# Improvements to my sons new HF lathe



## geckocycles

I tightened and adjusted what I could and took some test cuts. I was surprised how well it worked for light cuts right out of the box. There was lots of room for improvement though but decided to play some more.  After a hour of use the cuts started getting chatter marks. Inspection revealed the spindle had developed some play and I couldn't get the taper out of parts, .005" in 2". There were multiple loose and tight spots in everything so the bed and all ways got scrapped and lapped in. This took days. I got the bed way thickness front and back within .0003". The carriage "gibs" were a pain to adjust if not impossible with the saddle on. This will get addressed later. I cleaned up the center slot that the tailstock T-Nut rides in and surfaced the casting underneath on the Bridgeport. This was good to .005" average from end to end with little effort. Called it good enough.

Well this sure doesn't help and I was hopeful this would cure the taper issue. Can't hurt to clean up all this paint. I ordered new bearings that were better designed for lathe applications. The bearings that come with it are not good bearings for this. Why they are installed from the factory is beyond me. I decided not to use taper bearings and go with 7206B-2RS Angular Contact Bearings. You have to make a spacer to use these.



There was big issues with chips getting in the gears. A temp quick fix that worked pretty well was hot glue some foam. I wanted to move on to more important issues. I now have made a lexan cover for the carriage drive gear like LMS one.




The tail stock action was horrendous. It took too much to loosen and tighten. With the center slot width and thickness machined, T-Nuts work real nice with just a quarter turn. Even with this spring added the stock hold down nut had to go. These are the mods I did. The nylon sleeve in the bottom made a huge difference. The hole is just too big and needs a spacer of some kind.
Stock nut is junk even with a spring



Moved on





Spotting, scraping and lapping carriage. After a few hours I got this. I wish I took a picture before. I was scared to go further. as I might loose what little contact I had on the inner V.



Then after another hour or so. This is awesome!



Using existing holes this is my carriage stop. I will move this to the back next time I have the carriage off for the taper gib mod.



The cross slide had issues. The bottom of the slide was rubbing on the carriage.  



I lapped it in this way and it worked pretty well but I knew it wasn't right. I bought a 7" shaper a few years back and this was the perfect machine for it. This is the first cut that I made on it! COOL! Even after removing .003" off the carriage it made no change in the movement of the slide. Interesting. At the time of this writing the slide has a one slight tight spot. It is acceptable for now. http://www.gecko-innovations.com/images/shaper.avi



Lapped in the compound. I only had to scrape a small area. I use valve grinding compound for my final lapping.
Not bad! Form tools are rippin. 1.25" hex. My neighbor asked my son if he could make some custom pins for camping tarps that would press into AL tube. Worked out great and gave my 16 yr old great satisfaction to have had made something and even get paid for it.


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## Ulma Doctor

:man:
scraping in a mini lathe??? i love it!!!!
that's got to be one of the most tricked out mini's out there!!!!
sweet job
mike)


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## Shadowdog500

Looks good!   I had to scrape and lap the underside of my bed as well.  I also had to shim the apron and pillow block for the lead screw. I gave up on the spring metal saddle gib adjustment and shimmed it.  I shimmed it a little tight and lapped it in by oiling the ways and putting lapping compound on the bottom of the ways where the gibs ride, and slinging it back and forth for what seemed like forever. Took me a couple weeks to get everything done but it was a world of difference. And that little lathe made everything I ever asked it to make.

 The LMS tailstock quick lock is also a good mod.


Never heard of bearing problems in the mini lathe, they are known for minimal runout.

chris


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## geckocycles

Found some 3/4 key stock, 1018 though. IT will have to do.
I got some 1/2 A36 plate and started making the gib fixture. Squared up two ends and fly cut both sides, drilled 8 mounting holes and locating pin holes to fit the shaper table. Put 1//16" tig rod under one end of the plate and bolted it down to the shaper table. This produced 5.7 deg taper. http://youtu.be/2lCaQhibKmw
I played with cutting the taper and stopping short of the end of the jig.Perfect job for the shaper. I thought this would help hold the gib better. I later opted to cut all the way through and drill pins for stops. This was not the fastest way to do it but lots of fun experimenting. I also cut a small dovetail that I though would also act as a hold down somewhat. THen I thought about just tack welding the key stock and gib material to the jig. I just had too much time in it to make it disposable. 
I used my Vernon #0 horizontal mill to drill the 3 holes through holes in the 3/4 key stock. This was the first time I used it. The collets I got sit in too far in the spindle bore for my liking though but this is what I could find as far as B&S 9 tooling. It worked like a champ. A good bit of belt noise from sitting for so long.
Tomorrow get to actually make a part that will hopefully fit the lathe.


