No Jon, you are not the only one. Doesn't happen with my inverter driven lathe as I have programmed it to start slowly so I can see which way the work rotates.

Thor

I dreaded doing this from day one, so as our Chester lathe and Sieg mill both have the same rotary rev-off-fwd switches I printed a little stopper. It fits tightly to the sides of the square switch bezel, but can be slid up and down to prevent the switch being put into reverse without first moving the stopper. It has worked so far (touch wood). I haven't got access to the machines right now so cannot take a photo, so here is a render of the STL.

Brian G

(Edit: In case it is any use to others, I just posted it to Thingiverse as Reverse Lockout for Chinese Lathe )

Edited By Brian G on 06/07/2022 10:40:22

I have the switch go towards the tail stock for on forwards, and towards the gears for reverse. A friend asked why this was important. I said for when thread cutting, you really want to know the direction without needing to look at things.

I used to own a large IXL-badged lathe with power long and cross-feeds. Those were engaged, not just selected, by a lever with pull-out locking-pin, on a quadrant on the saddle. The action was quite stiff, and it was 'orribly easy to over-shoot mid-gear…. I kept a bolt lying loosely in the "spare" pin-hole to prevent the potential ooh-nasty.

(I sometimes wonder what happened to that machine, which was complete with all accessories, change-wheels etc. I was persuaded to donate it to the Lynton & Barnstable Railway's workshop, but I don't know if they still have it. If not I hope it has found a new, loving home.)

My hard of thinking is usually to measure once, measure twice, even measure thrice and cut once…. to the wrong length.

I’ve tried drilling with a cordless set on reverse … thinking “this drill’s really blunt!”

Yep me too. Chipped 2 faces of the 3 cornered one before i noticed it was in reverse..

Steve.

Years ago, I built the little GHT 3" rotary table. I made my own T-slot cutter, silver steel, complete with thread for Clarkson collet chuck. It was only as I was about to switch on that I realised that I had cut the teeth left-handed…

Had to rewire the Dore-Westbury to run backwards and hold the cutter in a Myford collet. Thank goodness for D-W spindle nose being Myford copy. It cut beautifully in mild steel – eventually.

Haven't made that mistake again. Made plenty of others, though! It's called experience…

The Smart & Brown model A at the museum has a guard over the reverse switch to reduce the risk of error, I have only used it for threading 2.5mm trapezoidal nuts for the drill mill, and with left hand boring bars, having locked the chuck on the threaded spindle first. I wasn't sure about reversing an old machine like this and asked for advice on the forum before trying it. Reversing at low speeds without stopping first turned out to be a doddle, with no noises or vibrations as I had feared.

 The 2.5mm trapezoidal thread was easy to obtain as the idler gear was 125/127, the exact ratio to use with one of the imperial thread pitches. The first test was a failure, the nut would not screw on very far despite being made somewhat oversize. My mistake was as simple as changing from 125-127 to 127-125

Edited By old mart on 07/07/2022 21:01:34