Finally got a lathe

[Any Cal.]

Find a good source for 12L14 steel and aluminum round bar. Best thing ever for little lathe work. Cheap and easy to turn.

0XA Quick Change Tool Holder. Lets you run a real parting blade, and is pretty quick for changing out a couple bits, say turning, chamfering, knurling, then parting in a small piece... in seconds. Nice when you have to sharpen them, no tools needed. Until you get the parting blade, keep a hacksaw handy.

Vernier Caliper. Works for inside/outside/depth measurement, and chips wont mess up the gear rack. Not super accurate, but on mine the outside jaws match my micrometer measurements. Usually one measurement type will be off of the others by .001" or so, but not usually an issue.

Drill chuck for the tailstock, and a big drill index by the lathe. Now that you have a lathe, everything needs a bushing or a threaded hole on the end.

Ignore the carbide stuff. Waste of time. The HSS bits are cheap and super versatile once you learn to sharpen them. And you can build your own boring bars and such with little HSS bits.

Get an empty tuna can and an acid brush, put a magnet on the bottom, and put a bit of cutting oil in it. It rests well on the headstock, you won't be dribbling oil all over everything trying to drip it out of a bottle.

I use a small oil bottle for lubricating the ways, it sits right close too. That way you can do it often.

Oh, and a 1 1/2-2" paintbrush for clearing chips.

And if you can get a desk lamp sitting over the top, you'll be in tall cotton!

[smokeywolf]

Nice buy NavyVet. With some patience you should be able to manufacture most of what you might need for casting and reloading. Gunsmithing might be a bit more challenging.

If your seller was expecting a 2 ton mill, it was a pretty big one. Typical Bridgeport is only around 1800 lbs. My 17/25 X 40 gap-bed engine lathe is 4,000 lbs.

Check out youtube for videos by home machinists. Lots of good informative stuff. If you find you need to replace your toolpost, don't skimp there. An Aloris or Dorian wedge type (as opposed to piston) post is the way to go.

[sharps4590]

Wow....incredible information for another hobby machinist to absorb. I am such a rookie!!!

Navy, congrats!! You're gonna love it. I picked up a Grizzly about 3 years ago and I believe it's a 9 X 19, I'd have to check. I use it mostly for working on cartridge cases and little stuff and love learning how to use it and what all it can be used for.

[Bent Ramrod]

You can probably use your present bench grinder for tool grinding if you get a dresser for the wheels. A "quality import" diamond version works best for me; I've never gotten as good (or quick) results with that segmented wheel thingy.

I used my little Black & Decker grinder for years. It was underpowered and slowed down with anything more than touching up edges, but the amateur tool grinder isn't setting speed records anyway. Keep a cup of water close for dunking, so you don't overheat the edge.

[brstevns]

I do not know a thing about laths other then wood working laths, Would this little lath work for barreling work etc. Any good lesson books out there on using a metal lath

[IllinoisCoyoteHunter]

Congrats!! Buying a starter lathe (10x22 Grizzly) led me to a career change. I now run lathes for a living and love every second of it. At work i run big lathes and small precision lathes. You will wonder how you got by without a lathe for so long, especially being a reloader. You will find that even small tasks around the house can be made easy with a small lathe. Enjoy your new toy and cant wait to see more of your projects, no matter how "simple" they are!

[skeettx]

Well done, well done
An accurate lathe is JUST FUN
Mike

[Traffer]

Interestingly I watched a documentary of the history of machine tools the other night. I forgot the year but the first really huge milling machine was made with ...wait for it... files! This huge multi ton casting was converted into the worlds largest milling machine with skilled file users. Simple tools can do a lot if you are patient and develop the skills.
I just learned to grind the bit like the last drill picture shows. I had to drill a .030" hole center in a grade 8 bolt 1/2" deep to hold a tiny pin. The very tiny bits have a web that looks to be about half the diameter of the bit, so I sharpened them to make the web thinner. Spent a lot of time with a 10x loupe on 3x glasses to grind these tiny units. I don't have a lathe. I drilled the hole with an electric hand drill in a vise and a pin drill in my hand. It is exciting to be learn to do something like that.

To make a hole with a flat bottom you can grind a drill bit thusly:



For drilling brass or plastic or other soft materials you would grind a "flat" on the two cutting edges as this:



To thin the web of a drill bit you would grind the back side of the flute as this:



What this does is lesson the effort required to cut material with the drill bit. When you drill large holes using increasingly larger drill bits you would size the next larger drill bit to be just a bit larger than the web of the previous drill.



Part of the drill collection:




Most used drill set in my shop are the number drills from #1 to #60 mostly as tap drills. I have a set of fractional drills from 1/16" to 1/2" in a stand by the lathe and an almost complete set of metric drills to 14mm.

Dutch

[Traffer]

I don't know how big your grinder is but, yes you can get wheel dressers. The segmented tungsten carbide ones are a too crude (in my opinion) for that kind of grinding but you could finish dress them with a diamond wheel on a dremel. You can get a batch of diamond wheels about 2 1/2" diameter on eBay for well under $10.

You can probably use your present bench grinder for tool grinding if you get a dresser for the wheels. A "quality import" diamond version works best for me; I've never gotten as good (or quick) results with that segmented wheel thingy.

I used my little Black & Decker grinder for years. It was underpowered and slowed down with anything more than touching up edges, but the amateur tool grinder isn't setting speed records anyway. Keep a cup of water close for dunking, so you don't overheat the edge.

