Hello, I just purchased a Taig lathe used with a bunch of accessories (including a 3 jaw and 4 jaw chuck, collet set, cross slide, 5 belts, 2 motors, some slitting saws and arbors, milling attachment and milling vise). My question is how accurate are these lathes? I have been playing with this one for a few weeks now and seem to have a consistent .003 inch "hop" in everything that I chuck up into the 3 jaw chuck. The chuck when I use the indicator on the back surface and the outside ring also shows being out by the same amount .003". When I mount the four jaw chuck it too shows the .003 inch on the chuck body, though obviously you can center your work piece. The confusing part is that the shaft shows no sign of being out at all. I even used a small Browne and Sharpe last word indicator (with the help of a more experienced friend) and was shown that the shaft is true at all locations. I removed the chuck from the spindle disassembled it and mounted the body in my Grizzly lathe and was unable to find any part that was out of round! Could the threads themselves on the Taig lathe be worn or damaged? Or is this indicative of the accuracy these lathes can produce? I would not mind replacing a part or two as I purchased this setup real cheap, but am not sure as to what I should be replacing (if anything). Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

Thank you for your responses. Let me clarify some of my miscommunication. When I say I put it on my larger Grizzly, what I did was chuck the smaller chuck in the lathe, making certain the back of the smaller Taig chuck was running true and used an indicator to try and locate a surface that was out of round in hopes of identifying a part that needed to be replaced. The 3/4 by 16 threaded chuck mount for the Taig has 2 surfaces that seem to be used for alignment (I could be wrong) so I had hoped one of those would give me a out of round reading. With my very limited knowledge about this ( I started producing useless round pieces of metal with my Grizzly sometime in late February) it seems that the "union" between the chuck and the spindle is the only way I can create the out of round condition. I fear maybe one part or the other is in need of replacement but neither part seems to be bad. Again thanks to all that replied to my post.

Thank you.