Lathe work

[kgstakes]

What type of work do you all do on a lathe?  I've heard some to masts, but what else have you made?  Can you post pictures of what you've made so everyone can see?

 

I'm working on building a base with a couple drawers for my Taig lathe but will get to turning a few things in the near future.  

 

Also, any fixtures you have made for your lathe would be cool to see too.

[davec]

I don't make masts and spars on the lathe.  For those I tend to mark out square stock and shape with planes and sandpaper.  I use the lathe for a lot of other things:  display pedestals, gun barrels, spindles for railings. . .

 

I haven't made any fixtures, but I did adapt a vanda-lay duplicator.  I haven't gotten it to work well for metal, but it work pretty good for duplicating wooden parts.

Edited January 21 by davec

[kgstakes]

That's good to know about the duplicator, I've been looking at them and wondering how good they do.  I was thinking turning legs for tables, chairs, etc.

 

[Keith Black]

 I don't have a lathe, I use a cordless drill. I've made mast, yards, gun barrels, support post, water buckets, flagpole, and cowl vents. I would love to own a lathe but the ole cordless works well and is invaluable.

[kgstakes]

Keith,

Work with what you have and hey, if it works and does the job you need, who cares what you use.  Only thing anyone on here needs to do is be proud of the work they've done and that's it.  Did you set up a jig to hold the drill?  Got a picture of your set up?

[Keith Black]

31 minutes ago, kgstakes said:

Did you set up a jig to hold the drill?  Got a picture of your set up?

 I held the cordless with my left hand and jewelers files/ sandpaper in my right, free handing. Please poke around in my Tennessee build log, you'll find many of the examples shown of those listed in my first post.  

[kgstakes]

I was just wondering on utube and came across this little gismo.  Don't know if it would really work for a mini lathe but I thought it was interesting enough to share with you all.

 

 

[TBlack]

I'm impressed with folks like Keith and davec who can turn out product using, basically their hands. I have to use my mill to do the square parts and my lathe to do the round parts. And, actually, the mill with rotary table works pretty good on the round parts as well.

Tom

[TBlack]

13 minutes ago, kgstakes said:

I was just wondering on utube and came across this little gismo.  Don't know if it would really work for a mini lathe but I thought it was interesting enough to share with you all.

 

I didn't look at the whole video, but a couple of thoughts: will that base plate fit on your lathe bed and is there a way to lock it down, and is the tool height compatible with your lathe?

Tom

[kgstakes]

Oh sorry I know it won't fit the taig lathe with out major mods done to the jig.  I believe it's for full size lathes but don't know for sure.  It does fasten to the cross slide and I'll add here a link to blondihacks utube, and see all the parts and how it fastens to the lathe.

 

 

[KeithAug]

On 1/22/2024 at 2:36 AM, kgstakes said:

and came across this little gismo. 

That is brilliant.

[KeithAug]

Currently out of stock - https://eccentricengineering.com.au/shop/Turnado-With-The-Lot-p178595904 

[wefalck]

To answer the leading question: everything that is round in cross-section (and a few more things ...).

 

Watchmakers have been using hand-gravers on metal for centuries very much like wood-turners use their chisels. This requires a certain dexterity and practice. Personally, I use it too little to have developed appropriate skills.

 

However, the German lathe manufacturer Lorch, Schmidt & Co. (long defunct) offered a gizmo for less-skilled free-hand turners, which seems to have inspired the above modern tool:

The two images are from Tony Griffith's Web-site lathe.co.uk. I gather I don't infringe any copyright here, as this is actually my own thumb on the picture 😁.

 

A small after-market supplier, www.gg-tools.de, offered copies of this graver-holder, but I did not check, whether it is currently available.

 

Otherwise, the beauty of a lathe (and other machine tools) is that you can use it to make more tools and gadgets. So you could make such a graver holder easily from some aluminium stock to fit the centre-height of your lathe. You would also need to attach a thick aluminium plate to the bed of the lathe. One could also add a follower nose to it and clamp a template to the base-plate.

 

I have used this graver-holder to turn flared model parts, for instance, and made a lot of ball-handles for my machines.

 

 

 

[Roger Pellett]

I would second the use of Aluminum for homemade tools.  It is of course way too soft for cutting tools but is easily machined with hobby sized machine tools to make jigs and fixtures.  Many of these are “one off” for solving a particular problem  and sometimes they can be  re-machined to suit as the part evolves.  Here in the US, hardware and home improvement stores stock several sizes and shapes of inexpensive Aluminum and I always keep some on hand.  Being soft, Aluminum jigs and fixtures may not have a long life but a new one is easily made.  Solder does not stick to Aluminum and its high thermal conductivity makes it a good heat sink.

 

Roger

[wefalck]

Personally, I like to work with steel, but having to remove large amounts of steel on small machines can be tedious. It is not so easy to get good-quality aluminium and Al leaves traces on surfaces due to its oxide layer.

 

If I had to replicate the above tool, I probably would fabricate it from a steel disc and some bar-stock roughened out seperately. The two parts could be made to screw into each other or silvered soldered. That would be followed by the final machining.

 

Anyway, one has to use one's imagination and/or reading books and/or (today) watching YouTube videos to get ideas.  When you discover a need, you will soon discover also a solution that you can adapt to the capabilities/capacities of your machine.

 

Edited January 30 by wefalck

[Snug Harbor Johnny]

  I'll agree that most 'aluminum' you can easily find is 'gummy' and does not machine that well.  Yet once upon a time I worked for a company that made aircraft controls and components, and I was able to collect samples of 'bar ends' of decent-machining aluminum alloys.  One prized piece was referred to as "hard aluminum", and it took effort to scratch it - yet it cut beautifully on a lathe.  I've rationed out my available stock over the years doing small projects.