quote of the day.

[Ernest]

About two years ago some one gave me a Sheldon lathe. It had been sitting under a shed for many years. The shed only had a roof and no sides. To make a short story long it I finally got all the dirt and mud out of it and got it repaired so I can use it. The interesting thing is that I have NO machine shop experience. So I have some old books that I am reading and I hope to try to learn how to use the lathe. I talked to a friend of mine who has a little experience and this is his response


"Trying to teach yourself to be a machinist by reading a book is a lot like teaching your self how to be a brain surgeon. With enough study and perseverance you might do it but there sure is going to be a lot of tragedy along the way".

Onward throught fog!

[Swagerman]

Ernest, that seems to pretty well sum up my efforts at becoming a machinest, I think I'm a better brain surgeon than a machinest...but I'm improving a bit as time goes by. :D

The books are all I have to go by, that and some tid-bits I get from this forum.

Jim :drinks:

[KCSO]

Hey, Yes it helps if you can get some hands on experience, but you can do a lot just by reading and working at it. So what if it takes you 3 tries to turn a piece of scrap into a sizing die. You can also take a short coure at just about any Com. College that will give you a lot of what you need. Don't get discouraged and don't give up and you will get there.

[floodgate]

Ernest:

You did OK; I remember those Sheldons were heavily advertised for gunsmithing work in the '50's. Does it have the 1-3/8" hole through the spindle? That lets you use the "economy" 5-C collets from the ENCO, etc., catalogs. Just take it slow. Get a copy of the 1942 South Bend book, "How to Run a Lathe" from LindsayBooks and work through it page by page.

floodgate

[Ernest]

Thanks for the replies. I will get the "How to run a Lathe" I ain't very smart but I'm pretty persistent. I'm sure that before the dust settles I will have cut up a whole bunch of metal

[floodgate]

Ernest:

And, as KCSO suggests, look up your nearby Community College and see if they offer a basic machining course; the High School in the nearest city (Ukiah) had a fine program, too, and allowed our steam model engineering club to use it evenings and weekends if we could arrange for the teacher to supervise us; sadly, he's retired now, but is busy promoting HS Vocational Ed. programs at the State level, with some success.

floodgate

[dragonrider]

You don't need to be a brain surgeon to be a machinist. You will need to know some math. If you have any mechanical skill at all you can turn a piece of scrap into a useful tool. THINK FIRST then cut. the South Bend book is an excellent place to start. Also look for a used copy of Machinist Handbook, it has usefull info on ever aspect of machining. BTW where are you located.? And post some pics of you lathe if you can.

[Bent Ramrod]

Having a teacher is a great help, as they know what is most important to learn first, and what can come later in the course of things. Books tend to organize themselves into categories, rather than priorities, so sometimes they seem to put undue emphasis on things that aren't necessarily those most relevant for a given project or operation. However, if you go slow and have patience, you can teach yourself out of books.

There's also a lot of good advice on machining problems, both on this site, and on some of the specialty machinist sites around the Net. The advent of these digital cameras makes the advice and instruction even better. A subscription to the Home Shop Machinist is also a good investment.

It took me all afternoon to make the breechblock and lever screw pins for a Stevens Favorite, my first project on my 6" Atlas lathe. That was almost 30 years ago, and they're still working, so the return on the time invested was pretty decent.

[Buckshot]

..............Ernest, " The interesting thing is that I have NO machine shop experience. So I have some old books that I am reading and I hope to try to learn how to use the lathe."

Ya know, machinists aren't born, they're made. I also hesitate to call myself a 'Machinist' as to me the word implies a level of competance beyond my current capabilities, and someone who is recognized as having lots of experience. If you have a college close by that offers a course in machining it would be a good deal to take it. San Bernardino Community College, local to me offers 3 individual courses. They prepare you to get the California certificate which is industry recognized.

I'm not really interested in that, but the hands on would be valuable. But due to the shift that I work and the days they have the classes it just doesn't work out. However, the real world actuality is is that learning to run a lathe and do competant work isn't something you need a college education to do. There is a certain amount of intuition involved also, but it is something that can be aquired.

There are lots of good books out there. The running of, and operations used on a manual engine lathe really haven't changed any since the turn of the last century. What HAS changed are the materials you cut with, and the materials you're cutting. Basic turning is still a matter of a certain allowable SFM (Surface Feet pr Minute) past the cutting tool, and is dependent upon what material you're turning. All this is in the books, and there are places offering nifty charts showing the info based on material and OD.

