New To Machining And Looking For An Opinion On A Lathe

[bridgeportbj]

Make sure you buy one that's not worn it will drive
You nuts trying to learn

 

[hermetic]

Hi All, Flathead red, I think you are right, and I must admit that whenever I have done small thread cutting on a lathe, I have used a diehead! Of course if you don't have a diehead they can be expensive, but your comments about the difficulty of cutting small threads by single pointing on a lathe are all too true. I have of course been spoilt with a Coventry auto die head, which was on the Ward I was using, but your solution is good.
I was considering the fact that the basic set comes with the lathe, and really detracts from the price if they are not there. Both my lathes have SC gearboxes, but the advantage with the gears is of course is that they can cut any thread, if you got em!
Phil

 

[stupoty]

A lower powered bench lathe is good to learn on, they come around for low cost every now and again(never when your looking though) , as others have said an older lathe can be frustrating if it needs a lot of work. An older lathe normally has picked up a lot more tooling on its journey though.

My first two lathes taught me what I needed to know to buy my current lathe which is keeping me very happy presently(until I realize why another lathe would be much better).

Stuart

 

[randyc]

Hi All, Flathead red, I think you are right...

I think that you meant me, rather than the OP ? There's one definite advantage to a full set of change gears and that is if one is required to cut Acme, buttress or other unconventional thread shapes. Can't do those with a die chaser !

I don't know how I ever got by with a single lathe, frankly. My little 8 x 18 Emco is now permanently set up with collets and uses the die chasing head exclusively. It's a great size for doing smaller work. The larger 11 x 36 Sheldon is permanently set up with a 4-jaw and has a QC gear box. If I DO need collets on the Sheldon, it's dead simple to do this:



Thirty years of changing chucks, collets and tailstock tooling on the Emco ... what a waste of time. If time was money (and it often was) I could have bought a pristine Monarch 10EE or Hardinge HLV-H with the time savings !

 

[rock_breaker]

IMHO the 7X14 Grizzly that is on sale would be my recommendation. Try to find one with slower spindle speeds as a beginner. If you are a real machinist beginner I would also recommend a "how to" book. I prefer the shop training manual "Machine Shop Practice and Setup" however "Lathe Operation" or something similar by Atlas Press and "How To Run A Lathe" by South Bend are good. Take your time and go slow to start with speed and ability come with practice. Softer materials (aluminum) are better to train on, some guys recommend plastic pipe, didn't have plastic when I started. The day will come when a bolt or something similar breaks in the easy chair and you calmly go to your lathe and make a replacement without giving it much thought. Enjoy.

Have a good day

Ray

 

[hermetic]

You are right of course, but you need to centre the collet chuck in the 4 jaw every time, whereas with the collet chucl straight onto the spindle, you are just about as accurate as your machine will go. But I got to admit, I do use the chuck in chuck method to work small, as if you put a small three jaw in a big 4 jaw you can get rid of a lot of chuck error.
Phil

 

[great white]

I've always been told holding tool steel with tool steel is a bad idea...

 

[randyc]

You are right of course, but you need to centre the collet chuck in the 4 jaw every time, whereas with the collet chucl straight onto the spindle, you are just about as accurate as your machine will go. But I got to admit, I do use the chuck in chuck method to work small, as if you put a small three jaw in a big 4 jaw you can get rid of a lot of chuck error.
Phil

Yes but it shouldn't take more than two minutes max to center the collet in a 4-jaw chuck using two chuck keys - one on the near side and one on the far side. That's a trick that I read on PM about a dozen years ago and it cuts 4-jaw alignment time by a factor of 3, in my opinion.

Sometimes one just doesn't have a reasonable choice ... in my case if the smaller lathe (the one with collets) is set up for a specific application and I don't want to disturb it then a collet in the 4-jaw is an efficient, very quick way of re-tooling another lathe without having to remove the 4-jaw and install a collet holder and drawbar

I have a teeny-weeny three inch 3-jaw chuck and I've used your trick of putting it in a 4-jaw to dial it in. Works fine just as the collets do

 

[randyc]

I've always been told holding tool steel with tool steel is a bad idea...

I wonder why that would be ? We routinely use hardened cutters in hardened holders. (In fact I would think that tool steel on tool steel would be a good idea since there is very little chance of galling if the tool spun. But that's just a personal opinion, of course.)