Looking at getting a Lathe, looking for a little guidance!

Yep, ran across those as well and they are as good as you say.

Even if one will never mill in the lathe the insight into work holding methods shown in the "Milling in the Lathe" is time well spent. After all how we jig or hold an item is often 80% or more of doing the job. As your work becomes more imaginative you'll find that it's nothing to spend some hours making a jig and setting up for a cut that is done in around 5 minutes of actual cutting time. Now this example is rather extreme of course. But it's not unheard of by any means. Certainly in many cases it's not at all uncommon to spend 15 or 20 minutes setting up and a minute to make the actual cut.
 
These days the rust belt is in its death throes. Quality US-made lathes are going for 10 cents on the dollar.

www.practicalmachinist.com is your new best friend. Lathes that used to sell used for $15,000 sell for $2,000. Fantastic US-made lathes that sell for $40,000 new today have 10-year old equivalents that sell on e-bay for $8,000.

Pick a budget, surf some machinist websites, figure out what best meets your mission. Bob's your uncle.

One last thing - a lot of industrial stuff is 3-phase. If you read up a little, it should not intimidate you - there are rotary phase converters (single-phase => 3-phase) and VFDs (look it up) - I got a Hardinge TFB rated at 575v installed by my own hand for less than $3,500. It's got less than 0.0003" runout in its spindle, and it came with a collet-closer and tool post. A month of careful reading and a brave throw of the switch later I'm making chips.

Bonnechance.
 
A 10 inch Atlas has been used by many to do excellent gunsmithing work. Sam Elliott (deceased) used one for years, I bought it from him and used it for years before I got this Rockwell from him. If you can find an 11 inch Rockwell like this grab it. Rockwell stopped manufacturing these in the early 70's when they went into Space Projects with the government. Everything a gunsmith needs.
rockwell-0.jpg
 
guntech said:
A 10 inch Atlas has been used by many to do excellent gunsmithing work. Sam Elliott (deceased) used one for years, I bought it from him and used it for years before I got this Rockwell from him. If you can find an 11 inch Rockwell like this grab it. Rockwell stopped manufacturing these in the early 70's when they went into Space Projects with the government. Everything a gunsmith needs.
rockwell-0.jpg
Click to expand...

Those Rockwell 11's were a pretty skookum bench lathe, and a bunch of them were bought by the US Armed Forces for use in mobile repair and shop facilities. They are an order of magnitude more solid than a 10 inch Rockwell, or say, a 9 inch South Bend.
As a result of the Military purchase, the manual for it is available to download, if one goes and looks for it. No copyright on Military manuals in the US!

wagnerb, above, has some great advice too. Gotta be careful or you get a dose of OID. Old Iron Disease! It gets in yer blood, and you start pack-ratting all sorts of hard to move junk home, eh!

If shopping used, use www.lathes.co.uk as reference material. Great site! Oriented towards machines that would be considered 'hobby' by most commercial machine shops but has been adding some larger stuff. Gonna be a real rare machine that they don't have at least some info about!

Cheers
Trev
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom