First time ever turning

Hi Vince, I'm pretty new to turning on a lathe too. My lathe is just a small watchmaker's lathe but the principles are pretty much the same. I mostly turn brass but sometimes steel, and the guy who is mentoring me via email started telling me that the angles in my cutting tools are HUGELY important. He started mentioning terms like "negative rake angle" and "positive rake angle" and "relief angle", and I was just LOST. So since it's so hard to email good descriptions, he fabricated for me huge oversized examples of cutting tools out of wood dowel! He just sent them through the mail (he's in Oregon and I'm in Arizona). Needless to say, having a model in my hands enabled me to grind my own tools that worked GREAT!

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I watched many a night the tubealcain vids on grinding tools. He uses the same thing, huge wooden piece. Im just so excited to have this running.

Heres the alum from the show. Oh how you guys are right on the cold rolled. This is what I want to make my pins look like for my little loader. Of corse they will be made of steel. I looked this morning at the facing tool, and came up with this.

No I did not check the jibbs, I will do that, thank you.

TURNING ALUM 003.jpg TURNING ALUM 002.jpg TURNING ALUM 005.jpg
 
The half nuts maybe worn, also could be they are not engaging 100%. Check for crud and fit of the lever, scroll to nuts as well. Clean the leadscrew and half nuts if required.
 
Arky

Vince, i just looked at your pictures from this morning. Bravo, my man, Bravo!!!!!!!!!!!
 
Arky

Thank you. I played some more with it tonight and broke a tip off. Im sure there will be more to come.
 
Vince,
Your progress is wonderfull. I am very glad to see you got a set of guides like Tubal has available. It surely will help you find that sweet spot when you grind tools for projects. Keep up the great work and do not get discouraged because you are doing extremely well and I expect that you will be whipping out some great things soon. Keep up the great work!!!
Bob
 
Thanks Bob, This is really like your sig line, LOL

So anyone have an easy project that I can do? I tried to look last night and most everythijg is way over my head.
 
You are doing great Vince! Very little is over your head each project is just a bunch of steps that are done one at a time. Easy and useful lathe projects would be a spider for supporting long stock at the back of the spindle.

http://www.hobby-machinist.com/show...e-Tooling!?p=61100&highlight=spider#post61100 and plenty more easy quick and useful projects in that thread. If you have a 4jaw chuck the tool post stop is easy nice and handy also.

Steve
 
UH-OH, you've done it now,,,,you've been biten by the bug,,,,,,from now on it will be a constant desire to learn more!!!

Have you tried different speeds with your turnings? Looks like the aluminum may be turning a little slow and make sure your tool bits are SHARP!

Good Luck!
 
Gotta crawl before you walk. Im pleased to see you are using a lantern tool post. Beleive it or not that
is educating you while you dont even know it. Hard to word but all that tool blank grinding then put in its
holder then centered the ole rocker on the work and all that grinding went south. So many years ago I
started off my two boys using local hardware store pvc and plain ole cheap key stock easy to grind.
Thus saving the real stuff (like much needed brass alum etc.) Now back to the lantern, I taught them
to put the (not ground yet) key stock in its holder center it on the work. And study it as to how it should
be ground either mental pic or mark it with ink pen. As veiwed you will imagine what its form can be
ground. Another good example of this teaching I had them grind a 60* threading tool then insert in
its holder and centered. Now a good visual mental pic of how to grind the top (which also tells what
kind of holder you have) >>raked or not. If raked id have him mark with ink, then grind it flat. Then
for general turning I had them grind them with a round nose which used also for facing and less prone
to breaking cause its got more meat. Really Vince you gotta good start dont be intimidated by pvc
its throw away cheap-stuff its a good do and don't teacher. After all those years the kids got pretty good
at it. As now we work along with local hardware store somebody needs say a four in. PVC pipe threaded
and they send it here. Keep the pics comming....Fun aint it. I had a guy come in needing some
I forget, some lawnmower thingy, this guy was intranced with all these things going around, I said what
do you do, he said he is a chef at )&^*(. I said you teach me to fry an egg & I will teach you this free.
Hows that got ya.
 
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