# Talk about home-made tooling



## ArmyDoc (Nov 1, 2019)

Check out the ultra precision lathe this guy made...


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## Latinrascalrg1 (Nov 2, 2019)

I read on another site that this guy has an estimated $25,000.00 invested into the granite rails alone on this project but then another source states the owner has less then $10,000.00 in the complete lathe!


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## MontanaLon (Nov 2, 2019)

Latinrascalrg1 said:


> I read on another site that this guy has an estimated $25,000.00 invested into the granite rails alone on this project but then another source states the owner has less then $10,000.00 in the complete lathe!


I would think $25k for the granite would be way too much. I mean it is clearly more than granite countertops but if he is using off the shelf AA grade parallels he should be able to get them for about $1k each. You can be sure he knows some people who can hook him up with a deal.


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## Dabbler (Nov 2, 2019)

The lathe was a very nice, but very expensive project.  One of his grad stuidents took 2 years to write the control software for it.  Think north of $100K CAD for an 8 X 24 lathe.


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## Ulma Doctor (Nov 2, 2019)

the precision is beyond accurate


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## Cadillac STS (Nov 2, 2019)

Wonder why he didn’t mill the entire base out of one piece of precision granite instead of epoxy up multiple pieces?


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## MontanaLon (Nov 2, 2019)

Cadillac STS said:


> Wonder why he didn’t mill the entire base out of one piecemeal of precision granite instead of epoxy up multiple pieces?


Likely because milling granite to those dimensions would require specialized tooling and result in no better accuracy than could be achieved with off the shelf pieces.


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## Dabbler (Nov 3, 2019)

It is far more accurate to build it out of precision lapped peices.  There isn't any glue line, by the way.  He described the process somewhere, and each contact is granite-to granite, with glue reservoirs and held together with threaded inserts.  Very clever, and very accurate.


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## aliva (Nov 6, 2019)

When your a multi millionaire like Dan Gelbart money is no object.
Google his name quite the guy.


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## Superburban (Nov 6, 2019)

Since he has not posted any Youtube vids for a long time, I was afraid something happened to him. Glad to see he is still kicking.


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