Lathe Training/Instruction

You're likely right on the self training idea. By far most of my own learning came from reading books on lathe work and then putting what I read into practice. And You Tube has certainly been a big help too.

A big part of the value of a course would depend on what the course material is and what metal working background the OP has.
 
A friend is in the process of quitting a full time machinist job in rural Mb to go into business for himself. He does specialty small work and has sent it all over the world. And, he is doing it out of a spare bedroom in his basement. (soon he will be moving into a small shop in his backyard)

A lot of the equipment he has is pretty small by most machine shop standards, but for the work that he does, is more than adequate. Tabletop lathe and the like.

I would love to get back into machining, but don't have the shop built. Yet.

Once you get established, you will have a bunch of people who will want work done.

I would seriously consider taking the night course classes, not only for the background in fundamentals, but for the experience to pick the instructors brains. Those guys have been at it for a while, and when I went to trade school found out that a few of them did their own gunsmithing. One of the instructors was building a Fergeson Breechloading Rifle. (a loose powder cap and ball rifle: Google it)

It might get you some contacts, and with the graying of the trades, might get you some sources for old, but still useful, tooling as these guys retire and get out of the business.
 
I bought a lathe about 15 years ago, had not used one since grade 10, and was not a star then. I taught myself, and learned from others, now I can do what ever a lathe will do. It takes a while, there is lots of information on the web, and good groups to join. Seeing as you are already into precision in your shooting, you will not be bothered by the time it takes to do a good job. Any course you take will be an introduction, and you will still have to figure out a few things to learn to achieve accuracy, but others have, there is no reason you cannot. I thought I was a hero when I was able to confidently match tapers inside or outside.
 
My 2 cents says to find a trade school that will do weekend or night classes. The basics should be learned before you even turn on the lathe, measuring should to be learned..... There is just so much stuff you will miss just jumping into it.
 
Father Hood, if you think reloading to achieve the perfect ammo is anal or addicting, you just wait until you've purchases a match grade barrel from a notable supplier, contoured it, properly chambered it, then threaded it properly for your receiver etc etc etc. I can tell you, "You ain't seen nuthin yet" and you will no longer be satisfied with anything you don't have some part in making sure everything is assembled to your satisfaction. Not that the smiths out there don't do excellent work, because they do, but there is something very satisfying about assembling the components you've machined and fitted into a rifle or even pistol that will shoot 1/4 moa or less all the way out to 1000 meters.

I mentioned this before. You will need to learn Patience to take the time to do your set ups properly. You will also need to learn the idiosyncrasies of your individual machine.

Time consuming??? Yes

Expensive???? Yes

Satisfying ???? Definitely.
 
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Lionel said:
A friend is in the process of quitting a full time machinist job in rural Mb to go into business for himself. He does specialty small work and has sent it all over the world. And, he is doing it out of a spare bedroom in his basement. (soon he will be moving into a small shop in his backyard)

A lot of the equipment he has is pretty small by most machine shop standards, but for the work that he does, is more than adequate. Tabletop lathe and the like.

I would love to get back into machining, but don't have the shop built. Yet.

Once you get established, you will have a bunch of people who will want work done.

I would seriously consider taking the night course classes, not only for the background in fundamentals, but for the experience to pick the instructors brains. Those guys have been at it for a while, and when I went to trade school found out that a few of them did their own gunsmithing. One of the instructors was building a Fergeson Breechloading Rifle. (a loose powder cap and ball rifle: Google it)

It might get you some contacts, and with the graying of the trades, might get you some sources for old, but still useful, tooling as these guys retire and get out of the business.
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Night course classes can be few and far between, depending on where you live. Great advice if there is a course available within a few hours drive or less. Other than that, the internet is your friend. As Chris mentions pete is one of the best but there are a lot of others out there.

I still say, learn what the parts of your machine are, where the controls are located and what they control before doing anything else. Books, videos or even a school lathe won't LOOK LIKE YOUR LATHE and the controls will not always be in the same location or actuate in a similar manner.
 
School lathe looks just like my lathe :rolleyes:
Mine is an old school lathe :d

JdOBlFH.jpg
 
That's a nice looking little lathe. When I was in school over 50 years ago they were green and all needed new bearings. Still very easy to use and set up.

It certainly doesn't look like my lathes though.

How much slop and backlash in it?? Some of these old South Bends are very tight, hopefully you are one of the lucky few to have one that's been used gently or rebuilt properly.


I was told the lathes in the colleges are pretty decent these days. The old South Bends and Bridgeports were auctioned of or sold off years ago.
 
youtube is the place I have learned the most. I'm the type of person who doesn't learn much from reading a book. Watching videos and trial and error work best for me all the channels CanAm mentioned are great resources. As well as Keith Fenner and Keith Rucker both have excellent channels to learn from.
CanAm said:
Youtube, youtube, youtube.

Buy a cheap ass lathe and start watching people like:

mrpete
abom79
oxcotool
etc

There is more info on basic lathe operation on youtube than any trade school. CNC is another matter.

mrpete is a retired shop teacher and abom79 is a journeyman machinist who is an excellent teacher making excellent videos, especially on threading if it is an area of concern.
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Join a machinist hobby club . There are a lot of retired people with lots of knowledge to teach you.
On the web join practical machinist.
 
