretty much everything but the lathe, Ive just been letting them keep it and I use it whenever I want.

Id like to get a lathe soon, and cant decide whether to waste my time with this one or find a better quality piece.

It is a Jet 1340 gear head. It is probably 12 years old, does not have the nice knobs that the new ones have for changing threading pitch. It works fine for what Ive been using it for, but its not been great. It has the basic fixed toolpost on it, no coolant, no dro. The tailstock is not even close to lined up, no idea how square the ways are. The wheels all have quite a bit of play in them.

What I want it for is mainly threading barrels, but Id also like to start working with 700's and learning to true them and chamber up barrels. I can probably pick this one up for around $1k, comes with 3 and 4 jaw, live, dead, chuck, steady rest, and a plate.

My question is, am I going to dump too much money into this one in order to get it up to spec with a coolant setup and everything else Ill need to do good work with it? Am I better off looking for something higher quality, or do I still need to add the same stuff Im going to have to for this one to them?

Should I just buy it, clean it up, and sell it to fund a better one?

Thanks for any help, Ill snap a few pics of it tomorrow and post them up so you can see what were dealing with.

 

[AJ_Goddard]

Re: Lathe advice

The import 1340 lathes are a good size for gunsmithing and the Jet lathes aren't too bad. It's amazing with a little practice and a little finesse you should be able to do most everything you need to on a lathe like that. I would add a quick change tool post. You should be able to indicate and adjust the tail stock in true. You should also be able to adjust alot of the backlash out of the handles and tighten the gibbs up. A little care on an old lathe can go a long way. And you really don't have to have flood coolant, an acid brush and a little cutting oil will work just fine. Sounds like a good starter lathe for a $1000.
AJ

 

[colchester]

Re: Lathe advice

That lathe is a good size for barrel work and is decent quality as long as it is in good condition. Seems like a fair price. As mentioned above you will be able to work around the coolant issue. If you add a coolant system for chambering youll probably want a high pressure flush system anyway. A DRO is a nice option but could also be added later. Im sure this lathe would serve you well for many years with a little bit of care and adjustment. Good Luck

 

[LRI]

Re: Lathe advice

I started in this trade with a Jet lathe. It should have been dumped into a lake for fish habitat when I got it!

That being said I was able to build two rifles that eventually went on to win Olympic Gold Medals.

Backlash can be tuned out. If the half nut is toast and you can't do parts try this: Pull it out, blast finish the snot out of it, reinstall, pack the screw with grease and have it ready to insert into the thing.

Get out your torch and rose the nut up to a dull cherry red. Start pouring on the silver solder and keep it nice and runny. Have a buddy run that screw through the nut while keeping the heat on. We used an air impact driver while doing this. Just back and forth as you slowly pull the heat away from it.

When I was done the backlash was below a thousandths. Around .0006" if memory serves me right.

Seriously, it works.

Pull the carriage apart, stone the gibbs/ways, adjust everything nice and slick and give it hell. If you can pick it up for cheap a weekends worth of elbow grease might just be worth it.

Quick change tool posts are easily picked up. I like the Aloris wedge styles personally.

Good luck.

C.

 

[jonaddis84]

Re: Lathe advice

Thanks for the advice guys. Ill see if I can get it out of there a tad cheaper, its definitely served me well so far, probably successfully threaded 10-15 barrels in my short stint with it.

My big concerns were with the huge amount of backlash, and not being sure if the ways are parallel with the spindle, but now knowing that all that can be adjusted out with a bit of work makes me feel better. The half nut is ok, it does move side to side maybe .050 with it locked down, nothing horrible. I know it doesnt technically affect the performance, but the handwheels have about 1/4-1/2 turn of backlash in them, its just annoying.

Ive got an old Aloris coming from a member here, so that should make my life about 2000% easier, God I hate that fixed post!

Im sure part of the machines problem is that it was never properly installed, never leveled or anything.

Well, here she is...

 

[hero's machine]

Re: Lathe advice

grab a few indicators and see where it sits. BTW, the vice grips gotta go.

good luck!

 

[jonaddis84]

Re: Lathe advice

Oh, the vise grips arent standard issue on these machines?

Somebody broke the handle off, and I dont have the tools there to fix it so that was my temporary fix. Will definitely be the first repair if/when it makes it to my house.

Whats the best way to check how parallel the carriage runs? I probably need something precision ground to chuck up?