[smokeywolf]

What has always worked best for me to dress standard grinding wheels (not diamond) is a Huntington dresser, aka "starwheel dresser", followed by a Norbide stick (Norton's boron carbide stick), aka a "dog turd".

[NavyVet1959]

I do not know a thing about laths other then wood working laths, Would this little lath work for barreling work etc. Any good lesson books out there on using a metal lath

It would have to be a pretty small diameter barrel to fit through the spindle bore. I think its only 20mm (0.78"), so anything with a larger diameter than that would probably need to be short enough to fit on the lathe between centers. It does have a steady rest, so it *might* be possible to turn a small diameter rifle barrel if you were willing to work on a few inches of it at a time. My gut feeling though is that I would probably screw it up and have either steps in the barrel if I tried that or the different sections that I worked on would be non-concentric.

It would probably be OK for handgun barrels though. If I was wanting to thread a M1911's barrel, it would probably work if I added a 4-jaw chuck since the chamber end would need to be held in the chuck and it is an odd shape (i.e. not round). I was going to say "symmetrical", but that is not correct since an octagon barrel is symmetrical, but it wouldn't work in a 3-jaw chuck. A hexagonal barrel would work in a 3-jaw chuck though.

[GONRA]

GONRA suggestsusing this Small Engine Lathe to learn how to cut single point threads.
If you screw up, won't mess up more serious machine tools.
Do NOT purchase a more expensive lathe until
you are Really Confident you have mastered Basic Engine Lathe Skills!!!
Then you won't screw up a much more expensive piece of machinery.

Am sure others (Real Live Machinists) will have other "learning"suggestions too.....

[IllinoisCoyoteHunter]

I will throw out a learning suggestion. When you set up your work in the lathe, keep as little material sticking out of the chuck as you need. This will help keep your work as rigid as possible, especially when machining at the end of the work farthest away from the chuck. If you have to do reverse work (flipping the workpiece and machining the opposite side...sometimes called "B" side work), be sure you have a way to indicate the work so that all the work you do on the B side is concentric and parallel to the work you have performed on the A side (You should indicate on a surface that you have already machined). Turned diameters are good for dialing in concentricity and shoulders are good for dialing in perpendicularity. Sometimes this is overkill and simply using a 3 jaw and flipping your work is OK. But, there are times you have to keep both sides running true to eachother. A 4 jaw chuck is your friend.

[Taylor]

I have been looking at the HF minie as of late.I need a compression plug..which I can buy for $20.Can't seem to get a straight shank with my drill press and file.

Spend $500. to save $20.

[whistlersmother]

I got a HF 7x12 six months ago.

I did the captive ring thing in Al and turned some outside threads on steel.

I learned carbide is not my friend, especially for Al. Get the HSS and learn to grind your own tools.

Still having trouble parting off steel, but got a QC coming with a real parting tool.

I'm waiting for someone to ask me what I plan to use it for... I'm ready to say I'm making punch and die sets for turning pennies into Makarov j-words. When I told the kids that, they shrugged and went back to their electeonic gizmos.

Oh well, learning something completely new will keep me sharp.

Good turning with your new lathe.

[smokeywolf]

Continuing IllinoisCoyoteHunter's idea,,,

Plan your operations out so that as many operations as possible can be performed in one chucking.

Example: If O.D. and I.D. work is to be done on one end, do the O.D. work first, then without loosening the chuck or removing the stock, do the I.D. work. This ensures O.D. and I.D. features are concentric with one another.

Get yourself a 1 or 2 inch "dial travel indicator".

If you didn't get a live center with the lathe, you'll need one. Make sure the taper on tailstock tooling you procure matches your tailstock taper.

Keep a center or drill chuck in the tailstock taper at all times. This reduces the chance of stray dirt, chips and particulate from infiltrating your tailstock socket.

If you don't have them already, you'll need center drills, aka "combination drill & countersink". Numbers 1 thru 4 will get your started. Keo is a preferred brand.

[charlie b]

All good stuff. I sold off my 12x36 cause I wasn't using it much and got a HF instead. Used it a lot.

I liked the carbide insert systems for cutting bits along with a quick change tool post and/or turret. I also kept a few HSS bits around for special jobs, such as brass. I also ground some carbide bits for Al and brass (need a special grinding wheel).

A tool post grinder comes in handy too. You can make one from a dremel tool if you are careful with it.

[1066]

Here's a mine of information concerning mini lathes:
http://varmintal.com/alath.htm

http://www.mini-lathe.com/Default.htm

and if you though the mini lathes were not capable of fine work, just have a look at these examples, all made on mini lathes.
http://www.mini-lathe.com/Cabin_Feve...1_sterling.htm

I'm a completely self taught metal scratcher and have a little Colchester Bantam (1960's) lathe and a Chinese hobby mill.
Just a few of my recent projects:

[kingstrider]

Looks good and I like how you think the machine will serve as a good starter unit until you graduate to something bigger. I am on my third lathe now, a late 40s South Bend 9A that is good enough for some stuff but still too small for other stuff. Once I have the room I'm going to get something with a 1.5" or greater spindle bore.

[Traffer]

1066, beautiful work. You have convinced me to get a mini lathe. I also do not have much room so the choice is obvious. I have been making swaging dies for 22lr with 2 drill presses, 2 dremels, files and other hand tools. I recently discovered (with my horizontal mounted drill press) that I can use a snap off blade knife like a woodworkers tool to actually cut the steel. (grade 8 bolts) I am working under 13X magnification not removing large amounts of steel. I use a dremel as a die grinder with cheap diamond grit tools from China for that, so a mini lathe is the ticket for me.