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## geckocycles

Got a 13" square 1/4" brass plate, cut a 1" strip out of it. Took a few thou off the surface, flipped it over and bolted it to the taper jig and milled in the taper. THen cut it with slitting saw to .255". I should of made one .275" for the rear gib. 
	

		
			
		

		
	









Cut the step and taper in the bottom plate that holds the gib. Lapped all these in to size. I milled and lapped the top of the L plate till I got the fit of the gib to where I wanted it. With only .57 degs of taper it doesn't take much to move the gib a great deal.

Used the H Mill to drill the end of the L plate for the gib adjusting screw. 
	

		
			
		

		
	






Found a nice 5x.8 screw with a 1/2" flange. I am using a jam nut to secure the gib screw. 















This is my gib jig.





This is amazing improvement. Very time consuming getting this all lapped in. I just don't know where i am getting the patience. To make things easier I scraped the last 3" of the end of the bed .0008" less than the rest of the bed. With the taper gib system this wouldn't of been needed. I did this when using the shim and or stock setup gib setup.

I have yet to need to use a screw driver on it. With the .6 deg taper it takes very little effort to move the gib screw by hand.


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## geckocycles

Shadowdog500 said:


> Looks good!   I had to scrape and lap the underside of my bed as well.  I also had to shim the apron and pillow block for the lead screw. I gave up on the spring metal saddle gib adjustment and shimmed it.  I shimmed it a little tight and lapped it in by oiling the ways and putting lapping compound on the bottom of the ways where the gibs ride, and slinging it back and forth for what seemed like forever. Took me a couple weeks to get everything done but it was a world of difference. And that little lathe made everything I ever asked it to make.
> 
> The LMS tailstock quick lock is also a good mod.
> 
> 
> Never heard of bearing problems in the mini lathe, they are known for minimal runout.
> 
> chris



The runout is great. The spindle just wasn't aligned with the bed and then got some play in the bearings from the form tools. New bearing made a world of difference as did just removing the paint from the castings where the bearings press in.


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## Rbeckett

Seems like the venerable little 7X has found itself a good home when it came to your house.  There are so many little tweaks and improvements available for them it is almost mind boggling.  I started down that road when I first got started with mine, but decided I was only pursuing a fools errand trying to make the little 7X into something it would never be.  Don't get me wrong there are a good number of mods that really do help the machine, but I decided that rather than continue to pursue that elusive perfect machine that I would be ahead by getting a larger lathe that was capable of doing what I was trying to modify into my 7X.  I found a fellow who had a 9X20 that he would allow me to make payments on and eventually brought that one home.  I felt like I needed the additional length so that I could build custom air rifle barrels and integrate the noise suppressor along the entire length in a fashion very similar to Gamo's Bull Barrel option among others.  I can sit under the pecan tree and have several squirrels in the canopy above me and they never hear the rifle when I pop them into oblivion.  Same goes with Rabbits and any other critter up to about the size of a large Bull Mastiff or great Dane.  I'm pretty sure if I had ordered the .22 caliber version of my Pre Charged Pneumatic I could even take a small deer because of the power it is capable of delivering.  When I charge the reservoir to the full 3000 PSI it can shoot through a solid core exterior door consistently with no problem at all and groups a decent .50 sized pattern.  Most of the flyers I experience now are either due to poor operator interface or a ballistic ally damaged pellet. I can shoot  a super sonic 4.5 grain alloy pellet as well as a 23 grain sub-sonic bullet shaped pellet with equal ease and know that they will all strike the target at or near the original aim point with varying degrees of energy available to complete the task of dispatching the critter in a humane way.   All in all I am very happy with what the 9X has done to improve all three of my magnum powered air rifles and the 7X is still occupying a spot in the shop and being useful for various other projects along the way.  The little Chinese machines are a great gateway into the machining universe and have introduced many of us to the joy of owning our own little chunk of NASA  technology at a price we can afford.  About the only limits to what these machines can do is not really what the machines lack but the operators inability to think creatively to overcome the machines physical limitations.  The 7X group on Yahoo Groups is a gold mine of all the different mods that are available and which ones get the most bang for the buck.  Some of the mods those fellows have done are simply amazing, but they have more time invested in the machine doing that to them than they actually spend doing productive work, but to each his own.  I am sure those fellows have a certain satisfaction knowing they have built and modified a mini lathe to perform like a regular full size machining center.

