What a mess, what am I doing wrong?

No prob Ken, this is a good learning experience. I’m sur anyone with skill & experience would have made short work of this on an 11x36 lathe. I know you’ve got larger machines and could have licked it in no time. But in gaining experience it’s all about making mistakes, hopefully ones that leave no damage to person or machine.

That’s the case here. I got done cleaning up the mess. Now to get things moving again.
 
100LL said:
I got chips that were hot and flying, sometimes sparking. A lot were forming more like a powder or dust. One hit my lip and burned. Then when the turning started to squeal I knew I needed to stop and ask.
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Now think back on the great advertizing from dura bar. https://www.dura-bar.com/resources/upload/Dura-Bar-Machining-Guide.pdf

Kinda see it in a different light now...right?
It can be great stuff. But not always fun to work with. I use the vacuum method also to try and pick up the cuttings in the process.
Heck my Van norman boring bar has vacuum ability built into it from the factory.
 
I like to cover my ways with some scrap cardboard when doing cast.
As stated above the swarf is more like sand and it seems to get into everything.
The more I can do to prevent keeping it out of sliding parts the less clean up later.
Consider tearing down your chuck or at least removing the easily disaasembled parts and cleaning that out as well.

Daryl
MN
 
Here is an example of cutting something at close to the maximum capacity of the lathe - not quite full size (I can handle 21.5" and the wheel was only 21.25" diameter - cleared the bed by a whole 1/8"). You can see the compound is swiveled, the tool post is swung round backwards and I'm reaching out with a boring bar. The bar had to be sticking way out in order to reach past the wings of the saddle, and past the flat portion to get to the flange. It doesn't show up real well in the pictures, but the task was to remove the one flange from the idler wheel as it had worn - but not evenly.

The material is a cast steel, so not the issue with the black dust you get with cast iron. However it was very rusty, and rust is bad news inside the machine. The rust layer is also hard on tools (perhaps not as bad as the skin in cast iron), and because of about 1/2" uneven wear - there was no way I could get under the skin in one pass. At my lowest speed (45 rpm) the surface speed is ~250fpm. Brazed carbide is wonderful - I think I pulled the tool and touched up the edge every 3rd pass. Rust is nasty stuff on the lathe bed too - so I covered the bed and cleaned up after.

The actual cutting did not take very long, the main challenge was setting up to hold the piece (pilots in each bearing bore, registering into the face place and then a ready rod through to the back of the spindle tube). In all, the results was very satisfactory.

Good luck with your project. David

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markba633csi said:
Chipper is that a gap-bed lathe? It must be- what model?
Mark
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Yes it is a gap bed, an Enterprise 1550 made by Mysore Kirloskar (India). I've probably only had the gap out about 5 times. They made a few different brands over the years. I've had it a long time. I find it a decent machine, it would not be considered a heavy pattern machine - but its made a good number of chips.
 
I am learning here too, but isn't that a left handed tool when a right handed cutting tool should be used?
 
You gotta do what you gotta do. Sometimes it just works out best that way.
 
cast iron along with bronze will throw lots of tiny chips, to combat this place a brush ( paint, foxtail over the cutting edge this will keep the chips in one area. this will help bill
 
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