Gingery Home Built Lathes.

[Four Fingers of Death]

My son wants to build one of these with me. Has anybody had any experience building them?

I personally feel that we don't have the 'smarts' to actually do this, but it sure is interesting.

The lathe info is down the page a bit on the right.

http://www.backyardmetalcasting.com/index.html

[The Double D]

How ya gonna get the smarts if you don't try?

[scrapcan]

There was a set of plans that used large combustion engine pistons so you did not have to do the castings. Not sure that either have provisions for power lead screws, but you can learn alot even if you cannot cut threads or have a power feed.

I saw the plans in Lindsay publications book catalog. They have an online availability list also.

And just so you know I have not built or used iether the Gingery or the lathe using the pistons. Just have thought it would be a good way to spend many many hours when I got many many hours to spend.

[Four Fingers of Death]

One day I will hear an almighty crash, It will be the books smashing the floor in my son's room! :D

My Dad says, that the end of the world will come about by the imbalance in teh Western World due to the enormous amount of National Geographic Magazines laying about everywhere :D

You would sure burn a few hours making one of those suckers.

[dnepr]

It will be a fairly big project time wise but I think you will enjoy the casting , I do a bit of aluminum casting myself . If you can apreciate a perfect bullet coming out of the mold you will get a thrill out of a newly cast piece coming out of the sand . If I every figure out why my confuser won't let me move pics around I will send you that larger pic of the dnepr. I cast the custom bellhousing on that bike. Just take a bit of care .You probably have been burned by molten lead and that smarts Aluminum is a whole bunch hotter useally about 13-1400 degrees F when you are ready to pour . Molten aluminum will give you a nasty burn even through a heavy shop coat. Been there, done that, have the scar.

[lastmanout]

Howdy Mr. Mick. First of all- Thanks you for your input to this website. I had the pleasure to work with some of your fellow countrymen one summer, and you folks are A-OK :-D . I went thru a machine tool frenzy for about ten years. I considered the Gingery projects. Seems like an easy project to start, and a hard one to finish. I bought sold and traded SIX small metal lathes before ending up with the 10" lathe I have now. Seems like as soon as I bought one, a better deal came along. Looking back, I would only build a Gingery if I had a lot of raw materials (as in free) and a WHOLE lot of time (retirement). I think the soft aluminum castings would wear quickly and that would be discouraging. In retrospect, I think the best bang for the buck would be the small chinese lathes with lots of TLC and 'fine tuning'. Check out 'Varmint Al's" websight- he has done a lot with his small lathe. Yahoo has a group for builders of the Gingery machines. Pat's big list of metalworking links has lots of good links, also. Good luck!!:drinks:

[Four Fingers of Death]

Last man out, I've been trying to get my son convinced that a chinee boy would be a better bet. I'm retired now, but due to ill wife don't have as much time as I'd like, but that will change eventually, so we can probably dabble a little then. I have spent many many hours on Varmont Al's site over the past years.

I like the idea of casting a bellhousing, way cool! Now a VW motor in a dnepr with chair and revrse gear! Way to go! I'd like to find out how you went about that.