Bob


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## Shadowdog500

I just noticed you still have the knuckle bashing Allen head bolts in the cross slide and compound dials.   I replaced mine with metric pan head bolts from the Ace hardware near me (they had them in stock on the nut and. Bolt wall). Never bashed my knuckles into them again.

Chris


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## geckocycles

Shadowdog500 said:


> I just noticed you still have the knuckle bashing Allen head bolts in the cross slide and compound dials.   I replaced mine with metric pan head bolts from the Ace hardware near me (they had them in stock on the nut and. Bolt wall). Never bashed my knuckles into them again.
> 
> Chris
> View attachment 92877



LOL. I did buy some of those at Jax yesterday.

At some point they will probably get recessed.


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## geckocycles

Rbeckett said:


> Seems like the venerable little 7X has found itself a good home when it came to your house.  There are so many little tweaks and improvements available for them it is almost mind boggling.  I started down that road when I first got started with mine, but decided I was only pursuing a fools errand trying to make the little 7X into something it would never be.  Don't get me wrong there are a good number of mods that really do help the machine, but I decided that rather than continue to pursue that elusive perfect machine that I would be ahead by getting a larger lathe that was capable of doing what I was trying to modify into my 7X.  I found a fellow who had a 9X20 that he would allow me to make payments on and eventually brought that one home.  I felt like I needed the additional length so that I could build custom air rifle barrels and integrate the noise suppressor along the entire length in a fashion very similar to Gamo's Bull Barrel option among others.  I can sit under the pecan tree and have several squirrels in the canopy above me and they never hear the rifle when I pop them into oblivion.  Same goes with Rabbits and any other critter up to about the size of a large Bull Mastiff or great Dane.  I'm pretty sure if I had ordered the .22 caliber version of my Pre Charged Pneumatic I could even take a small deer because of the power it is capable of delivering.  When I charge the reservoir to the full 3000 PSI it can shoot through a solid core exterior door consistently with no problem at all and groups a decent .50 sized pattern.  Most of the flyers I experience now are either due to poor operator interface or a ballistic ally damaged pellet. I can shoot  a super sonic 4.5 grain alloy pellet as well as a 23 grain sub-sonic bullet shaped pellet with equal ease and know that they will all strike the target at or near the original aim point with varying degrees of energy available to complete the task of dispatching the critter in a humane way.   All in all I am very happy with what the 9X has done to improve all three of my magnum powered air rifles and the 7X is still occupying a spot in the shop and being useful for various other projects along the way.  The little Chinese machines are a great gateway into the machining universe and have introduced many of us to the joy of owning our own little chunk of NASA  technology at a price we can afford.  About the only limits to what these machines can do is not really what the machines lack but the operators inability to think creatively to overcome the machines physical limitations.  The 7X group on Yahoo Groups is a gold mine of all the different mods that are available and which ones get the most bang for the buck.  Some of the mods those fellows have done are simply amazing, but they have more time invested in the machine doing that to them than they actually spend doing productive work, but to each his own.  I am sure those fellows have a certain satisfaction knowing they have built and modified a mini lathe to perform like a regular full size machining center.
> 
> Bob



