# New member with Craftsman 109. My first project



## Damien (May 23, 2020)

Hello! I’m a new member here. I joined up after lurking for a while so I could finally see full sized images and post when I have questions.

i currently only have a Craftsman 109.0703 lathe. When I was young my dad brought it home from somewhere with plans to set it up and mess around with it a little. That never happened. He passed and years went by. I moved to Florida from Ohio but after 10 years I finally bought my own home so wanted to get a workshop going. I went back to Ohio with a Penske truck to gather my fathers tools. I saw the sad 109 stting there collected dust and loaded it up to bring back with me.

it had no motor or wiring so I rigged something up (luckily it did have the three step pulley) and got it going! It’s missing the hand wheel for the lead screw as well as a handle for the angle slide part of the compound slide, but I’ve made do with some temporary ”handles” until I can make some new ones... which brings me to my first project!




i grabbed some aluminum 3” stock off of eBay and decided to have a go at making a handle for the lead screw. Here’s my progress so far! Just waiting on my parting tool to get here so I can finish it up. After parting I’ll face the other side and then inset the center a little bit, leaving a ridge that I can attach a handle to.






I know the 109 is not highly regarded as a machine capable of any type of serious work. I’m apt to agree with that statement. Removing this much material took hours on this thing. im looking for a more robust machine but down here in Florida everyone thinks their machines are made of solid gold. 2k for an old southbend 9a with little tooling and not hooked up to hear it run... yeah I’m going to wait until something reasonable pops up. In the mean time, I’ll mess around on this little guy and have fun learning the basics.

Thanks for having me on the forum!


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## Damien (May 23, 2020)

My current hand wheel... lol


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## chippermat (May 23, 2020)

Looks like fun! Remember it's not what ya got but what you do with what ya got


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## Nutfarmer (May 23, 2020)

We all had to start somewhere. Not all of us can afford new top of the line . I have seen some  beautiful work done on an Atlas  lathe. It's the machinist not the equipment that's the most important. Looks like you are off to a good start.


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## wa5cab (May 23, 2020)

Do you have a band saw?  You are apt to have trouble parting off that large a piece with that lathe.


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## Damien (May 23, 2020)

I have a shopsmith bandsaw but i have no idea whether that blade would be suitable for cutting this aluminum.


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## wa5cab (May 23, 2020)

I wouldn't try it with the Shopsmith.  I also have one as part of my Mark V model 520 Greenie.  It has fixed blade guides instead of roller.  Although the blade will probably be OK with cutting aluminum alloy, it will chew up the guides pretty badly by the time that you are finished.


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## Damien (May 23, 2020)

Mine is the same way. Solid guides instead of rollers. I’m going to try the parting tool. I’ll just have to go slowly. Heck, with what I’ve done so far I’m use to it.


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## Manual Mac (May 23, 2020)

I had a Dunlop 109 like yours when I was a kid. It was a lot of fun. 
I learned a lot on it, was able to make small accurate parts I guess the little lathe shouldn’t have been able to make, but nobody told me that. 
That little guy even has back gears.
Have fun.


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## wa5cab (May 24, 2020)

For parting off, use the narrowest blade that you can find.  I mostly use carbide grooving cutters in 1/16" or 1/32" widths.  Can't recall the name of the maker at the moment.  It will come to me.


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## wa5cab (May 24, 2020)

Also, I would suggest using the outer step in your chuck jaws.  That hangs the part a little farther out from the spindle nose but otherwise is more stable and you won't have the outer ends of the jaws whizzing around.


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## Damien (May 28, 2020)

Update! I was successful in parting my work piece!








kept it well oiled while parting and had no issues. Only problem I did have was that once separated the part fell on the ways and got mashed by the 4 jaw and marked my work up a bit.


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## chippermat (May 28, 2020)

Nice looking chips. Did you use back gear?


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## Tozguy (May 29, 2020)

Wish my first parting experiences had gone that well. Nice job!


