Is it my turn? Anything to do with lathes, mills and other shop tools

I have pondered the merits of owning a milling machine but cannot justify the cost as I can do most very small milling projects on my lathe. So having decided a mill is not for me, I have spent the last 5 months slowly modifying my crappy bench drill to a mill/drill. I had to rebore the quill to take a good dual race angular bearing and make a new chuck as the B16 drill chuck was not coaxial with the drive mechanism:
Mill1.jpg
Yesterday I finished the final job, a cut depth fine adjuster:
Gauge 3.JPG
The final beast:
Gauge1.JPG

I have had a good play on it and with the correct cutter it does an excellent good on Brass and Aluminum with cut depths up to 3mm. I have no intention of milling steel because as cute as my mill is, it lacks sufficient metal to take out the flexibility. I imagine it will groan and vibrate on steel but may be ok for cast iron (steam engine cylinders). My total cost for the conversion was approximately £50 with £20 of that going on the cheap Chinese compound slide to allow me to work on larger items than my lathe's milling attachment can accommodate.

Moral of the story: A cheap bench drill will never make a high precision milling machine, that is why it is called a cheap bench drill. But it will satisfy my current needs working to 0.1mm or thereabouts.
 
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Grimly said:
I've been tempted by the thought of getting back into creating some swarf with a lathe, as there are some right good bargains around, but the transportation of them is expensive to Sticksville. If I got a lathe I'd be spending a lot of time not being a danger to myself with it, until I could be good enough to actually make something.
Click to expand...
WP_20200713_003.jpg


Finally got enough shekels in the piggy bank to spring for a lathe.
It's a Boxford Model B - a clone of the South Bend 9".
Comes with a shedload of tooling too, which is handy.
Just waiting for transportation opportunities to arise and it will be here... sometime.
 
A very nice buy there Grimly! From the photo it has everything to start work straight away. The bed looks to be in top condition with no chips out.

Enjoy the new Hobby...
 
Downeaster said:
Looks as tho it was well cared-for and equipped.
Click to expand...

Paul Sutton said:
A very nice buy there Grimly! From the photo it has everything to start work straight away. The bed looks to be in top condition with no chips out.

Enjoy the new Hobby...
Click to expand...

I think it's gone through one refurb, certainly been painted, and it remains to be seen how well that was done. From what I can see it's been looked after. Of course, a half-century old lathe might have had a couple of careful owners and a couple of oafs in its history, much like my XS.
Given the dearth of decent equipment for the kind of money I'm willing to pay over here, it's a long-distance purchase and I'm relying heavily on the good character of the seller. He's a member of another forum I'm on, and seems to be a straight shooter.
 
FINALLY getting a little rain, so decided to find something to do in the shop.

My antique lathe came with a pretty complete set of change gears so I thought I'd begin learning how to cut threads.

The first hurdle was figuring out what the threading chart meant by "Stud" "Inter" and "Screw":

sfchart.jpg


A bit of experimentation and a couple of questions on https://www.hobby-machinist.com/forums/ confirmed my initial suspicions:

sfgeartrain.jpg
sfgearbox.jpg


A is the "Stud" which is actually the drive spindle.
B is the "Inter" which I take to mean Intermediate shaft
C is the "Screw" which is the lead screw for the apron.

Then it took me a minute to figure out that the Stud gear can go on in two positions in or out by swapping a spacer. This is important because some of the thread pitches require a double reduction on the Inter shaft with the Stud gear driving the outer gear and the inner gear driving the Screw gear.

THEN, seeing as the lathe doesn't have a threading dial, you need to be able to reverse the spindle. Rut-ro... But, I checked the data plate on the (much newer) motor and it is indeed reversable, so I ordered a drum switch.

Stay tuned...
 
Downeaster said:
THEN, seeing as the lathe doesn't have a threading dial, you need to be able to reverse the spindle.
Click to expand...
My lathe is capable of cutting threads. Not sure I am tho. It also does not have a threading dial. I may be wrong but I think my carriage always engages in the same place on the screw. In other words no need for threading dial.
I'm sure better machinists than me will chime in on this.
 
