# Where To Start..........



## jsh (Apr 6, 2016)

I have a gazillion questions. Which one to ask first. So I guess I should ask about the horse,before the cart.
Grizzly is sort of close to me. I was in their show room a while back and looked at their  benchtop lathes, 7x14/GO765 caught my eye. Sparked my interest again, last time I looked at them was close to 20 years ago, a lot of bad reports so I just kind of let it slide.
I have started casting my own bullets since then. I have had very good luck with what I have, but we always want better.
Most of my work would be on lube dies and maybe some expanders and or die parts.
Would this lathe satisfy me or do I need to look else where?
Room and good storage is my biggest issue, so the reason for a bench top type lathe.
Would I see any gain going to a 8x16 or 9x19? If there is a gain I will have to wait as my budget is shot, no pun intended, I fell into a deal on a rifle I had wanted for a longggg time. So my lathe and tooling budget took a hit.
If the smaller 7x14 can be made to work with some TLC, I could do that and still have some money for some tooling. 300 pounds is about all I want to try and get down the stairs to my basement.

I have a good friend that is a retired machinist and am pretty sure he will help me all he can with any issues. He has a shop at his house but is back to work out of town for a while.

As to a bench for these. I think I have access to a piece of machined surface plate that is about 3/4"x20x36. I thought that would make a good heavy top to help suck up some vibration along with stacking a few hundred pounds of my casting alloy under it.
I have spent a lot of hours on YouTube the past few days along with reading a bunch along with a lot of Mr Hoose' articles and videos.
It has been 20+ years since I have fooled witha lathe or a mill, so I class myself as on of the "knows enough to be dangerous" catagory.

A nice place you all have here. I look forward to learning and be able to show a project sooner or later.
TIA
Jeff


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## DHJ (Apr 6, 2016)

JS, I don't know why a 7x14 wouldn't work for the projects your talking about. I have the g0 602 and am a just starting out on machining, I have built Lee type sizing dies, .446 sizing dies for my Rcbs lube / sizer and .446 mold blocks for the same rolling block rifle. This is a great site for a beginners and hobbie machinists to learn from. Of course at sometime you will want a bigger lathe and then a mill and then !!!!!
dhj.


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## LucknowKen (Apr 6, 2016)

Hey JSH, (welcome btw) I joined here when i had just as many questions about vintage machinery. It is a great pile of info. If you haven't already: 

http://www.hobby-machinist.com/forums/gunsmithing-firearms.31/


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## jsh (Apr 6, 2016)

DHJ, do they hold tolerances well enough for the lube sizer? I am still up in the air of what parts will interchange on these. Would really like a QCTH. 
I have access to bigger lathes, but I can tinker at home way easier than to drive a few miles and do it at my own pace as my time allows. 
I looked at the lathe/mill combos, I would just as soon have each on a seperate  as by itself. More tooling also..... I could part with some of my other projects if I could convince myself to do so. 

Ken, have perused through it. Most is a lot more involved than I want to take on. Along with a lot of specialty tools. Though I have thought on making a single shot and a double barrel rifle from shotgun actions. Yet another project. 
Jeff


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## DHJ (Apr 7, 2016)

jsh, as far as holding tolerances for lube/sizer dies on the small lathes I will have to let someone who has one answer that but I have seen some fine work done with them. Even on the bigger 602 I drilled, bored close and then polished to get the final dim. I was able to grind a boring tool for the ones I made but tool flex was more of a problem than lathe size. If you are looking at sizing smaller cal. bullets , mine were .446, I don't have answers.
DHJ


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## Bill Gruby (Apr 7, 2016)

All of you are forgetting one very important thing ----- It is not the machine, it's the guy or gal running it. A loose toleranced machine can be made to do spectacular work in the right hands. It just takes a little know how and a lot of good help. Anything you need can be found on this Forum. We are all ears and it is a level playing field. I for one could hear a question  a hundred times and never get tired of answering it.

 The smaller Grizzly Lathe is much better than the one you looked at 20 years ago. Go for it.

 "Billy G"


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## wrmiller (Apr 7, 2016)

+1 on what Bill said. I have made gun parts on everything from Sherline machines, to 7x China lathes and mini-mills, all the way up to the big boy stuff. And can and have held sub-thou dimensions on all of them when need be. Methods vary depending on what you're working with, but it's all about the driver, not the machine.


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## jsh (Apr 10, 2016)

Did some more read before I buy,aka look before you leap. 
The grizzly GO765 has a 5" face plate, where the smaller G8688 has a 6 1/2" face plate. 
Is there a 5" 4 jaw chuck for the G0765?
TIA
Jeff


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## jsh (May 2, 2016)

Where does the madness stop? I started off with the go765, go bigger is what most responses were. So I looked and studied on the768 and the 4000. Then started in as I was advised for just a few more frog skins the g0602 is better. So I studied on that one a fair bit. The 0602 looks to be pretty good, not that there was anything wrong with the others.
But, the 1" bore would come in handy and this lathe seems to have a fair following. The one glitch to me is the blasted 150ish rpm being the slowest. IMHO for what it's worth, that seems a bit fast for threading? 
I can modify it to slow it down with more work, or I can swap it out and make a variable or shell out yet more funds and go with the 4001. 
So now I am back to looking at the 765 and the 768. 
Is there just an easy gear swap to slow the 0602 down to at least 70rpm? I would like closer to 50 but I could live with 70rpm. 

A crash right off the get go is not on my todo list. 
Another question on the variable speed on the grizzly machines, did they get the bugs worked out of the switches? I have read a few places that it was a weak link of sorts. 
TIA
Jeff


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## koba49 (May 23, 2016)

JS I decided to get a lathe to do the same things you are wanting to do, make reloading tools, sizers and expanding plugs. As for grizzly I was going to go with the 0752 I wanted the stand to go with it, but it was sold out, so I did not buy it. So I started to look around some more, I decided to go with a precision mathews 12x28VF there are alot of things about the lathe I like, but that will not answer your questions. I would recommend at least a 10in lathe, you can do the work on smaller lathes but it will take more time, making lighter cuts, and things like that. Another thing is how much do you want to spend. The variable speed lathes are the way to go in my opinion, but cost more. As for quality and accuracy, they are all about the same. All the small hobby lathes that are foreign made are about the same, and from what I have seen from reviews that do have some useful information it is kinda hit or miss, on quality, so going with a company that will help you after the sale is important. Grizzly is very good as well as precision mathews. as for accuracy what a lot of people do not realize is bench lathes that are 500lbs or less have to be mounted down and then shimmed or tuned to get any twist out of the ways so the machine will cut accurately. I am waiting on delivery of my lathe, but when I have it, I will go over setting it up here on this forum and that will answer some of your questions better.


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