Hi Steve,

Welcome to the busy world of being retired.

I too built in the following order (and learned a lot)

Gingery Power Hacksaw

Gingery Slip Roll

Gingery Gas Fired Foundry

I had a friend with a lathe drill through the spindle of my Sears 20" drill press and added a draw bar to the MT-3 tooling.  Now I could, with an XY vise, fly cut castings and machine some of the things that otherwise required a lot of handwork.

I then build the Gingery lathe pretty well exactly as per spec before I starting thinking about making changes to improve it.  There is a tendency for many to make too many changes and never finish. 

After I made it up to the round belt power feed I diverged from the plans and took a side trip to design and build my Electronic Lead Screw so I wouldn't have to first built the mill/shaper to create book 6 parts to add gears.  http://www.autoartisans.com/ELS/

Having said that there are a few things that might help improve yours.  I don't remember if my photos are still on the forum site but I'll check.  I created a much wider foot casting under the head stock.  I would redo the long bed to have X bracing instead of cross bracing.  The cross does nothing to prevent the bed from twisting.  There are lots of other solutions for the bed.

The other major change I would suggest is to follow the lead of pretty well every other lathe out there and that's to make the main carriage wider than it is deep.  A long time ago on this forum I posted a fairly long description of the various ratios that all lathes seem to follow.  So if the bed way is 1/4"x3" wide CRS then make the carriage at least 4" and I think 4.5 to 5 is a better number.  The downside is it changes your total carriage travel. 

Anyway.  Being able to follow a design plan, work through all the issues and make nice clean castings that machine well is the reward and totally worth it.

John Dammeyer

Actually it was more like 2006 that I was learning AlibreCAD and started drawing the Gingery Parts.  Didn't get very far.  Other projects took over.

I've attached 1 MB photo of my lathe from back in 2008.  (Gosh that's long ago).  Notice the wider foot under the spindle.   I think Dave G. wanted to keep things simple so he used one pattern for both ends.  Mine has two tabs on the back to pivoting the belt and pulley system (never completed).  I was just learning AlibreCAD at the time and didn't make any drawings of it.  Probably still have the pattern somewhere that I can photograph.

John

Hi Steve,

I forgot about the twin rows of screws.  I did not like the idea of a single row down the center so I did change that.  I did not change the thickness of the bed.  It's the 3"x1/4" as specified in the book.  

The reason for making the main carriage wider is to prevent square racking.  What I found is that if you set the gibs nice and close that pushing or pulling on the carriage with the lead screw results in the carriage twisting effectively around the center of the square since it's 3"x3".  If you change the width of the carriage to 4.5" there is less tendency to twist.   

Look at any of the commercial lathes out there, especially with twin v bed you see the head stock and tail stock are on the center bed and the carriage on the outer.  That lets it have an H shape that allows closer movement to the headstock and allows the tail stock to be closer to the carriage with less overhang.

Notice in the book that the half nut is way out to the right.  You can see the original hole in the carriage faceplate on my lathe.   That also creates a lever arm to try and twist the carriage longer than if it's on center of the rectangle of the carriage on the ways.  And more twisting. 

You can still see the original pulley on the left for the round sewing machine belt power feed.  But once I had the South Bend Heavy 10L I was able to cut a custom ACME lead screw for the carriage.  I use two steel jam nuts to take out play.  And yes they should be bronze.  But by then I had the South Bend….

Funny thing is I still use the Gingery for all sorts of things.  As well as my DB200 depending on the size of what I need to do.  And my South Bend, because it has a physical taper attachment I haven't felt the need to add power to the cross slide.  So threading metric or turning/boring to depth is a bit more tedious but still way easier than totally manually.

For example.  In the attached photo I had to turn 6 3D printed wheels to an exact size.  I made an arbour and used the South Bend collets so I would be able remove and install the arbour and still have the outside and inner edge concentric.  Two small bearings went in on either side.

If I was only doing it once or wanted to dial in using my Gingery 4 jaw then I'd have done it there.  But it was only one pass.  Once done I'd move the X out a bit to clear and just JOG to the right at full speed to get the tool out of the way, measure or just remove and place the next one.  Then press START and the tool would move back to the BEGIN position. I'd move the X back to the zero spot on the dial and press START and the next wheel would be cut to size. 

All this is possible with the Gingery and plastic doesn't deflect anything.  I also do wood patterns like tapered pieces for casting.  So handy.  Chuck a dowel into the 3 Jaw.  Set the ELS up for taper turning and cut the taper.  Part off at the right length and glue to the pattern.

And none of this would be within my abilities had I not built the Gingery from scratch.  I still intend on making the shaper. Just for fun.  Not sure where it will fit in the shop but Rick Sparber has an excellent series of PDFs on making it with improvements.

John Dammeyer