As was mentioned, the South Bend Book, "How To Run a Lathe" is maybe the best single book out there, and isn't very expensive. There are also many others. If you bought a few, much of the information would overlap but each would also have some new or different stuff. The information in the various books are there as guidelines and are generally what has been proven to work well.

A big part of using a lathe or milling machine is figuring out "How am I gonna hold this?" or "How am I gonna accomplish this?" By getting a few of these books you'll be able to see how many different jobs were accomplished and it won't take long to understand that most all of it is common sense. Not too much is a flash of brilliant deduction on anyones' part.

One time I was altering some 32 ga brass shotgun shells from Berdan primers to 209 shotgun shell primers. I have a 5C collet setup and my collets ran from 1/16" to 1-1/8" by 32nd's. The 5C's are excellent and very accurate but they have a narrow grasping range on either side of thier nominal diameter. As it turned out what I really needed was a 25/64th collet. You can buy them as 5C's come in sets by 64ths. I didn't want to buy one and then wait. The beauty of a lathe is that you can MAKE a lot of what you need.

http://www.fototime.com/EA42AD18D042DA2/standard.jpghttp://www.fototime.com/8A2C7C8756BDCD9/standard.jpg

So what I did was to make an intermediate collet in the left photo. It's used to hold the shotshell and to jump in size to a collet I had, that WOULD hold that OD. And there it is in operation in the right photo. And it worked out really well. You didn't even have to stop the lathe! Just open the collet and pluck out the case and collet. Replace the shotshell in the collet, then stick both of'em back into the still spinning 5C, then close the 5C collet and do the work on it and repeat.

So the books impart valuable knowledge about speeds and feeds, SFM's for most materials and some machine setups, but they also show you that a lot of stuff is pretty straight forward and is just common sense. One important thing to remmeber is regardless how stout your machine is, everything is made of rubber. You should always strive to make your setup and accurate and as rigid as possible.

Plus you should work out beforehand the required sequence of operations on a part so that ideally you can peform them all without having to remove and replace the part. Not only does it save time, but it retains the accuracy of your setup and accurate setup is everything. If you do have to remove a part and then put it back, scribe a small line on it to match a jaw on the chuck or collet so it may be put back as closely to the same as it was before. One trick is to have a 'bump tool' you can use.

Say you put a piece of steel into the chuck and when you turn it on you can see it wobbling. Stop the lathe and loosen the jaws to 'just' grip the part. Your bump tool should be a 1/2" OD piece of brass or bronze. Put it in a tool holder, and with the lathe running, bring it up to touch the part in the chuck. By putting a bit of pressure on the spinning part you will see amost all the wobble disappear. Stop the lathe and now tighten down the jaws.

...................Buckshot

[Four Fingers of Death]

I'm a dumb ass, how do you open and close the collet whilst the big finger biter is spinning?

Once again, classy work. I remember sppeaking to one of australia's most respected gunsmiths, a real artist with metal and wood. He said he spent a third of his time making special tools to do a job, a third of his time looking for tools he made last year and a third actually making money.

[redneckdan]

I do a lot of one-off and small quantity parts runs at work. I'd say on the average day 25-50 percent of my time is spent on fixtures. The other is split between design work and pushing the green button while praying I never need to hit the red button.

Keep at it and go slow. Really sucks when you crash. A good first project would be simply chucking up a piece of brass rod and making a range rod or possible gunsmithing punches.

[floodgate]

Mick:

The 5-C collet closers Buckshot is referring to have a lever and ring arrangement that rides on the rotating closing / opening sleeve and can open and close the collet while the lathe is running; useful for repetitive work on a production basis.

Buckshot:

Good summary of how to learn by yourself, though like most skills, you'll pick them up faster in a group of people with a range of experience and ability - like you'll find in a Community College class (counting the instructor!). Other things you'll learn are: (1) there ain't only one way to set up and complete a job; if you've learned on old machines, or have only a limited amount of tooling, you'll have figured out various "workarounds"; and (2) even a "newbie" machinist - with a good mechanical feel - can come up with a "why didn't I think of that?" My son, even as a sub-teener, had this kind of "feel" for machinery, and often came up with good ideas for setups that the "model steamheads" we hung out with hadn't thought of by themselves. He's taught me a lot over the years (the greatest reward in parenting!).

