I've been working on a SuperTopSecret Project that will require simple machining on the lathe. In fact, ever since I built my home foundry, I had an urge to 'Make Chips'... Dont ask me why, it's irrational... I asked for advice and decided I needed a vintage, American Made, quality lathe. A South Bend, Atlas or Logan. 9'' or 10''... I looked at quite a few and finally found what I was looking for: a TH54 Atlas. It was covered in layers of grease and house paint but that's no problem, just superficial. The good news was that the ways and leadscrew where in GREAT shape. I stripped and re-painted the behemoth, and made a new (oak/pine/oak) surface for the table. Notice also the HOME MADE acid-etched badge on the table top edge. Now the fun begins... I've ordered a PILE of books from Lindsay Publishing and will proceed to teach myself 'How to Run a Lathe'... Check out the pics at: http://www.royalspeed.com/NEW_LATHE/index.html
I have a couple of lathes. A vintage US made Hendey, and a uk myford. They're both very useful. I also have a half share in a larger Atlas lathe, but that's a a friend's house. I served an apprenticeship in engineering, so was taught how to use them. But in reality, just use common sense. read up and try whittling on some offcuts before attempting one off jobs on irreplaceable components. If you dont have one, a 4 jaw chuck is the most versatile, it takes more setting up, (get a dial indicator) but how else can you hold irregular shaped objects? Here's a couple of pics of jobs done in the good old Hendey. Hudson steering box: Axle splicing: It'll be a very useful addition to your workshop. Mart.
Hey keep us posted, especially on what books to buy. Just picked up an Atlas myself. My only experience was in high school shop but its amazing what you retain in those memerory banks.
I have a '60's vintage Craftsman, made by Atlas. I love it. I make stuff just for the excuse of using it. Now if I could just find a Bridgeport (that I can afford) to park next to it....
You can make a lot of stuff with your lathe. It's a time saver and gets you away from the hacksaw/file syndrome. Now you'll be like the rest of us amateur machnists and be looking for large hunks of metal. You'll find them in strange places. One of the better hunks of steel I got was being used by the electricians as a door stop. I bought em a real door stop and got maybe $40. worth of steel in the trade. You'll want aluminum blocks and rods as well. 6061 T6 and 7075 T6 being some of the best although 6061 is most common. A couple of hints since you're brand new at running a lathe. Place the lathe so you can get longer pieces in at either end. That will save material cuz you won't have to cut it to size simply to get it into the lathe. Don't cut any deeper than .025 in steel or aluminum until you get some experience. Aluminum can be spun a step or two faster than steel. Drilling deep holes requires caution. In the smaller sizes, after the drill is about 1/4 - 1/3 in, the flutes will cease to carry the cuttings out and you stand a chance of breaking the drill off in the workpiece. Just release the tailstock lock and slide it back which pulls the cuttings out. Brush off the cuttings with a small stainless brush. Add a little cutting oil, insert drill and drill until you can feel the drill flutes packing up with cuttings again - usually about two cranks of the feed handle on my lathe. Remove, clean, add cutting oil and insert drill again. Larger drills can usually go all the way through, but pay attention to how the cuttings are coming out. Larger drills defined as 7/16" & up. When you use the little drills, you really have to be careful. Many machinists swear by WD40 as the best cutting oil for aluminum. I agree with them. Buy a gallon, skip the oil pump gun and use a clean solder brush to apply WD40 to the workpiece. An old Chicken Pot Pie tin makes a good oil holder. As does a Tuna can. Cutting oil for steel comes in many types. Common tapping oil for steel found at any hardware store works fine. I've also used the high sulphur content oil that plumbers use for cutting threads on their pipe cutting machines. Wear quality goggles that fit well. Safety glasses don't cut it. A lathe will throw chips under some goggles at the nose/eye/goggle juncture. Above all, read about machine work. An excellent source is "The Home Shop Machinist" magazine, get a sub. (They have a lot of interesting advertisers selling machine tools to the amateur as well as metal supply houses that will sell in small quantities.) Don't be afraid to try any job that's safe and within the limits of your machine. One of my first ones was making a chuck backing plate. It went ok, but I worried about cutting the threads. They came out fine in the first try . . . except they were left hand.... A pic of my lathe is below. Note the 2 x 12 shelf. There's another one level with the chip tray. As well as some more above. Dadoed and lag screwed together. I've found the shelf just above the lathe to be very handy. The other pics show most of the shelving system. Also 2 x 12. The narrow multi-shelf unit has a door and extra chucks, dividing head etc. get stored in there.
