Mini Mills And Lathes

[.:: GimpS-R34 ::.]

Tell me about it - tools are bloody expensive. Think I paid $40-50 for a sutton 1/8 bspt tap the other day.

Can't wait to get my hands on a lathe - more dead ends today trying to find various things if I add up all the time it takes searching I should have bought one a long time ago. Could be a worry though - rather than running around trying to find cheap fittings I will be running around trying to find expensive tools instead.

Excuse the newbie question as I have never actually used a lathe - but I am interested in how you guys go about tapping internal taper threads like NPT & BSPT? I guess with CNC you can program the rate that it pushes the tap into the hole and when to stop, otherwise manually just a slow speed, skill in winding the tool in and a hand on the stop button?

On a CNC Lathe you can program a tapping cycle with depths and feed rates (rigid tapping cycle) will auto feed the tap into a depth and stop.. reverse spindle and tap..

this is based on CNC only.. not a bed lathe with manual controls..

i am a fitter and turner but work 99% on plastics.. and some light alloy.. really fun and interesting to program and in turn make some of the parts..

[Rowdy]

i remember going to the manufacturing expo in melbourne during my apprenticeship a few years ago. everything was cnc. plasma cutters, mills, drills, lathes, HPW cutters, anything that did anything was cnc... and it was all way over my head. im a maintenance fitter, but i like to mess around with my own projects in my free time.

i only know how to use manual machinery, though ive had some very good results with them. i learnt on old colchesters, they didnt even have a DRO, but thats what im comfortable on now. ive used a heap of diferent lathes, including cheapo chinese models, and ive always found the colchester to be quite capable and definaetly my favourite, while the chinese were my least favourite.

only thing is theyre belt driven, so you cant put a massive cut on. but ive done up to 4mm without any slippage.

im currently looking at second hand quality stuff as im not so keen on the cheaper asian units.

[Proximity Motorsport]

we have a chinese copy colchester at work... even its not a real good lathe. I wouldnt recommend it, although I can take a good 7mm cut on mild steel and its belt drivin

[zebra]

Wow I had no idea how cheap these bits of kit were, id love a lathe and a mill, would make life so easy!

[scotty nm35]

I use my lathe nearly every day, so easy to whip up a part for a mod, machine my disks, cut threads etc. I don't know how I lived without one for so long.

I just finished turning up a petrol priming injector for cold start with e85.

[samstain]

Saturdays effort on the Mill.

Need to look at making a tumble polisher, took far more effort to clean them up than to machine them.