There's a great set of books - "The Machinist's Bedside Readers" in several volumes by Guy Lautard - that is full of wonderful stuff like this, and there is a lot more in the Brownell's "Gunsmith Kinks" series.

So many things to do and learn; so little time!

floodgate

[Ernest]

Thanks for the encouragement and replies. I'm in Victoria Texas and the community college doesn't has a machinist course but maybe the local High school does. I'm going to check into that.
Buckshot is you aren't a machinist then I don't know what it takes to meet the specifications.
I will try to take and post some pictures as soon as I can.
Ernest

[454PB]

Back when I took my basic lathe training, carbide tools were not used. We spent the first few classes learning how to sharpen HSS. When I was still working, I used some carbide, but because we were usually in a hurry, I continued grinding my own HSS rather than wait for the proper carbide tools to be ordered and arrive. I now have my own lathe in my shop/reloading room, and QCTP along with carbide tooling, but I still lean on hand ground HSS for 90% of what I do.

[Buckshot]

...............This is what carbide is good for:

http://www.fototime.com/9B0D0524E52D685/standard.jpg

I was making a bunch of hollow point pin handle blanks. You start out with 1/2" OD stock. Face and centerdrill. Zero the tool against the face then advance .125" to create the flange that bears against the blocks. Then plunge in .063" and turn that OD (approx .375") in powerfeed (.012" per rev @ 800 rpm) for 1.5", then come back short .400" of the beginning, and plunge in .063" again. In powerfeed as above for about 1.1" then part it off. Each one takes about a minute.

You end up with a hollowpoint pin spindle with the 1/8" thick flange @ .500", then it's reduced to .375" OD for .400", which then reduces to ~ .250" for ~1.1". Trust me, as the photo shows, it gets HOT! The oil is to keep steel from building up on the insert and it kind of helps the finish a little and may do some cooling of the insert. Besides, I kinda like how it smells :-)

...............Buckshot

[Four Fingers of Death]

I thought of you the other day Buckshot, when I saw a handle sticking out of a small mould. I ended up buying an old Ideal hollow base 38Mould. :D

[floodgate]

I've got a whole bunch of the cemented carbide bits in various shapes, permanently bonded to 7/16" shanks, from one of the "el cheapo" import suppliers. I find they re-sharpen OK with the little EZE-Lap diamond files, and I can get a LOT of use out of them before I have to toss them.

I really should get into the inserts, but as-yet have not gotten around to sorting out the many and varied carbide compounds and mounting styles on offer. Buckshot, do you have any specific recommendations for use with materials from mild low-carbon steel through drill rod?

floodgate

[floodgate]

Mick:

I couldn't call up your Photobucket album - takes forever on dial-up! Can you post (or e-mail me) a shot or two of that old Ideal HB mould? Thanks.

Doug

[Ernest]

Joy. First successfull use of the lathe. made a trimming gauge to cut 2 3/4 inch s12 gauge to 2 1/2". Pics as soon as I figure it out.

[grumpy one]

The oil is to keep steel from building up on the insert and it kind of helps the finish a little and may do some cooling of the insert. Besides, I kinda like how it smells :-)

...............Buckshot

I have been told that some of the combustion products of mineral oil burned at low temperatures are carcinogenic. I kind of liked the smell until I heard that, but I've gone right off it since.

I come from a family of hobby-machinists running back three generations before me (my great grandfather had to make the steam engine to run the machines he gradually built by using a crude cast-sawed-and-filed pedestal drill, often enlisting my grandfather, who was courting his daughter at the time, to pull the drill's drive belt by hand) and all of us for all those generations have avoided using compound because of the mess and expense - we've all used an oil can full of cutting oil instead. I grew up in a workshop full of blue chips and heavy smoke. Nowadays I have an exhaust fan to remove most of the smoke, not because it's oppressive, but because it's probably poisonous.

[Four Fingers of Death]

Mick:

I couldn't call up your Photobucket album - takes forever on dial-up! Can you post (or e-mail me) a shot or two of that old Ideal HB mould? Thanks.

Doug

Whoops! I haven't taken a pic of it yet :( Couldn't find the camera, hiding amongst junk in the car). I'll get a pic later this morning. Mick.

[Ernest]

hope this works s1st [U]successful use of lathe

[454PB]

Floodgate, here's a picture of my HB Ideal that I inherited from my grandad


http://img252.imageshack.us/img252/8/hpim0735smallgt3.jpg





http://img441.imageshack.us/img441/8113/hpim0734smallct8.jpg

[Buckshot]

trim die for 2 3/4 12 gauge to 2 1/2

.............Good job! You made something that someone else would have had to go buy or pay someone to make.