Look for the book "How to Run A Lathe" Originally published during WW2 to train the massive # of lathe operators that was needed. consider taking a class at your local (if available ) jr. college.
Their as handy as a button on your shirt, when you get used to it and start using it on a regular basis, you will find that you really don't know how you ever got along with out it. and if you ever wanted to, you can do some jobs for money to help pay for all the tooling and such. good luck
Where are you guys finding these lathes.I have been looking at a Smithy but would prefer an older one.
If you're near a big city get a copy of their Recycler type newspaper. I bought, refurbished and sold several lathes when I lived in SoCal. When I moved to Central California, used lathes for sale were uncommon cuz the farmers who owned them used them fairly often. In eight years I found a Craftsman 3" lathe - which I wished I'd bought. It was kinda neat. And an older 10" lathe that was beat to hell and gone by a guy who didn't know what he was doing plus he wanted an arm and a leg for it. The big expense with a lathe is the tooling. The more you get, the better. The usual tooling you get with a used lathe is a 3 jaw chuck, 4 jaw chuck, face plate and tool post. Anything extra is a bonus. Sometimes you get lucky, I bought a 6" lathe from an old German machinist. It came with a ton of nice little gadgets and goodies, most of which I kept. It looks like your three jaw chuck is a six incher. When you buy a four jaw, get an eight incher. That's commonly done and with most lathes the 4 jaw is a couple inches larger than the 3 jaw. The 4 jaw is cheaper as well. Look for Bison brand - available at MSC and Enco - it's moderately priced, made in Poland and is excellent. Don't be afraid to buy a smaller chuck as well. One of the handier things I have on my 12" lathe is a 3" three jaw chuck. A while back, I bought a 3" four jaw at a swap meet. Not sure what I'm going to do with it, but for $5.00....
I've got a small tabletop import one, which surprisingly holds damned good tolerances, and access to a much larger LeBlond Makino at work...once I get a larger shop I'll be looking for a full size lathe and mill...it helps that I was a moldmaker for close to 10 years, so now I can tackle pretty much any little hot rodder part capable of producing on manual full size equipment...good luck with your lathe, and don't wear any loose clothing...although almost everyone learns that the hard way at some point...
Where can I find info on setting a lathe up? The crossfeed and slide thingamajiggy have a little back and forth play. All the machinists that have looked at it say it can be taken out but no one knows quite how to do it. Other than that its great.
I came upon an old Logan 10" lathe in really good shape but with no tooling and missing a few pieces. I learned that Logan is still in business and all the parts are still available. They sent me parts catalogs and equipment lists along with other info.
Go here for info on how to level a lathe: http://www.atlas-press.com/tb_bedlevel.htm#HOW%20TO%20LEVEL%20THE%20LATHE%20BED It's for an Atlas/Craftsman, but the info works for any lathe. Back and forth play or play transversely across? As far as taking play out of the saddle, cross slide and compound slide goes, take a look at the side of each . . . down low on the sliding part and in the back of the saddle. Most times you'll see three in a row 10-32 - or similar sized - headless slotted screws with locknuts. Adjust these until the play is where you want it. With a used lathe you'll have to compromise the amount of play because the part the movable piece slides on will be worn. Some turning requiring precision requires that one or the other of the sliding components - saddle, cross slide or compound slide be locked in place with the locking device if it has one as well as all slop taken out with the adjuster screws. For general turning they can be left adjusted with minimal play. If there's a whole heckuva lot of slop and the adjuster screws can't adjust it out, look and see if the gib is still there. Gibs are precision ground pieces that the adjuster screws rest on and they go between the sliding surface and the saddle, cross slide or compound. You'll find a shallow depression drilled into the gibs, these are where the adjuster screws seat and they serve to retain the gib in place as well. You can buy gibs for a specific unit on the lathe or you can make them from precision ground stock. Available from MSC for one. As an example, the Craftsman 12" lathe has gibs about 1/8" - 3/16" thick and 3/8" - 1/2" wide and as long as the device they are locating. Here's a quick and easy way to make sure your tailstock is centered: Remove the chuck, put a dead center in the headstock, put a dead center in the tailstock and get a razor blade. Single edge razors work fine. Slide the tailstock up until the centers are about a 1/4" apart. Don't bang them together. Tighten the tailstock clamping screw so as to lock it in place on the ways. Hold the razor blade between the centers and crank the tailstock out until the razor blade is caught gently between centers. If you're dead on, the razor will be square to the ways in all angles. If it's off, it's self explanatory as to which way to go. If adjustment is required, loosen the tail stock clamping screw, back it up a bit and adjust the location of the tailstock with the transverse adjuster screws. Tighten the tailstock clamping screw and do the razor blade bit to see how you did. You may have to do it a few times to get right on. If the tailstock is off vertically due to wear on the ways, you're more or less stuck unless you want to get into a total lathe rebuild.
