Ok... Who's done this before...

I have turned square stock in the lathe, but really its only a facing operation to make the flat sides parallel and on small stuff I find it easier for workholding and a better finish, and I have broached a small keyway in an ally pulley on the lathe but thats about all.
I havent turned anything on my mill :thinking: but I did mill part of my lathe once! Does that count? :))

Cheers Phil
 
Several times I have turned small parts on the BP clone I have, and on a large horizontal, I've afixed a faceplate to mount some parts on the spindle and clamped the tooling to the table for turning larger work that would fit my lathe.
 
I did a couple of small basic milling jobs on my lathe, it worked so well I went and bought a mill.:whiteflag:
 
You can use the lathe as a mill easier than a mill as a lathe. For one a lathe is more rigid. Chuck up a cutter in the headstock and clamp your stock to your compound. Granted, you're not going to have a lot of travel.

I did hear an interesting tidbit the other day about a lathe. A lathe is the only machine in a shop that can be used to make itself. No other machine can be utilized to accomplish that.
 
You can fit a face plate to a horizontal mill's spindle,and use it as a large swing lathe with no tailstock if you need to swing something bigger than your lathe will handle for face plate type work.

Clamp your cutter in the milling machine vise.
 
I've done both & for their prospective reasons worked out better that way. The milling on the lathe was because I didn't have a big enough mill at the time. The turning on the mill was a transmission part that needed turned down and I did it on my rotary table, it turned out perfectly round, concentric and dead nuts on the measurement
 
Whew!.... Now that I don't feel as bad having done the same thing, my next question is: Has anyone modified a three jaw to use/ incorporate an R8 collet?

Until I can get a dedicated lathe I can see the need for turning some small parts in this "cheater" fashion.... Well I guess it's not cheating if you get the desired results... Haha.

Thanks again for the responses. Btw... Did I mention how much I enjoy this site?? :thumbsup:
 
" A lathe is the only machine in a shop that can be used to make itself."



Definitely.

Sometimes, I think that may be the only reason I got into this wonderful Trade.:whistle::thumbzup:
 
I have done both. Cut slots on my lathe with the stock held in the toolholder. Turned some tool steel on my mill with the cutter held in the vice, and the material held in the collet.
 
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