Newbie Intro....

May I add my welcome to the site. No wrong questions can be asked here . We will try to help .
 
Well I finally did it.
After dragging my feet and bouncing around between about 4 different lathes 2 from Grizzly a typical 9x19 I located on ebay and Weiss lathes from DROPROs I pulled the trigger on a new lathe and it should be getting to me in the next few weeks. After really liking what I saw at Precision Mathews, but they being out of stock on what I was looking and the fact that anything else that comes in is going to have the tarifs added to bump up the price by as much as $400... I got the 10x22 Weiss ( I believe these are the same lathes sold by PM?) from DROPROS. Ended up spending more than I orginally planned and went all out and got the dro, the QCTP, and added the four jaw chuck etc. Figured I might as well dive all the way in and get all the goodies I kept thinking "I'll add that later".
The bench is ready, the power in and some new LED lighting are completed and now the wait begins, hoping for about mid August. I am sure I'll have questions. Any tips for getting the lathe setup and ready out of the crate?
Thanks
 
Congrats! Machining is the last trade on my hobby list, so my lessons learned may be of use to you. I thought at 600 pounds I could just level my lathe out on my bench & be fine. Not so. Got it mounted with 5/8 bolts through a 3/4 thick full length plate with boxed 2" angle plate under the table. Much more stable. It was much harder to figure & drill for the mounting after having had the lathe in service. Looking forward to your updates.
 
Welcome, I recently joined the party and picked up a weiss 250 lathe 10x30".

Still gathering measuring devices and tooling for my 1st cuts to see if its level enough.

Lots of fun reading up on whats needed for the projects you intend to make. So much info here from good tools to projects, very helpful bunch!!
 
Well it's here! Got the crate open just to look at it all and am now getting ready to get it up on the bench in the next couple of days. Think I'll need to rent an engine hoist tho. Thought with help from my step son and a cousin we could get lift it up, but now think it's going to be hard to get three people gathered round it all get our hands on the lathe to lift it. Got some other things like mowing and stuff to do tomorrow so hoping forWednesday or Thursday. Think I'll still enlist some helpt too. Just fighting a little, getting too anxious and getting in a hurry. just ordered some Vectra #2 way oil, Anyone tell me why it's so expensive to ship? Cost more to ship a quart or a gallon the stuff costs to buy!
Soon enough I'll be making swarf :)
 
Well it is all finally coming together and beginning to take shape. Been juggling a number of other things and SLOWLY getting things set up. First I had to better reinforce the bench, turned out I got a larger heavier lathe than I was originally looking at... the Weiss 10x30 is nice and I am very happy with it thus far. I added 2 stringers of 1" angle under the bench to stifen it all along the length of the lathe. Then used MDF to top the bench and set the lathe on. That made it easy to just reliefe the MDF where the bold heads were located for the angle. Getting things organized and put away has been the challenge since getting the lathe in place on the bench. The space is one side of a two car garage and there is a support wall between the stalls. while its rather narrow it is about 8-9 foot deeper than a typical garage.
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One of the trickier tasks was getting it lifted high enough as ceiling height is only about 7.5 ft. The garage is under the house.
Also wanted to be able to heat the garage but being beneath living space and with no windows other than the end with the doors it is beneath grade so easy to heat but wanted to avoid any gas type of heat. It never droped much below the 60 degree mark even in the coldest weather of last winter. So ended up opting for an A/C - heat pump that will both heat and cool, and provide some de-humidification also. ( being from Colorado the humidity here in western PA just kills me...) Just got that set up by cutting and installing a vent through the lower panel of the garage door. Left it easy to disconnetct the portable A/C unit and still open the door when needed.
Getting anxious to start making things and have a couple of simple things in mind. Thought I had a lot of tooling, HA! am now finding out just how much tooling I don't have so am shopping to get tooled up. In the mean time I have only made a few cuts with the lathe just to check it out and get used to the DRO. My questions will soon be coming... :)
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I added an A/C heat pump to the shop as well, made a huge difference in comfort for hot or humid days. Seeing how much water comes from the drain makes me think that it was a good idea for the machines as well.
 
Since my shop is small a window unit has performed well this summer. I used a electric ceramic heater and a propane heater over the winter last year and am satisfied


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