Bolton at-520 cross slide nut

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Newellsarcsandsparks
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Joined: Sat Apr 11, 2020 4:37 pm

Bolton at-520 cross slide nut

Post by Newellsarcsandsparks »

Hey all, bought a used Bolton at-520 a little while ago. Today the cross slide nut decided it was done. Besides purchasing one through Bolton tools. Which I have full intentions on doing. I'm looking to widen my options since I can't make one now. So, I'm curious to know if there's an aftermarket for this part or if anyone within the forum makes them. Thanks for your replies.
spro
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Re: Bolton at-520 cross slide nut

Post by spro »

When researching my Enco, there was so many possible companies. It was Taiwan then Taiwan R.O.C ...I don't have the answer but they are there, somewhere. Maybe they are already gone, it has been a long time. Sad how this works.
Damn near lied at you. Smoking hot engine lathes ( in a suck way) compared to the icons of 12 ish X 36" .
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liveaboard
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Re: Bolton at-520 cross slide nut

Post by liveaboard »

I bought a generic screw and nut from an ebay seller, then made them fit my lathe.
I locked the cross slide and used the compound to cut the end of the new screw and bored the crank end of the old one to press together.
The nut needed a lot of grinding to fit into the available space, as well as drilling and tapping for attachment screws.

Result is very good, and very cheap.
There are no parts available for my lathe at all, so I had no option.
John Evans
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Re: Bolton at-520 cross slide nut

Post by John Evans »

There really is no aftermarket for parts for machine tools that I have ever seen. IF you can even get the parts from the seller/maker be very happy !
www.chaski.com
pete
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Re: Bolton at-520 cross slide nut

Post by pete »

Yep like John said spare parts availability seems to die off real quick if there's any at all to begin with. Even at that for some machines direct parts interchangeability doesn't seem to be a high priority either. Angle grinder fitting right from the factory isn't exactly unknown. But for items like feed screws and nuts if you can identify exactly what size and ACME thread pitch you have there are more than a few aftermarket suppliers of both the screws and nuts. The screws usually have blank ends although some company's offer custom machining at high prices. And the nuts are usually oversize so they can be machined to fit whatever type of mount you have. Roton & Thomson would be just two of many. Different accuracy levels can also be specified although like anything else the prices jump quickly the higher up the ladder you go.
Newellsarcsandsparks
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Re: Bolton at-520 cross slide nut

Post by Newellsarcsandsparks »

Perfect, that seems to be the better route to take. I appreciate the replies
16WhiteColly
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Re: Bolton at-520 cross slide nut

Post by 16WhiteColly »

liveaboard wrote: Sun Apr 12, 2020 4:53 am I bought a generic screw and nut from an ebay seller, then made them fit my lathe.
I locked the cross slide and used the compound to cut the end of the new screw and bored the crank end of the old one to press together.
The nut needed a lot of grinding to fit into the available space, as well as drilling and tapping for attachment screws.

Result is very good, and very cheap.
There are no parts available for my lathe at all, so I had no option.
Can you post a link to the screw and nut on eBay?
40 year retired machinist.
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liveaboard
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Re: Bolton at-520 cross slide nut

Post by liveaboard »

The company seems to be gone, amid lots of complaints about orders paid for and not delivered.

A real shame, I also bought a 2.3 meter long lead screw from them, their prices were great, cheap delivery too, even for the long screw.

There are other sellers; I was looking for a lead screw for my lathe, which [very strangely] is 8tpi, and found a UK supplier who has metric screws for decent prices but told me inch pitch stuff was not standard material and would be expensive.
I assume in the US, the situation is the other way around.

If I ever do change it, I'll have to switch to a metric screw [everything else on the lathe is metric except the tailstock screw].
Torch
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Re: Bolton at-520 cross slide nut

Post by Torch »

If you change to a metric thread, you will have to change all your change gears too. A different pitch would result in wildly inaccurate threads!

My lead screw (and I suspect many others from China) is a strange hybrid -- it's actually a metric diameter with an 8tpi pitch.
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