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

[gggGary]

Whatcha got? Lathe, mill, any other shop tools, pics of your shop and tools, details, techniques questions How do I ?? How I did....
I'll lead off; my dad's ole southbend has followed me around for 25 years now.


But got all fancy and bought a Grizzly 4003,


Huge difference from the old, small, and rather worn, South Bend. But I have no training or education on the use of the lathe so I'm on that steep learning curve.

I'm liking the QCTP but the insert holders that came with the lathe were weird or improperly machined, the insert angle was just plain wrong?


In order to use them for typical square face and turning cuts, the tool post needed to be skewed off of square to the chuck which just made no sense to me. The grizzly boring bar holder that uses the same insert has the "correct" angle,

which seems to be the 80 degree "point" should have 5 degree back angle on each side, kinda like this,

I kinda kludge fixed them by grinding an angle on the rear of the holder so the insert has the "normal" 5 degree angle to the surfaces, I think this will work fine for now.




I got a few of the Grizzly carbide inserts which are also a bit unusual in that they are machined for left and right hand use.

Well that's a wandering first post in the thread eh?

 

[Ratranger]

I'm a machinist by trade. Went to school for it as soon as I got out of the army, and was working by half way through school. Changed jobs for better pay and hours and now run a dual spindle live tool Okuma CNC.
At home I have a 1940s atlas th42 that I got for a deal. It has a 10" swing and 42" bed, about 24" between centers. I do have a 54" bed for it once I build a better table. I also have an Induma knee mill.
For smaller lathes I would say learn to grind tools from HSS blanks. Carbide is nice, but cheap tools use cheap inserts that aren't much better than HSS. Good tools are pricey and inserts run a good bit more than cheap ones. I use a lot of WNMG inserts with .032 or .016 radius at work. I can't speak for other brands but I routinely push the mitsubishi ones around 500-650 surface foot in 4130, that means roughly 3-4krpm on a 1" diameter piece, with .12" depth of cut and .014" per rev feed.

 

[MaxPete]

I’ve got a cute little Chinoise mill-drill machine in the DCW but my knee is too danged sore to get out there to take a photo of it. I bought it from CL a couple of years ago and it works fine although it is pretty light duty. I have some tooling for it and there is a place in Ann Arbor which sells spares and more tooling.

I’ve also got a couple of pedestal drill presses (one in the basement for my RC aircraft shop and one the garage for the DCW motorcycle activities) and a bench grinder in each spot. I also have a bench polishing machine which I need to commission and will do, over the winter once my knee settles down. Finally, I just got a good deal on a Lincoln MigPak 180 welder which runs on 220V. Yesterday, I got over to Detroit and got a tank of shield gas for it which was good. I’ve got a good 3M auto-darkening mask and a set of welder’s aprons, sleeves and gloves, so I should be set for metal joining too.

All of the equipment works fine and I’ve maintained it properly. I’ll shoot some photos in due course.

Pete

 

[Downeaster]

How timely. I'm waiting on my Grizzly mini-lathe to show up.

I already know that I'll spend several hours/days disassembling, cleaning, polishing and adjusting before ever cutting my first chip.

Spent most of the afternoon watching Ewe Toob videos on the subject.

I know just about enough about lathe work to be dangerous. We had an enormous old Hendy when I worked at the cannery that had been sitting since they decommissioned the on-site machine shop 20 years before I started there. I got reasonably good at basic turning, boring and knurling, as long as it didn't have to be dead-nuts accurate.

 

[kshansen]

Well my machine tools are also rather primitive big lathe is about the same vintage as gggGay's but not a rusty believe it is a CL644Y( or is that a V?) with a 3 foot bed, also flat belt drive. Do have a small Atlas in rough condition, main problem is very worn gearing and carriage travel screws and such. Price was right, yea boss said when I asked if I could have it before it went to scrap bin.

Also have but never tried rigging it up to do anything a very basic milling machine of some kind, would need to drag it out to see if there is a make or model on it. Bed feed is with a large lever. It is also a flat belt design and would take some work to rig up a motor to run it and also does not have any tooling so that would be an expensive proposition right there to start.

Only thing else that even comes close to being a machine tool is a basic old Craftsman floor drill press. Last owner of it was a guy who used to build Stock cars as a side job. Wish I had seen if he had a tubing bender for sale but that was long before I was thinking of mounting sidecars to some bikes.

Almost for got to mention the real precision tools, couple 4/12 grinders, draw full of files and an big old anvil!

 

[Downeaster]

Yeah, here's my "mill". Cheap Chinese crossfeed table on a Crapsman drill press.
Better than a sharp stick in the eye, but not by much.

 

[Jim]

Is It My Turn?
Heh... I see what you did there Gary
Well, there's the 10" Atlas. 1940 ish. Has plain babbet bearings and oil cups in the headstock. It came to me in cardboard boxes.




First thing I made on it was this....



There's the homemade torch rig....



Yes, those really are XS650 pullbacks for the handle... I like to re-purpose stuff

And the Alpha TIG 200



The Plasma Cutter...



And the 20+ yr old Hobart wire machine. Don't let the Craftsman badge fool ya, it's a Hobart through and through.



