Deciding On A Lathe...

[zboss86]

Dad use to do tool and die about 30-40 years ago. He still had some old bits and tools in the bottom of his tool chest. Not sure what's good and what's not... I need to look them up and see what does what.
To the untrained eye, it looks like a pile of scrap. Hell, it may be, but I'll sift through it and see what's what...


Organized them a bit...

 

[zboss86]

A few other tools I got from pops..

 

[Charles Spencer]

I'd say that you got a pretty nice setup going there for a pretty good price.

I'd recommend giving everything a cleaning, especially the tools that are showing some rust. Steel wool is your friend.

"Not sure if I'll ever use any of this... It came with a taper attachment, collet set, 4 jaw, steady rest."

Yes you will if you do even semi-serious hobby machining.

 

[JimDawson]

..........Not sure if I'll ever use any of this... It came with a taper attachment, collet set, 4 jaw, steady rest.............To the untrained eye, it looks like a pile of scrap.

You'll use all of it down the road. It ain't scrap. Clean it up and keep it!

 

[zboss86]

Yeah, I'm not chunking any of it. Just sorting it out to see what else I need. I need to get me another small tool box to organize the tooling.

Made some spacers last night last night for the wifes barn door project. Nothing was too critical so it was a good spot to start. Now I need to do some control arm spacers

 

[zboss86]

Now I need to make some control arm bushings for my car. I really didn't get the finish I was looking for with the spacers last night, it was a little too rough. Worked fine for the spacers, but wouldn't be smoothing enough for bushings. So I'll be doing some reading on today on the proper speeds and tooling to use.

I'll probably make them out of cold roll steel. 3/4" outside diameter, 1/2" inside diameter, 2.5" long.

 

[maker of things]

Cool. Looks like you are off to a great start. Major bonus points that the first project was for the wife!

 

[kingmt01]

I'm late to the party so I won't say figure out what is the biggest you will ever need then get way bigger. Or will I say get as big as you can afford.

I considered a lathe like that HF was selling but went with a gunsmiths lathe from Grizzly. I like my 14"x40" but it only took a week to find a project that wouldn't fit & had to drive the part to town to pay someone to do it. That was the best $10 I have ever spent but at the same time I'd rather not have drove to town.

Congrats on all the tooling you got handed down. I'd love to score something like that.

I'm still not great at turning parts but I'm getting pretty good at making chips & most of the time I have a usable part left over.

 

[Doc Whoops]

Congrats on the purchase, and it looks like you're off to a running start.

I cringe every time someone comes on here and asks the members to 'pick a machine for me'.

Well, the noise and confusion that 20 different people bring to the discussion helps more than you could possibly realize. I don't know how you each got into this hobby, if you are a retired professional machinist, are a relative of one, or you figured this all out long ago, but for me, stepping into it with absolutely no knowledge is beyond daunting. There's so much to learn and consider before purchasing a first machine - and a zillion things you probably can't learn until you have one.

I'm in the process of building a garage, so for the first time in my life, I'll have an actual shop that isn't a basement corner or spare bedroom, and adding metalworking machines is pretty high on my list. I started out looking at Grizzly's 8x16 and 10x22 - little benchtop machines to get my feet wet, and reading lots of forum posts and getting tons of opinions led me to scouring Craigslist looking at Clausing 1301's and wondering just how big a Warner & Swasey #3 turret lathe is - and if I want to sacrifice that much floor space along with a Bridgeport. So the basic questions like What are you going to use it for and How much do you want to spend are a little irrelevant to me. As a hobby, I'm fairly aware that it's going to suck up a ton of money and I'm fine with that. I have no idea what I'm going to make, because I don't know what I can make yet. I have a half dozen little widgets in mind, but I'm more interested in learning and expanding on what's possible.

If this was a woodworking forum and people were asking how to get started, even without a shop, I'd be able to add to the discussion what to buy first and which saws are crap because I grew up under the wing of a master woodworker. If we're talking welding, my knowledge there put me through college and beyond. I have maybe 40 hours total on a lathe and mill, so pretty much I defer to you guys for judgement. If someone went on Minnesota's Craigslist or on an industrial machine dealer's site, found me a solid lathe, and said "hey young buck, go buy this here lathe right now," I wouldn't - because my garage doesn't have a roof yet. But in 2-3 months if it's still available, I would, no questions asked.

 

[wrmiller]

What you can't quantify is the quality of the opinions, because you have no idea who is espousing them. For example, asking a professional machinist for machine recommendations for a guy making parts for his R/C cars could be a waste of time because of the 'get the biggest you can afford' and other responses that are oftentimes parroted by those who don't formulate their responses to the context of the original question. So a guy who could have been perfectly happy with a Sherline lathe and mill is now being told he needs 3 tons of old iron. Really? What is worse is the guy who 'read a lot of stuff on the internet' and is now offering suggestions based on nothing other than that?

It takes a lot more effort/work to do your own research on any given subject, and while many are not inclined to do so in this current climate of instant gratification, the return on investment will be much greater.