1st chips, no blood

C

Creativechipper

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Finally did it, took .030 " off the end of a 1" rnd aluminum bar stock. 1st cut ever!!!

So excited to finally make a pass on the new metal lathe!!:eagerness::excitement:

Couldn't contain myself, lowered the tool post slightly and took .005 off. I am loving it, made great swarth, nice long pcs and some 1-2" spiral pcs..haha

I know my technique is bad as I have no practice, I could tell I was not steady in the feed rate and I see the lines in the face cut. Will practice more, play with angle and tool selection and eventually go power feed vs manual turning.

Thank you all for helping me with my most basic newbie questions!!!

You guys Rock!!:grin big::congratulate:

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If you think that was fun, just wait until you actually make a usable part. Or repair a part, it doesn't get any better than that. Thank you for taking the time to post. :encourage:

And most of all, we really thank you for your support of this site.
 
Very happy with the noise level as the wife can't here it from the living room.
Will have to look into making some tools to use with it.
Any practice ideas, keep facing, then do some turning on the side?
 
It will not take long before you come to loath lathe chips with all of your being, have been on one job since last Friday and have filled two 55 gallon drums with the annoying buggers. A great deal of the learning curve will involve chip control, this means forcing them to break rather then creating an enormous birds nest that will wrap around everything which can scrap parts and break tools if you are not careful.
This is not a bad example yet not ideal, they coil for 3 or 4" before breaking so they were manageable.
It is steel tubing that is a nominal 7 1/4" OD and the finish rough turning diameter is 7.100" so I only had .150" to work with, did it in 2 passes at .037" DOC, 450 FPM and .008 IPM feed, any slower and the chips would not break reliably. Each pass took 21 minutes, the job is 3 parts. I will let it run unattended if the chips break and go and run another machine, this lathe will stop itself when it reaches the end of the cut which is .010" from the chuck jaws. The finish is excellent and the 25 year old lathe held the taper to .002" over a 42" length for a roughing operation, this is excellent for such a machine.
https://photos.smugmug.com/My-First-Gallery/i-tTrsQKJ/0/ae27ba74/640/internal shaft roughing-640.mp4

After the last part was roughed to 7.100" I put a block across the ways and use a jack to support it when removing the center and loading the steady rest, put the center back in and indicate it before setting the steady in case it moved, this stayed dead on. Then the ends are faced and bored, if the OD diameters are within .005" or so you will only have to adjust the top steady roller for the next parts.
Like so.


Load and set the steady and have at it. This is not rocket surgery so just do it and have fun. The black sharpie marker line is the center of the part length, always do this as it will allow you to easily set the lifting strap so that the part is balanced when loading or unloading from the machine, I also write the measured diameters on each end, in this case 7.102 and 7.103.

Good luck
 
That is quite a hefty turn job, whats it for?

I do have some steel rod about .25" diameter. It may be hardened, I do not know, it started life as a shaft in a copy finisher.

I turned the 1st 2 cuts at about 750RPM, any advice on RPM's
 
Do not know what it is for, all that I get are the drawings but suspect that it slides in plain bearings because the last operation is .0015" of hard chrome.
Had to turn the OD, ID and face these nasty burn outs today, this made a good deal of noise until they were somewhat round. Burned from 3" thick HR plate, the person that did the burning did not pierce far enough away from the diameters, they were also 11/16" to thick so I had of face 5/8" off of one side, they were Customer supplied, never trust the Customer to supply something close to size(-:
 
Creativechipper said:
Very happy with the noise level as the wife can't here it from the living room.
Will have to look into making some tools to use with it.
Any practice ideas, keep facing, then do some turning on the side?
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The absolute best is when you make a part that fixes something for your wife. Suddenly that "toy" you bought becomes a tool.
 
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P. Waller said:
Do not know what it is for, all that I get are the drawings but suspect that it slides in plain bearings because the last operation is .0015" of hard chrome.
Had to turn the OD, ID and face these nasty burn outs today, this made a good deal of noise until they were somewhat round. Burned from 3" thick HR plate, the person that did the burning did not pierce far enough away from the diameters, they were also 11/16" to thick so I had of face 5/8" off of one side, they were Customer supplied, never trust the Customer to supply something close to size(-:

I hate flame cut parts, that klag on the surface eats tools and usually is hiding some hard spots that resist a decent finish till you get through them. I usually take an angle grinder to the stuff before cutting but I'd guess I'm not telling you anything you have not already learned. Have fun!

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