I had a 10x36 logan for 35 yrs and did much more to it but different. I even machined the whole bed and scrapped it in. Used Garlok to bring the carriage back up. I needed a larger lathe so I got a 15x56 LeBlond. My son wanted to make some chess pieces and so he bought this lathe and I worked on it for over a week plus got him a large amount of tooling. It sat in his moms garage for 3 months and he never even opened the box. I bought it from him for $500 which is about how much I spent on extra tooling and materials. I told him that owning one of these is a hobby in itself. Kind of like my Logan was. There is endless upgrades you can do to these.
Time will tell for sure but the things I did with this is before I bought it from him was pretty impressive. With these latest upgrades I expect it to be a really fun and very capable machine if you keep it within it's limitations. I have larger machines for bigger stuff. It is really nice to work on a small machine sometimes. Changing chucks on the LeBlond is just not fun and you loose the feel turning small stuff. Don't get me wrong, I can turn a needle with my LeBlond but prefer to keep it for larger stuff.


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## geckocycles

Squared up the carriage casting on the mill, drilled holes for oilers, rear follow rest and new carriage lock. Made the lock and T-Nut. This works amazingly well and will lock it firmly with just finger pressure on the bolt. Less than 1/4 turn to tighten it. I will make a lever or thumbscrew for it. Machining the bottom of the carriage casting surface and the slot width to size really helps with the lock movement for both the carriage and the tail stock.






No need for the other one I made a few months ago, free to whoever wants it.





Installed the half nut upgrade. This is was a pain as the top nut won't move fully and is limiting the bottom nut movement. It won't move enough to disengage from the lead screw. I started to scrape this in but stopped after a short time. I am afraid the threads won't line up between the two nuts if I moved one over. I took the cam and turned it 180 and tried that. This worked very well but the detents in the shaft are now in the wrong place. I will have to make new ones.





Milled a apron gear relief in the gib bracket and started to fit apron to carriage. 






The apron needed to be shimmed down by.035" as the engagement to the lead screw was terrible. I'll deal with this some more today and make proper spacer for it. Also today's plan is to drill holes for some wipers.

I just can't believe how much better this is getting. All the attention to details in the scraping and lapping is just amazing. The carriage has no measurable movement yet slides with just a slight push.


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## geckocycles

Made and installed gear chip guard. Used plastic push pins and CA to hold it on and started to fit apron to carriage. I had to add about .045" of AL shims to the carriage/apron contact to get proper half nut to lead screw engagement. Then I had to mill the rack so as to lower it .06" to mesh with the apron gear that moves the carriage. I shouldn't of cut this fully out as it weakens it drastically. I should of only cut out what was needed but that was hard to figure out with out doing this. See how it goes but I expect to be putting a new modified one on soon. Lots of lessons learned.
















Had to remake the carriage stop as it sat too high and too hold down bolt was too close to cross slide once I got that on.  The thumb screw is too hard to reach when using the tail stock. This will get changed out to a custom made lever. A conical spring was added too.





Now once again the compound is hitting in the wrong places but I lapped it in this way anyway just as I did with the cross slide. The dovetails are getting good contact as well as the bottom which should not be touching.  I am going to leave it alone for now as it slides well. There is lots of work that needs to be done to the compound to get backlash out. Thrust bearings are on order.





Milled out middle of cross slide for future longer travel mod.





Modified cross slide screw nut and shimmed to line up with the screw. This took hours once again. I had no idea the tolerances were so critical for this. Lapping spacers to the .001" for final placement made huge difference.


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## geckocycles

Started scraping in the tailstock and found the need for a fine adjuster. Overall the quill runs true with the bed, just needed to lower it a few thousandths. Finding more ways to use the Vernon H Mill now that I have some collets for it.


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## BernieC

Thanks for this thread, this is great! Im 3 days into owning my first lathe (craftex 7x8) and soaking all this in. I cant believe the things your going through on what is probably the lowest cost lathe out there! Sounds like your having fun with it.


