I don’t know if the person who did this is watching the forum, but if you are performing abrasive operations on the lathe, either of them, you need to be covering the ways and cleaning up after yourself. I don’t generally concern myself with those who don’t perform general cleanup when they’re done, but this is something that the next user would have to clean, or should be cleaning, and re-oiling the ways, before they begin their work. Failing to clean this up before the next use causes unnecessary wear on the ways. These machines see enough abuse from not being regularly lubricated, they don’t need this!
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Thanks David,
I do ask the people that take my class to cleanup after themselves, but this is something I’ll start making a point of.
Does not solve the immediate problem but I wonder how hard it would be to install some way covers? Just a thought.
I’m not worried about general cleanup of metal chips, though it is common courtesy. But anybody doing that much (what appeared to be) sanding on the metal lathes needs to clean that up. Same for grinding. Some people will say that abrasives have no place on a metal lathe, which I don’t agree with, but people leaving this kind of mess behind is good ammunition for those opposed to it.
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