A 30" blasting cabinet



A 20 ton press...



An 8" disc/belt sander... great for steel or aluminum



A floor drill press with laser crosshairs



And I think there's a partridge in a pear tree around here somewhere....

 

[TwoManyXS1Bs]

Might as well link in some of our lathe threads.
Could be some handy stuff in these.

http://www.xs650.com/threads/whats-your-thoughts-in-this-lathe.34233/

http://www.xs650.com/threads/machin...he-need-help-tooling-and-outfitting-it.34485/

http://www.xs650.com/threads/another-is-this-lathe-a-good-deal-thread.35654/

http://www.xs650.com/threads/ok-guys-another-mill-lathe-advise.35552/

http://www.xs650.com/threads/what-are-your-3-favorite-tools.49926/

One of my lathe projects:

http://www.xs650.com/threads/custom-aluminum-steering-damper-for-70-73-xs1-xs1b-xs2-tx650.45956/

And another black hole:

http://www.hobby-machinist.com/gallery/albums/atlas-craftsman-618-101-07301-lathe.307/

http://www.hobby-machinist.com/threads/power-feed-for-atlas-craftsman-618-lathe.24766/

http://www.hobby-machinist.com/threads/retrofit-er-32-collet-chuck-to-an-atlas-craftsman-618.25476/

http://www.hobby-machinist.com/threads/a-degree-wheel-for-the-atlas-craftsman-6x18.27561/

http://www.hobby-machinist.com/thre...-atlas-craftsman-6-lathe-from-clausing.32498/

 

[Downeaster]

Oh, thanks, 2-M, another Sunday shot in the ass...

 

[gggGary]

Took most of the Badger game to plow through Steve's collet and powered compound threads! The attention to detail just blows me away. I'm lucky to find the on switch, a guy on The Home Shop Machine forum pointed out my inserts are in the holders backwards!

 

[Ratranger]

Thats pretty funny. All the inserts I use that are left or right specific will only fit the correct holder, no way to stick them in the wrong way. Those are pretty much limited to grooving and threading tools.

Mrpete222 on youtube has some pretty good how to videos. Covers some pretty basic things, up to making some tooling and steam engines.

 

[fredintoon]

Between when I was laid off at age 59 and when my pension kicked in at age 60 I had to find a job to tide me over.
Phoned about a machinist job.
Got your papers?
Yes, from Rolls-Royce but that was 40 years ago.
Come in and we'll talk.
The foreman asked me to turn up a simple shaft, gave me a length of barstock and a drawing and pointed me at a lathe.
Sneaky bastard, that lathe had a 4-jaw independent chuck on it.
I centered the bar, turned up the shaft and started the next day.

 

[MaxPete]

As your former countrymen would say...it was a doddle.

 

[Grimly]

I picked up an old Meddings pillar drill recently, just need to get a 1-ph to 3ph converter/controller for it.
That's about it for proper metalworking machinery for now. 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.
MMA, MIG welding, no problem, always need more practice at it though.

 

[Ratranger]

http://www.factorymation.com/FM50-1...MI6ojljbLw1wIVj-NkCh2pkgi8EAQYASABEgJKW_D_BwE

Thats the VFD I use for my mill. Converts from 220 single to 220 3 phase, and you can vary motor speed to better match what you are doing.

 

[Grimly]

http://www.factorymation.com/FM50-1...MI6ojljbLw1wIVj-NkCh2pkgi8EAQYASABEgJKW_D_BwE

Thats the VFD I use for my mill. Converts from 220 single to 220 3 phase, and you can vary motor speed to better match what you are doing.

Yep, along those lines, Huan Yang seems to be the most commonly available here at the same price. There are other ones, but makes I'd never heard of, sold by people who stock hair-pieces, toy cars and plastic trash, which gives me no confidence in their level of product knowledge. HY have opened a depot in Germany, so there's some chance of a warranty replacement if it goes pop.

 

[gggGary]

And the Alpha TIG 200

View attachment 110208

.

Hey Jim, comments on the Alpha TIG? I keep thinking I'm going to pull the trigger on one of those...

 

[Jim]

....comments on the Alpha TIG?

Let me put it this way, mines out of warranty (3yrs.) but if it died today, I'd go straight to Amazon and order the same one again. It does as good as a "blue box" for about a third of the cost. Most definitely suggest you pull the trigger...
The only complaint I have about mine is the ergonomics of the foot pedal, and if you read the comments at Amazon or look at Youtube reviews.. that's a common complaint. You can buy a more traditional pedal for it now, but I'm kinda used to this one after 3 yrs.
EDIT: Just looked on Amazon and the 2018 model will be out in two days for for 680 bucks.

 

[Eotnak]

Is It My Turn?
...

A floor drill press with laser crosshairs

View attachment 110214

And I think there's a partridge in a pear tree around here somewhere....

That drill press looks a lot like my Chinese Craftsman. The plastic adjustments on the crosshairs broke on mine, do you have a model number on your drill press? I'm thinking maybe I can find a replacement that fits mine..

 

[Jim]

....do you have a model number on your drill press?

Yeah... mines a Chinese Craftsman too.... about 15yrs old. Model # is 137.229250
Hope that helps.