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## geckocycles

Well I have been working on the tailstock. I scrapped some off the bottom of the top casting and got it pretty darn close with the small scale between new  centers to start with. I found that when I tighten the tail spindle the nose moves up .005" when retracted and .015" when extended. It is in line with the spindle pretty well when tightened and indicator run along top on the tail spindle with indicator on carriage. This type of single point clamp that pushes on only the top side of the spindle sucks. HUMMM. What to do? I would like to see a double wedge or split pinch clamp. Not sure how I am going to do this yet. The casting bore is going to have to be machined and bushed if I want it better. 

There sure are allot of dead links on these lathes on the net. Something newer than 10 yrs old would be nice.

As I was using power feed to cut a few thousandths off a AL rod the 80t gear stripped out on the lead screw. My bad. I did not check that if the lead screw spun freely before adjusting the split nut engagement to the lead screw. Been messing with it for a hour with varying results. Some times it needs huge shims on the bushing at the end of the lathe and other times it needs nothing and turns fine by hand in the place I had it originally. I have used it some with no binding but something changed, I can't figure it out yet and needed to get away and have beer. This is going to keep me up all night.

I also ordered a set of 3mt collets for the mini from Shars direct.


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## geckocycles

Making tentative plan of attack.
I have several large tapered reams with MT3 for my LeBlond. Start with 7/8" ream in headstock and step up to 1". This should make the tailstock spindle bore in line with the headstock I would think if I can do it. I'm sure I can get the 7/8" ream in. Moving the tailstock into the ream is going to be a challenge especially as I step up in bore size. I may have to do a better job of scrapping the underside of the bed where the T-Nut ride on. Now it is within .005", not that great for what I am going to try to do. After I get the 7/8" ream in the bore should be good with the spindle. I may be able to at that point use my mills to enlarge the hole and finish ream on the lathe with the 1" ream.
Use 1" drill rod and bore to .863". Heat treat to about 56 RC and lite press into casting then ream to 22mm which I do not have. I do have an adjustable hand ream that I use on my bikes that will have to do. The stock clamp may just work if the tolerances are tighter. I'll address that issue as needed later.

Any thoughts or am I just high?  It is Colorado  LOL


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## geckocycles

The tail stock spindle moved .007" to the side and down when clamped. The spindle bore hole is too big. The spindle center sits high by about .004". I started off by looking at the V groove. It is not close to matching the bed so it only was barely touching on the very bottom edges, I started scraping the V to bring it closer to the same angles. Once I got a pattern that was at least closer to the center of the V I put pins in the V that contacted my marks and leveled the base on the surface plate. Then worked the top of the base to be level with bottom flat and pins. Reassemble on late bed many times and scraped the top of the base and bottom of the main casting till I got the tail spindle center lower and on center with the headstock spindle. Originally I was going to bore the tail spindle hole out and bush it to fit the spindle better. I may do this later. What complicated that plan was the end of the tailstock is not open so I couldn't ream the bore out without removing the end and making a new one after the bore was enlarged. This would be a ton of work. I played with positioning pieces of shim stock around the spindle and tightened the clamp. Checked movement till I got the shims to be in a good place. See how long this lasts. I got 2 long days in this already, I am going to call it quits for now until I have an issue with it.

















http://youtu.be/KlbhP9OwuOY


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## geckocycles

A little late to mention this but....The first thing I did was make a base for the lathe. The rubber feet are way too close. I took a piece of 11 ply plywood and cut it to the size of the pan and put the rubber feet on the corners of the ply. This made it very stable and this special plywood is pretty sturdy.


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## wrmiller

This is going to be one bad little HF when you get done with it. I hope your son appreciates all you're putting into this.


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## geckocycles

I wish I could say he would but no chance of that.I have heard from him since X-Mas. Not a single reply to any of the emails or texts. IF it isn't electronic hand held he is not interested in it. I thought that when I told him he needs a hobby and he chose to buy the lathe. It sat unopened for over 3 months so I bought it from him.
SO SAD. I just don't understand him and why he would rather never see a sole unless it is online. If it wasn't for school he would never leave the house. He has no ambitions nor even want a drivers license. 17 yr old introvert.
I guess this is my therapy.