I would like to start building little steam engines.
Several years ago, I did build an oscillating type single cylinder one.
Cool!
 
tootall said:
I would like to start building little steam engines.
Several years ago, I did build an oscillating type single cylinder one.
Cool!
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I will unreservedly recommend the PM Research Steam model kits as truly being a BARGAIN!

For the sum you pay, typically pretty close to $100US, you get great quality castings, as well as a very complete hardware and plans set, everything you really need except the tools themselves.

Stuart Steam Engines are pretty much the worlds standard for 'hobby' machinists to build, but they are very pricey in this day and age, for what you get. Absolutely top quality, but very expensive too.

There are a LOT of boutique suppliers that supply anything from a couple kits, to a broad range of plans and kits, it all pretty much revolves around what you are interested in having.

PM me an email address if you want some pictures for scale. The two PM engine kit I have have quite large castings, esp compared to the smaller Stuart 10V/10H machine.

Martin Models stuff is bloody amazing too!

Cheers
Trev
 
Good to know, thank you.
But until I get a lathe and a place to put it, I would be getting ahead of myself...


Edit, looking at those sites now
ht tps://www.pmmodelengines.com/

ht tp://www.stuartmodels.com/

ht tp://www.martinmodel.com/
 
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I have two engines and a shaper kit from PM.

I have some custom cast Stainless Steel castings from Martin Models for a stainless steel version of the Versatile Dividing Head that they sell (long story, but we only needed to come up with 5 customers to get them to make a custom set run).

This last weekend, was the 30th annual Estevan Model Engineering Show, which, sadly, I missed out going for again.

Yeah, I can heartily recommend getting at least a lathe, and learning to use it by whatever projects interest you.

Wanna see something cool? http://www.telusplanet.net/public/celias/home.htm

Clarence is a friend. He retired from a Civil engineering job around Edmonton, he was one of those guys that designed the overpasses and bridges stuff for the highways there. He had no prior metalworking experience whatsoever, but has accomplished amazing things!
He's a right firecracker of a dude, a hilarious story teller and generally a bunch of fun to be around.

He entered one of his mini bikes in a custom bike show, in the open class, took second place, he said, and really PO'd the guy that took third, as that guy had somewhere north of $100k in parts in the chopper that was beat by the little bike.

You don't get anywhere if you don't start!

Cheers
Trev
 
bearhunter said:
That's a nice looking little lathe. When I was in school over 50 years ago they were green and all needed new bearings. Still very easy to use and set up.

It certainly doesn't look like my lathes though.

How much slop and backlash in it?? Some of these old South Bends are very tight, hopefully you are one of the lucky few to have one that's been used gently or rebuilt properly.


I was told the lathes in the colleges are pretty decent these days. The old South Bends and Bridgeports were auctioned of or sold off years ago.
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It's not too bad . It performs well for what I use it for .
Thankfully I have access to a fully equipped CNC machine shop that does a lot of aircraft work & they have operators with skills I will never ever come close to .:)
 
Get a copy of a book put out originally by South Bend Lathe Co. entitled "How to run a lathe". Priceless information and just about everything you need to know about lathe set-up and operation. Just remember that there is no substitute for talent and that just comes with knowledge, experience and ability.
 
jamcam1999 said:
Get a copy of a book put out originally by South Bend Lathe Co. entitled "How to run a lathe". Priceless information and just about everything you need to know about lathe set-up and operation. Just remember that there is no substitute for talent and that just comes with knowledge, experience and ability.
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How to Run a Lathe is a book worth owning. Covers the basics pretty well.

I gotta say that I think you have it backwards. There is a substitute for talent (at least, how you are using the word). It is called hard work.

Learning to run machine tools is a skill that absolutely NOBODY was born with. Learning it, is actually hard. The guys that are interested, as well as motivated, will become better at it, than someone that is neither of those things.

I have taught a lot of apprentice tradesmen and women in the Forces, to use a Lathe and mill safely. Some were merely adequate, ALL were able to learn when they applied themselves.

I'll be clear here. A skill is something you can learn. A talent, not so much.

I have known a great many talented individuals. Guys who could remember the words and tunes to hundreds if not more, songs, folks that could draw a few lines on a blank sheet of paper and express more detail than I ever will be able to, both as written word, and as art. They had talent. You or I could spend our lives trying, and (well, for me for sure) never match that.

But making the machine do what you need it to is a skill, that can be learned. Even if the learning curve feels a little like running into a brick wall sometimes.

None of the materials we will use in our shops are particularly exotic or hard to learn about. They are all pretty much 'known' entities. What we have to do is to learn for ourselves, where to find the information we need, we need to learn to recognize what is right and wrong by the way the machine behaves, and a bunch of other learned skills that are readily available to anyone that puts the time in to find out, and practice. Especially practice.
Nothing separates theory from reality as well as actually applying the skill, and nothing make the skill stronger, than practicing it.

Cheers
Trev
 
There used to be version of Technology of Machine Tools that was a photo setup guide to doing specific things with machine tools.I had copy when I went thru machinist school in the early 80's.It might be possible to find a copy from Abe books.
One bit of advise on running a lathe:if you have long hair tie up.We had a picture by the time clock with a man's hair wrapped around lead screw of a lathe.
 
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