First "job" with new mini-lathe

PHPaul

PHPaul

Registered
Registered
Joined
Dec 5, 2017
Messages
467
Got some tooling in for the Grizzly 7x12 lathe today so I finally got to play with it a bit. Anytime Tools 5 piece 1/4" indexable cutter set, center drills from the same outfit and a Nova MT2 1/2 drill chuck.

Turned some steel round stock down from .325 to .310 to make it fit a dial indicator stand I had. Once I got the speed dialed in and used the auto feed, it cut a REAL nice smooth finish.

Had to make a couple of bearing spacers for the ATV I'm helping a neighbor kid rebuild/repair. The old bearings were .340 wider than the new OEM bearings. Happened to have a piece of pipe the right OD and ID, just needed to cut pieces .340 wide. Haven't gotten my parting tool in yet so whacked them off to rough size on the chop saw and then faced them down to finish size, which also ensured the faces were square with the bore. Worked slick.

Slipped the Morse Taper drill chuck into the tail stock, chucked up a center drill and bored a hole in the end of a bolt just for practice. Dead-nuts center within the margin of error of my measuring equipment. That's gonna make cross-drilling pins for grease zerks a snap.

The inexpensive cutters worked better than I expected. Once I got 'em shimmed up on the centerline, they cut nice with no chatter. Not gonna make any big hogging cuts with them, but most of the stuff I'll be fooling with won't need 'em anyway and hey, I'm retired. Time, I got.
 
Hi PH, Welcome
Glad the 7x12 is working good for you. There have been other enquires about the 7 x12, so please continue to share your experiences.

And remember, on this forum if we don't see pictures...it didn't happen....LOL :).

David
 
Last edited:
You will find all kinds of uses for that lathe if you tinker on anything ever and welcome.
 
lathe.jpg

The mandatory picture...:beguiled:

I live to tinker. Nothing gives me more pleasure than building something useful out of whatever I have laying around in my jun...uh, I mean...spare parts pile.

For example:

trimmer13.jpg

The story, more pictures and some details on a website I moderate: Shopbuilt Projects

The lathe will be a big help doing such projects better and hopefully saving me a few bucks making parts I used to have to buy.
 
I don't remember if I posted about it or not, but I was VERY pleased with the lathe right out of the box. I'd been watching videos of the various tuning and adjustment procedures and was fully prepared to spend a day or two stoning and adjusting gibs, centering up the tailstock, working runout and vibration out of the chuck, all that sort of thing.

Nothing needed to be done beyond cleaning and lubricating. Zippo. Runout on the chuck is just a hair over .001, tailstock is deadnuts centered within my ability to measure it, NO slop in the crossfeed or compound, belt runs pretty true (tho it does wobble around a bit). I was amazed.
 
Alittlerusty said:
A nice manly weedwacker. What kind of Rpms does the head turn at?
Click to expand...

The string head came off a Crapsman walk behind that puked the rod out through the block. Working from the assumption that most small engines run at 3600 RPM and trusting my rusty memory that the pulleys were about 1:1, I aimed for 3600-4000 RPM at the string head at 540 PTO RPM. The right angle drive speeds it up a bit, about 1.25:1, the rest is in the belt pulleys. Seems to work well. I'm running about 16" of string so tip speed is right up there.
 
Paul, how do you know your machine? I think my budget will only allow me to purchase Chinese made lathe.
 
We had one of these that was on sale at harbor freight.

When they first started selling them they were marketed as a high precision modelers lathe.

Great little machine but it has limits.

The belt is oddball metric meaning cannot find in a well stocked industry town and the internal back gear is plastic.

Avoid interrupted heavy cuts as it can break the back gear and mess up the belt...

Order a spare belt as they may not cost much.

Gave ours to a friend who repaired it and is still using it.

The chuck seems to allow repeat work meaning you can take things out and re - chuck them and be close.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top