Courses for learning basics on a lathe?

[H Wally]

Just thinking about all the stuff I could do if I had a lathe. I have absolutely no formal education with lathes, so would like to go about it the right way and take a "lathes for dummies" course to start off.

Do these even exist? Are they part of general machining courses? Advice, tips, places in the lower mainland to talk to etc? What would be a reasonable price for someone looking to learn for hobby purposes? (IE not looking to get machinist's ticket any time soon)

 

[tiriaq]

Check with local community colleges, or night school programs. Might be something.
There are also a lot of books, videos that are useful. Start slow and build your skills.

 

[hunter64]

The AGI Professional metalworking series is good. It has 4 parts to it and goes from the absolute (this is a lathe) right up to the more complicated stuff.

http://www.americangunsmith.com/allitems.php?page=9

I bought a bunch of AGI dvd's when I was in the states a couple of years ago at a pawn shop in Salt Lake. They were in a package set for 60 bucks, not bad considering I bought 25 courses for the price of one. Drop me a line and we can talk.

 

[trevj]

See if you can hook up with any hobby metalworkers in the area.

Pretty certain that there is a live steam club out there. Some of the guys there will be heavily involved in machine shop stuff. Sometimes the clubs have a more or less formalized training day sort of thing that goes on to familiarize guys with the tools they need to make parts for their steam engines. Nothing works as well as being able to see and do stuff, to learn basics.

Check out the community colleges in your area. Not a huge number of manual machine shops in schools any more, but you could have one near.

Got a lathe yet, or just plotting? How to Run A Lathe, by South Bend Lathe, was written in the 1940's and updated frequently. A copy can be found online, legal, out of copyright, and the info is good and well written. Should be able to buy a copy for under $10.
Technology of Machine Tools, by Krar, is a standard Metal Shop text. Keep an eye out in the used book stores for an older edition, if $60-80 is too much. Good book.
If you can buy a used copy of Machinery's Handbook, for $20 or less, grab it. Not a how-to, rather the mother of all wall charts of reference material. Not really worth spending retail to get a new copy, as most of the info can be got and printed online as required, these days, but for cheap, a handy ref.

Cheers
Trev

 

[Mad_Mikee]

I was in the same spot as you a couple years ago and I ended up taking an Intro to Machinework (metal lathe basics) at SAIT.

I dont remember what the course cost but it was somewhere around $400 I think.

Most of the people in my night course were taking it for work or for some sort of pre-employment deal.

We built a little hammer and a punch as a project which covered some of the basics like knurling, tapering, tapping, parting, etc.

We used both the 3 and 4 jaw chucks and learnt a bit about measuing and cutting and feeding speeds.

 

[fox44]

If you are in or near the lower mainland BCIT offers a lathe operator course and an advanced lathe operator course. You can find them by going to the BCIT web site and searching "lathe" in the part-time courses. The instructors there are great and there is good equipment. If you have any more questions about the BCIT machine shop let me know, im just finishing up my CNC program there.