Carriage Handwheel Gear Cover
The carriage handwheel gears are open and get chips stuck in them quite easily. When the gears get filled with chips, they bind and the carriage doesn't move smoothly, or at all. My lathe has a sheet metal shield over the leadscrew and this makes the problem worse, since the chips sit on the shield until they get pulled into the gears. I decided to make a cover for the gears. I saw an example on mini-lathe.com that was made out of plastic. I didn't have any acrylic on hand, so I made mine out of a piece of .040" aluminum sheet. I bored a hold for the gear that meshes with the rack and then trimmed the shape to fit with shears, a belt sander and files. The gears protrude from the apron slightly, so I bored recesses for both gears. I drilled and tapped 4-40 holes in the apron to attach the new cover and put a generous coat of white lithium grease on the gears and shafts. Click the pictures for larger images.