Don't stand in line with the chuck, if it throws the job you'll know all about it. Learn how to grind your own tools for turning.
And dont leave the chuck key in, or parallel bars if your using them! Had a guy recently leave the parallel bars in the chuck then turned it on, they went across the workshop and hit this fat guy in the head!
Thanks for the advice, fellas! I turned my first 'piece' tonight (An old section of shafting). I have to work on bit angle, proper feeding, etc... The lathe turns very smoothly but I will have to 'tighten' some tolerances. As I said, I'm waiting on a pile of books from Lindsay's: 5 or 6 re-prints from the 30's and 40's. These gems are PACKED with info, pics and simple projects for the beginner (I already have 'How To Run a Lathe'). Cant wait to get'em. Keep the info and pics coming, fellas. whiz
Nice. I have a couple lathes myself. Don't wear glove's, ring's or long sleeve's. Get yourself a mini mag magnet and a 2" or more stroke dial indicator. Mount the indicator to the mag and place the magnet on the ways with the indicator against the carriage parallel to the chuck. Gives you accurate measurements on your z linear cuts.
Tysond makes a good point about not standing in line with the chuck and about grinding your own bits. They'll throw oil if they've been recently lubricated and for some time after. Keep in mind that chucks running at high speed have been known to come unglued by centrifugal force. Sorta like the oft-told story of the Corvette flywheel letting go on a city street and taking out a few store windows. It's doubtful if the chuck sizes we use would come apart, but it's something to keep in mind. Grinding your own bits is a useful - and necessary - part of running a lathe. Keep a cooling can of water handy and don't let the bit tip get red hot . . . or even blue. Get yourself some carbide bits as well. They're great for turning the tough stuff. Harbor Freight sells an excellent carbide bit, but it's for left to right turning (headstock toward tailstock) only. I've never seen a right to left turning bit there. When you buy unground bits - they come in packs of 10 - get the 5% cobalt style. They do well for most anything. I didn't see where your on-off switch was. Don't put it where you have to reach over the chuck or workpiece to get to it. I'm happy with where the switch is on my lathe. Take a look at the pic down from the carriage handwheel and you'll see it under the chip tray. It's bolted to the lathe stand proper and set far enough in to where you won't hit it with your leg. Took a little getting used to, but no problem now. The pic shows a wheel drilling jig I made. Not a particularly difficult project. Posted to show what you can accomplish on a lathe. I have to confess a dividing head was used to lay out the holes and for drilling with a center drill before moving it to the mill - drill press works fine - and drilling with pilot and finish holes. You can index stuff on the lathe by engaging the index pin stop in one of the bull ring holes. If I remember right, there are 40 holes in the bull gear and if you can evenly divide 40 by the number of holes/marks you wish to use you can lock the bull gear in place with the index pin and mark off the workpiece for drilling. I was able to drill workpieces on the lathe - with a center drill anyway - for later drilling in the drill press. Said drilling accomplished by a home-made tool post grinder that accepts a 3/8" chuck. Useful for drilling indexed holes and angle holes that are indexed. Don't use the index pin to lock the headstock for chuck removal. Put the back gears in with the back gear pin in for that. If you use the index pin you'll shear it off. The 2nd pic shows a square tool block I made. The block was turned square on the lathe. Notch milling was done on the lathe without a milling attachment. Hole drilling and tapping were laid out with Magic Marker and a Tungsten scribe. Incidentally, skip the official machinist's blue and use a big chisel tip Magic Marker and/or a Sharpie. Black works well and on some metals - like aluminum - red works well. On the size lathe you're dealing with you don't need locking notches on the tool block. Just cranking the handle down - or a nut if you don't want to make a handle - keeps it in place just fine. The Lindsay books are excellent. One of the better ones I have is their, "Advanced Machining." The book was published in the 30's and that era machine work is what you're doing now considering the equipment you have. Sorta trad and back in the day, ya know?
The Jalopy Journal