Downeaster said:
FINALLY getting a little rain, so decided to find something to do in the shop.

My antique lathe came with a pretty complete set of change gears so I thought I'd begin learning how to cut threads.

..
Click to expand...

Well you got me to actually look at those things on my Antique South Bend! Seems it is a bit more high tech as it looks like all the feeds and threads other that the coarsest ones can be done with out removing and installing gears. Just move one or two of the shift levers. There are two different "stud gears" one 40 tooth and one 20 tooth. Also the gears they mesh with are on slotted brackets so I guess all you need to do is loosen and slide to where they mesh right.
IMG_1040.JPG
IMG_1041.JPG


Yea I know I should take them all off and clean and lube them!

Also note that the blue handle in the second picture can be moved to change direction of feed or at least I seem to recall that's how it works!

I'm assuming the "stud gears" are the ones at the vary bottom of the lower picture. Right now it is meshing with the 20 tooth gear and the 40 tooth gear is covering it up!
 
kshansen said:
Well you got me to actually look at those things on my Antique South Bend! Seems it is a bit more high tech as it looks like all the feeds and threads other that the coarsest ones can be done with out removing and installing gears. Just move one or two of the shift levers. There are two different "stud gears" one 40 tooth and one 20 tooth. Also the gears they mesh with are on slotted brackets so I guess all you need to do is loosen and slide to where they mesh right.View attachment 173682 View attachment 173683

Yea I know I should take them all off and clean and lube them!

Also note that the blue handle in the second picture can be moved to change direction of feed or at least I seem to recall that's how it works!

I'm assuming the "stud gears" are the ones at the vary bottom of the lower picture. Right now it is meshing with the 20 tooth gear and the 40 tooth gear is covering it up!
Click to expand...
Now that I have a good picture of the gears maybe it would be a good time to clean them! Good rainy day project!
 
Downeaster said:
Ya Lucky Duck, you have what is known as a Quick Change Gear Box. Takes a lot of the pain out of setting up for threading. And yes, the blue handle is to reverse direction the apron moves in.
Click to expand...
I thought a quick change gear box was something the stock car drivers used to adapt their car to different tracks and conditions!
 
Paul Sutton said:
I have pondered the merits of owning a milling machine but cannot justify the cost as I can do most very small milling projects on my lathe. So having decided a mill is not for me, I have spent the last 5 months slowly modifying my crappy bench drill to a mill/drill. I had to rebore the quill to take a good dual race angular bearing and make a new chuck as the B16 drill chuck was not coaxial with the drive mechanism:
View attachment 172762
Click to expand...

Nice job. Where did you get that chuck? How does it work, how does it hold the bits?
 
joebgd said:
Nice job. Where did you get that chuck? How does it work, how does it hold the bits?
Click to expand...

That appears to be a "drawbar" chuck. There are various collets that hold the bit and as the drawbar is tightened it pulls the chuck up into a tapered recess and clamps it down on the bits. R8 is one common style.

f24e3a2e-798c-44bd-933f-a76900cda8fc_650x500.jpg
 
joebgd said:
Nice job. Where did you get that chuck? How does it work, how does it hold the bits?
Click to expand...

joebgd, I made that chuck but unfortunately the bench drill cannot accommodate a drawbar. This chuck takes DIY collets that are inserted and tightened with 3 grub screws. Not a perfect system, but then you cannot make a top quality mill from these cheap bench drills. They have too much flex in them.
Video of the type of collet I made:
I have already used the mill a lot too make replacement parts for the black plastic pieces on that cheap compound table. The black plastic ends that hold the threaded studs for adjusting the XY positions flex and cause inaccuracy in feedrate. Also the hand wheels for making adjustments are too small to give a smooth adjustment when the slop has been taken out of the dovetails so these have also been modified.

My estimated accuracy for the mill is about 0.2mm which is good for my intended use. For a comparison, my lathe works well to just less than 0.02mm or 1/1000".
 

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