I bought the Harbor Freight lathe and the advertised quick change
toolpost some months ago. The only way I've been able to use any
tool bigger than 1/4 inch is with the quick change unit, and only
then by lowering the tool holder well below the level of the cross
slide. It works, but it's not pretty.
After spending about 10 hours tightening every gib in sight,
polishing the ways, and other miscellaneous fixups, I am now
trying to replace the spindle bearings in hopes of getting
less play and flexing. The Harbor Freight model had straight
roller bearings, so I'm replacing them with angled bearings
to take thrust loads.
The stock bearings had about .8 mil static runout.
The dynamic runout was bad (> 5 mil, AFAIK) at speed.
We'll see if this improves it.