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## wa5cab (May 29, 2020)

To prevent the parted-off piece from falling to the ways and potentially getting damaged or doing damage, mount a catcher of some sort in the tailstock so that the loose piece can't fall.  As an example, if the step before parting off was to drill a hole through the piece being parted, back the drill bit out just far enough that the parting blade won't touch it and leave it there.  It will catch the piece being parted off.  If the bore of the parted off piece is important, replace the bit with a piece of solid or hollow round stock.  Etc.


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## Damien (May 29, 2020)

chippermat said:


> Nice looking chips. Did you use back gear?



i locked the reducer and used the slowest of the three stepped pulley Speeds of direct drive


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## Damien (May 29, 2020)

wa5cab said:


> To prevent the parted-off piece from falling to the ways and potentially getting damaged or doing damage, mount a catcher of some sort in the tailstock so that the loose piece can't fall.  As an example, if the step before parting off was to drill a hole through the piece being parted, back the drill bit out just far enough that the parting blade won't touch it and leave it there.  It will catch the piece being parted off.  If the bore of the parted off piece is important, replace the bit with a piece of solid or hollow round stock.  Etc.



really good advice, I should have thought of that! It seems obvious now  thank you!


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## Damien (May 29, 2020)

Tozguy said:


> Wish my first parting experiences had gone that well. Nice job!



thank you! From my reading before I got to it it seems like a pain point for a lot of  machinists, even long time individuals. I chalk it up to beginners luck.


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## chippermat (May 30, 2020)

I almost hate to mention this, because we don't disparage equipment here, but I was remembering last night reading about how the spindle on this particular model is really vulnerable to getting bent by overly heavy handed operations. You may want to look into that.  

Have fun with it


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## wa5cab (May 30, 2020)

Well, users do need to be aware of the potential.


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## Damien (May 30, 2020)

chippermat said:


> I almost hate to mention this, because we don't disparage equipment here, but I was remembering last night reading about how the spindle on this particular model is really vulnerable to getting bent by overly heavy handed operations. You may want to look into that.
> 
> Have fun with it




No harm in mentioning it. This machine already has run out from a bent spindle. The cost of a new spindle is more than I'm willing to commit to this piece of equipment.  Its out 3 thou on a part that's 1.5" from the jaws. I compensate as much as I can with the four jaw.  I know I'll never be able to make precision parts on it, or make long parts that  aren't wonky in some way. Also, doing some of the things I'm doing are likely to bend it further but I figured its better than nothing until I find something more robust.

I am taking the precaution of going sloooooooow. And i think the fact that this is 6061 aluminum is helping extend the machines capabilities a little. If this was steel, there would be no way I could even make this part. That parting operation took almost an hour. The previous shots of the work I've done took hours. I think you can do more with these machines than most realize at the expense of time. When you want to turn something down the machine isn't capable of heavy passes. You have to make light finishing passes over and over and over again. I think that time suck would probably discourage a lot of people and I don't blame them. I can't wait to get something a little more capable! For now though, I'm happy to have something to do a little work on and learn a thing or two.


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## Manual Mac (May 30, 2020)

Any lathe is better than no lathe.
The 109 I had in my teens was slow, & the headstock bearings were trashed, but for my hobby of model making it was perfect & I loved that little lathe.
For that matter, my SB9 is very slow compared to the ones I ran at work, but once again I’m not in a hurry, I build larger models now, but the fun factor is just the same.


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## Damien (May 30, 2020)

That’s what I’m hoping to stumble across. A South Bend 9a with loads of tooling and minimal wear. Hopefully around 1500 or so. A fella can dream...


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## Janderso (May 31, 2020)

Good job, I didn’t think it was going to work.
Have fun.
If you enjoy this hobby, a more capable lathe will be in your future.


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## markba633csi (May 31, 2020)

Those 109s are fairly good little lathes actually- they sold a lot of them
Not the best lathe for a beginner perhaps but looks like you've got the hang of it
-Mark


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