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## Shadowdog500

geckocycles said:


> I wish I could say he would but no chance of that.I have heard from him since X-Mas. Not a single reply to any of the emails or texts. IF it isn't electronic hand held he is not interested in it. I thought that when I told him he needs a hobby and he chose to buy the lathe. It sat unopened for over 3 months so I bought it from him.
> SO SAD. I just don't understand him and why he would rather never see a sole unless it is online. If it wasn't for school he would never leave the house. He has no ambitions nor even want a drivers license. 17 yr old introvert.
> I guess this is my therapy.



Sorry to hear that. But like a lot of kids today his hobby/obsession is social media.  Your kid isn't the only one, this is a trend.    

Did he ever have an interest in the lathe, or did he buy it in an attempt to make you happy?  I teach flying as a hobby and I've seen it numerous times where the father tries  to force his passion for flying onto thier kids, who have no interest at all.  The  Kid shows up to take flying lessons, at the fathers expense, just to make the dad happy, but has no real interest at all in flying. I feel sorry for these kids.

I hope your son finds his life's passion, but don't be super disappointed if it is not your passion. 

chris.


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## wrmiller

Give him a few years. I raised a boy and a girl and it seemed that in their early teens they figured out how to unscrew the top of the brain-housing-group and toss the contents into a closet somewhere.

When they reached their early to mid twenties they seemed to recover and become somewhat 'normal'. :lmao:

When my boy was in his late teens I was having one of those 'frustrating' conversations with him and told him that while it is normal for him at his age to think that parents and adults are stupid and know less than he does, he would eventually see that just the opposite was the case. It must have stuck at some level, because he was about 24 or 25 when he brought that conversation up, and said he now realized that he really doesn't know very much. When he asked "when does it get better?", I commented that I was 20 years older than he and I still don't know anything, and he grumbled "great...". 

You can only raise them and turn them loose. How they turn out depends on them.


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## geckocycles

Yea I was hoping he chose to spend his hard earned money because he wanted to make chess sets. He made a nice chess table in school. I worked on the lathe for a week and he turned out some pieces and was very proud but that only lasted while I was there. He now is saving for a 3D Printer MakerBot.

He has never shown much interest in ANYTHING. He didn't even ride a custom bike I made for him at 5yrs till he had outgrown it by 8 yrs. That bike was on Real TV it was so cool and everyone turned heads at it. He couldn't even ride or had interest in learning how to ride a bike even though I made them and that is what we did was ride. I even put on a dorky bar for him so he was more upright.  http://geckocycles.com/slickrock_jr.htm

I'm sure he will come around someday but he is missing out on the best years of his life and I am not getting any younger either. 

Now my oldest is another story. He had flying lessons too. LOL My girlfriend is a 747 flight instructor for United and is well connected. Need a simulator tour when your in town look me up. She loves to show off the Sim and let them fly it. The Sim is unbelievable!

I'm going to let the lathe sit for awhile. It is pretty functional as is. I got a RoboTool CNC mill I have to get running and I don't have a clue.


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## roygpa

Instead of saving for a Makerbot he could build a 3D printer, or you both could do it together. I've built 3 of them, two Prusa Mendels and one called a Lulzbot TK-0 or now it is called Taz. It will cost about 1/2 as much or less than buying one ready to print.

Building it from scratch gives you the advantage of knowing how to fix it when things go wrong.

The place to go to learn how to build 3D printers in reprap.org.

Roy


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## Shadowdog500

geckocycles said:


> Yea I was hoping he chose to spend his hard earned money because he wanted to make chess sets. He made a nice chess table in school. I worked on the lathe for a week and he turned out some pieces and was very proud but that only lasted while I was there. He now is saving for a 3D Printer MakerBot.
> 
> He has never shown much interest in ANYTHING. He didn't even ride a custom bike I made for him at 5yrs till he had outgrown it by 8 yrs. That bike was on Real TV it was so cool and everyone turned heads at it. He couldn't even ride or had interest in learning how to ride a bike even though I made them and that is what we did was ride. I even put on a dorky bar for him so he was more upright.  http://geckocycles.com/slickrock_jr.htm
> 
> I'm sure he will come around someday but he is missing out on the best years of his life and I am not getting any younger either.
> 
> Now my oldest is another story. He had flying lessons too. LOL My girlfriend is a 747 flight instructor for United and is well connected. Need a simulator tour when your in town look me up. She loves to show off the Sim and let them fly it. The Sim is unbelievable!
> 
> I'm going to let the lathe sit for awhile. It is pretty functional as is. I got a RoboTool CNC mill I have to get running and I don't have a clue.