Remember this too, "Why pay $2 for something when you can easily make it for $10. :-)

Floodgate, The carbide I use is those TCMT-TT (triangle, one sideded screw down) type that come on those 5 piece sets with 3/8, 1/2 or 5/8" shanks. The ones I bought were made by J. Rouse. I don't think who made the shanks is so important as is who made the carbide. These inserts were made in the U.S., but I don't know by who.

My boring bars are solid carbide with tool steel heads that take carbide inserts. The bars are made by Circle C and Kennametal made the inserts. They are designed to be used with fine cuts and can leave a mirror finish. Those TCMT's above are for just general machining. You can't make a real fine cut as the finish suffers. However if you can make a good DOC and push them they'll leave a nice finish. Not good for creeping up on a dimension.

The carbide threading inserts I have are speced for threading and they are darned expensive. The only reason I have the laydown type is I was in a local machinery dealer before they moved and they had tables of odds and ends marked way-way down :-). Normally these things are lke $18 each on sale. I paid like $5 for 6 of'em. Enco usually has a MTVO type (stand up type) with a holder and some inserts for $40. I bought one of those because I like to thread from the backside (away from the headstock, so I can go fast) and it will get in close to a shoulder.

http://www.fototime.com/BA6361C20C96D6A/standard.jpg

Like this, above.

http://www.fototime.com/70CCF0A3AB791F9/standard.jpg

I made the insert holders above out of 5/8" keystock for some carbide inserts I got off E-Bay. The close end of the bottom one has one of those 3 pointed laydown threading inserts in it. Except for the threading one, none of these are any good for nice finishes. They don't really have sharp edges. You have to really get the edge under the metal and just power the stuff off.

There ARE carbide inserts that will give a good finish (like those on the boring bars) but the good ones are just so danged expensive. They're really meant for a production shop that can get the utility out of them. Only one time did I ever REALLY need carbide and that was when I was threading these:

http://www.fototime.com/FEB48295FDD2804/standard.jpg

The size and seater dies for the Comblain. Those are the front strut rods from an 87 Chevy Celebrity and they're hard chromed. A HSS threading bit just turned blue and howled :-). I only used that stuff because it was pretty and shiney, and I'm a pushover for shiney stuff 8-).

...................Buckshot

[Four Fingers of Death]

454PB, Mine's a 358395, looks identical but mine has the mould number below the Ideal number. Is yours a 358395. How's it shoot? I have a 142Gn Button nosed wadcutter and it really shoots, I have high hopes for this one (mind you, it will be hard work after getting all of those nice group buy six bangers).

[Ernest]

it is important that you not only spent at least $10 dollars to make some thing that you could pay some one to make for $2. It is at least as important that you spend about 16 hours getting the material and setting up and screwing up that first 3-4 trys:-D

[KCSO]

And on every one of those jobs you LEARN something that will stand you in good stead later. And when no one has that $2 part you will still be able to make them and maybe sell them for $10 because nobody makes them any more.

[Linstrum]

KCSO, I at least wish I had a buck for every part I had to make because the one I needed was not available!

First let me say that if you have a lathe and a bench grinder in the same room make sure the dust and debris from your grinder doesn’t get on your lathe, even the fine dust that takes a few minutes to settle will totally wreck the accuracy of your lathe and milling machine sooner than later.

Like the other guys here who do machine work already said, being a good machinist is not in the making of chips but in the research on how to do the job. Setting it up, mounting the parts securely, and then choosing the tooling for the job, making the tooling if necessary. After all that comes the knowledge and technique of how to remove the material that is hiding the part inside that block of metal. I began working as a machinist in 1958 when most of the pre-formed precision tooling was only found in production shops and factories, so a good part of my early machinist education was in making and sharpening all of my own tooling freehand on a bench grinder, including end mills and drills.

I have never read a book on running a lathe or milling machine so I don’t know how much they say about set up and tool sharpening, but if I were to write a book on running a lathe or mill I would devote most of the space to just three things, none of which involve making chips.

The first one would be how to do the job, things like the order in which your cuts are made and holes are drilled, etc, since performing one operation out of sequence will sometimes prevent another operation from being possible. Such things as machining a groove before drilling a through-hole since the groove will allow the part to collapse from the torque required to drill the hole because the groove left the wall too thin to take the torque.

