Hi all,

I recently purchased my first metal lathe, a MicroLux 7x16 from Micromark.
Overall, I'm pretty impressed with it, but I'm having some trouble that I'm hoping you guys can help with.
I believe I have the machine set up correctly, and everything seems to be working.
My problem is that it appears to have quite a bit of 'rock' or 'flex' in the cross and compound slides.
I've taken out the gibs and inspected them, and they look good. The surfaces are pretty well smooth, to the point that I decided not to hone them further.
I reinstalled them, and adjusted the gib screws to be snug, but not binding on the slide(s).
In this configuration, I get quite a bit of tool deflection when cutting, to the degree that the tool will sometimes slip under the workpiece and bind up the lathe.
My father (a gunsmith) suggested that I might be trying to take too large of bites in a pass, but I'm only cutting 0.002-0.003" per pass, with brand new carbide bits.
I've confirmed that my tools are set at the centerline of the headstock via the adjustment on my QCTP.
If I tighten up the gib screws enough to eliminate most (not all) of the rocking, then I'm not able to rotate the handwheels at all.
What am I missing? As it is, the lathe is pretty useless to me, and that hurts my feelings.