Although I have been waiting for delivery of various bits of metal and fixings which have been trickling in over the last few days (I have everything I need now, I think or should that be hope). I haven’t been idle.

I got the stainless steel lock nuts for tensioning the Gibs on the two slides and managed to get those ready to refit.

The last photos also show an anti backlash nut/block which I hope will take out the backlash from the cross slide lead screw. It’s an idea I got from the US YouTuber that I mentioned (username of Dr Jim) who made his from oil impregnated bearing bronze. I looked into getting some and nearly had a heart attack so settled for testing the concept in acrylic as I had seen another person do who had fitted anti backlash blocks to a home made CNC Mill.

Whilst making the anti backlash nut/block was quite simple. Finding out the thread size/pitch was a bit of a challenge and I am grateful to members of the Model Engineer forum who between a few relies gave me the information that I needed to work it out.

Why was it so difficult you might ask. Well, I have previously mentioned that the machine is imperial but fitted with Digital Read Outs on the cross slide. From what I have read, when fitting the DRO kit’s the lead screw is replaced as part of the upgrade. I rang Chronos who are the supplier of DRO kits in the UK who told me that the lead screws included in the kits are metric. On this basis it seemed logical that the cross slide leadscrew may in fact be metric.

As you might imagine a query on the ME forum elicited quite a few helpful answers and a few less than helpful ones thrown in for good measure. Ultimately I was pointed in the direct of a US site and advised that some of the machines actually came factory fitted with DRO’s and they retained imperial lead screws. With the help of replies that were specific with information I finally worked out that my cross slide leadscrew is a left hand thread 3/8″ 20TPI. Part of my difficulty was that I had no idea of how BSF threads were actually measured as I have never had cause to buy or measure any BSF fixings. All my experience has been in Metric or for modelling purposes, BA screws etc. Where we specify the whole thread length.

A set of taps was duly ordered from RDG engineering supplies (£10.96 inc. postage) and the job was done.