If if he gets that printer going, perhaps he can make custom parts for you.  James Killroy machined some 3D printed parts this week and showed that they machine really well.

I spent a lot of time in Denver about 20 years ago. If I ever get back that way I'll look you up.

The scenery is beutiful out your way,  any way you guys can take a road trip to get him out of the house.  Any computer or electronics shows you two can go to?  He may be interested in that, and it would get you out for the day.


Chris


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## geckocycles

It would be nice to have him make me some parts for lost "wax" castings.

Got a set of collets for the HS. They do not sit in very far in the spindle and stick out between 3/8" and just over 1/2" on some. I'm not used to seeing this much collet in a spindle nose. I need to take some measurements to see which needs to be worked or returned.







As for a draw bar I decided on trying this. First I made just a spacer that lightly presses in the tail of the spindle. Used grade 8 bolt and washer. This worked OK but I thought I could improve the action. Time will tell. LOL. 












This is the steel handwheel in progress.





Finished closure. Got a longer bolt, turned the head and pressed it into the handwheel. Tig welded the head to handwheel and finished turning it. 











This is working very well. I have to be careful hitting the handwheel to loosen the collet. It takes a good bit of force and I don't want to smack the handwheel into the thrust bearings. These bearings are junk. The "hardened" washers are already badly grooved and I only used it to turn the handwheel which was a good bit of material to remove. I took .160"D cuts with no problem with little spring cut. Not allot of power but still got a good chip that I had to break often. Got allot of good packing material.


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## wrmiller

When I had my MM 7x16 one of the first things I did was change to  tapered roller bearings. The difference was immediately noticeable.


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## geckocycles

wrmiller19 said:


> When I had my MM 7x16 one of the first things I did was change to  tapered roller bearings. The difference was immediately noticeable.



WOW we are neighbors!
One of the first things I noticed was the poor HS play and taper. No play at first but a few cuts with a form tool and it was really loose. I chose to order 7206B-2RS Angular Contact Bearings as I felt they were the best choice. I used to work for Chris King and made specialty bearings, not the balls but everything else. Anything is better than stock plus all the paint on one side of the races sure didn't help things.

Here is the closure with the cover on.




and a short vid running with no collet in, just chuck on.
http://youtu.be/1ezr1T5u3zQ


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## Chips4Lips

Don't be too hard on yourself - the same things have happened to a lot of us and we always believe it was something we could have done differently - if that was true, I suspect we would have done it!  Being patient may take 10 years or so but be patient and trust in your parenting instincts to make the right decisions when they count the most.  If there was a book to tell us what to do, it would have sold out long ago!  Keep on showing by example - he will absorb some and the rest will come with some more years for him.  Patience is scraping the ways on a 400 dollar lathe - and watching him change in time.  Hang in there.


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## mmprestine

Great work on the lathe.
Just whats on my mind from reading the forum.  He just has not found his way yet.  Build the printer instead, perhaps the electronics and software will trigger something.  Check out Arduino.  If he is so hooked on gadgets and social media pose questions to him like if you like it so much why not be involved in it.  All things are "made".  Virtual engineering is needed as much as actual engineering.  Sometimes its self confidence, get him to the gym pumping iron, it does wonders for the mind and sole, brought me through some though times.  For me it was different, interested in to much my father told me, you need to focus more and work on individual things, figured I'd never be anything.  Well today I write software, design electronics, design machines, mechanically can fix anything and absorb anything that I am involved in.  Sadly my father rarely talks to me, he just did not understand and still doesn't and never will, hes not me and I am not him.  Basically what I am trying to say is, just be proud of your son and be involved even if you dont care to be.


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