In a bit of a pickle here

**new_guy90** · 14th September 2009, 12:18 PM

Originally Posted by the fabricator

haha i just re-read your post Gavin and saw the (milling machine in time) i laughed because i can see myself buying one because "i have a lathe, of course i need a mill"

if you have a lathe you can use it as a mill so you can save some money and make your own attachments all on the lathe

PM if you want some plans i cant be bothered looking for the URL's right now. as for set up keep your lathe on its own bench in that container and another clean bench that you can assemble things on, keep it clean and tidy so you dont lose stuff when taking things apart and your projects keep clean when your putting them back together that will be importaint if your going to try and sell stuff like pens. as for welding and grinding KEEP IT ALL OUT SIDE!!!!! you dont want to be breathing that crap in and it will get everywhere and thats the worst thing for you lathe (if the ways are screwed its far cheaper to get a new machine than regrind it) on the subject of lathes do you by any chance know what tooling you are going to get? what machineing have you done at school?

**the fabricator** · 14th September 2009, 06:10 PM

well, i was origanlly planning to get just HSS bits and grind them myself, and add a knurling tool. the AL-50GB comes with steadys, 4 jaw's etc

at school we have lathes, shaper/slotter, drills, mill/drill, horizontal mill and brobo cold cut off

**Gavin Newman** · 14th September 2009, 06:33 PM

Good thinking, HSS grinding is an art you need to learn and in any event the lathe you are looking at will not be rigid enough to use carbide tooling properly. Plus the HSS bits are a lot cheaper, easier to resharpen, can be formed to whatever shape you want and are a lot more forgiving on interrupted cuts.

Whe buying the knurling tool make sure you get the clamp style unit like this https://www.machineryhouse.com.au/Pr...stockCode=L080 that straddles the work. The traditional type of knurling tool like this https://www.machineryhouse.com.au/Pr...stockCode=L079 puts too much side pressure on your lathe bearings and should be avoided unless you lathe is built like a tank.

Here http://www.metalartspress.com/PDFs/S...athe_Tools.pdf is a link to a good page on sharpening tools.

**new_guy90** · 14th September 2009, 09:54 PM

Originally Posted by the fabricator

well, i was origanlly planning to get just HSS bits and grind them myself, and add a knurling tool. the AL-50GB comes with steadys, 4 jaw's etc

at school we have lathes, shaper/slotter, drills, mill/drill, horizontal mill and brobo cold cut off

HSS is the best to start with. your going to need a light machine oil for the ways and slides i think thats a must. next would be some digital verniers i have seen them as cheap as $60 but they dont stay accurate for long, think about how accurate your going to want to work to for more ornamental work 0.1 to 0.5mm would be acceptable but in engineering thats the broad side of a barn

if you want to make stuff like bushes and shafts for bearings then you may need to get it as low as 0.03mm now thats tight!!! depending what you want to do your measuring equipment and tooling is going to reflect it for instance if you want to turn a cam offset at 5.5mm then you would use your 4 jaw chuck and need a dial indicator, if you want to bore a hole 20mm +- 0.02 then your cheap digital verniers are not going to cut it you would need an internal micrometer or telescopic bore gauges and a 0-25mm outside micrometer none of which i expect you or any other person starting out to know about or try to use trust me STAY AWAY FORM TELESCOPIC BORE GAUGES THEY ARE HELL!!!!!!!!

sorry if i ranted on with no point there

for starters get your self some mid range digital verniers some like the measure max brand that will get you started, some light oil for the ways, some HSS tool bits the smaller bits are cheaper so get them instead of the 10 or 12mm recommended and shim it up, live center, drill chuck, a few center drills, a drill index dont skimp here by quality it does count! a fish tail guage used for cutting threads and grinding the tools and last of all a set of small taps.

all this stuff will allow you to make more tooling like a boring bar and a clamp knurling tool that are expensive to purchase but fun projects to make and dont need much tooling

Edit: this is a great web site for the smaller type of lathes but has great information take a look if you already haven't
http://www.mini-lathe.com/

**Retromilling** · 15th September 2009, 12:16 AM

Here is a project that I posted it can be handy for your lathe. A top slide taper setting gauge.
It is good because you can't buy one of these and it is capable of setting precise tapers.
Once you have calculated and machined a certain taper ring you never have to do any figuring again just fit the gauge drop the ring on and set the top slide and start machining.

https://www.woodworkforums.com/showth...ht=Taper+gauge

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