The second would be the set-up procedure since holding the part rigidly is a serious problem, because like Buckshot pointed out, your machine might as well be made from rubber from the way it behaves while the work is being done.

The third is choosing (or making) and sharpening the cutting tools since they perform what you want done accurately.

From my experience, most lathe jobs are around 3/4 planning and 1/4 making chips. (And those do not cover cleaning up afterward!)

The lathe tool bits we used in the machine shop my father and I had were almost all Mo-Max high speed steel and Mo-Max cobalt high speed steel. Although tungsten carbide had been around for almost half a century when I started in 1958, we never used it unless absolutely necessary. We had AR-6 and AL-6 brazed-insert lathe tool bits, plus for special jobs that required it, carbide insert blanks that we silver brazed onto 5/8” key stock and then hand sharpened. Although I loved them for breaking glaze on cast iron and cutting hardened steel and stainless steel I just hated sharpening them because they took forever and the “green stone” grinding wheels needed for roughing carbide tool bits were expensive and did not last long because of being very soft. In 1969 we finally got two diamond wheels, a 6” and a 9”, but we still used them only a few times because they cost as much as a new Volkswagen beetle! That was about $6000 US in today’s money, thanks to the greed of De Beers back in the days before their worldwide diamond monopoly was broken. The diamond wheels sat on a shelf in the tool cabinet just shy of 40 years and a few months ago I finally got them down and now use them all the time because what is the point in having something all those years and not using it? I also just started using carbide tooling more often now that I can sharpen it easily, including the throw away inserts that will last four times as long by re-sharpening them. Now that De Beers is no longer setting prices, industrial diamonds are a bit more affordable and whenever I find good quality diamond wheels and files I grab them if the price is right because they are so far ahead of anything else available for sharpening carbide it is worth their added expense. Caveat emptor, when buying diamond stones look at them very carefully because some of them have about three little specks of diamond on them and are useless.

Because my eyes are not what they used to be I just bought a Drill Doctor, which does pretty good for the price. If you use drills a lot get one unless you are skilled enough to sharpen drills by hand. Unfortunately the Drill Doctor can't do end mils.

[454PB]

454PB, Mine's a 358395, looks identical but mine has the mould number below the Ideal number. Is yours a 358395. How's it shoot? I have a 142Gn Button nosed wadcutter and it really shoots, I have high hopes for this one (mind you, it will be hard work after getting all of those nice group buy six bangers).

I believe it is 358395, the number is on the side adjacent to the one shown in the photo. I haven't used it in years, it's a very slow, deliberate, time consuming process. I messed around with it many years ago, loading the HBWC upside down in military .38 Special brass and the old Hercules 2400 for "man stoppers" in my S&W model 28. I used to kill gophers with that load back when I was shooting 500 rounds a week. When hit, those gophers were launched upwards and resembled a can of tomatoes exploding.

[Ernest]

just some pictures of the old sheldon. I hope to get around to painting it soon. In the mean time am haveing great fun playing with it.

[floodgate]

Ernest:

Looks like a fine old machine. If you need a manual or a contemporary catalog, check nameplate for model and serialnumbers, and search out Tony at www.lathes.co.uk; he has a fabulous collection of lathe and mill lierature, much of it available on CD's.

floodgate

[Bret4207]

For those of us with "little lathes" like the 6" Atlas, I have nothing good to say about carbide tooling. I've tried everything and there just isn't enough stiffness and horse power to make good use of them. And thats after spending a bunch of $$$ on a new tool post too. I'm going back to HSS and making things SCARY SHARP!!!

[Ernest]

Thanks Floodgate

[shooter575]

For those of us with "little lathes" like the 6" Atlas, I have nothing good to say about carbide tooling. I've tried everything and there just isn't enough stiffness and horse power to make good use of them. And thats after spending a bunch of $$$ on a new tool post too. I'm going back to HSS and making things SCARY SHARP!!!

Im with you on the carbide Tpr Bret, My wore out 9" SB just cant use the carbide ether.So I use a lot of HSS ground to the OLD bullnose shape for most of my turning.They worked well in the late 1800s and still do now.
Check out the Linsey book site.Lots of good reprints there.

[Buckshot]

just some pictures of the old sheldon. I hope to get around to painting it soon. In the mean time am haveing great fun playing with it.


...........Looks like a good solid ole lathe :-). Paint has nothing to do with how it works, but just think how nice it's going to look!

..............Buckshot