Thread: H&F Mini Lathe Vs Ebay

Just to finish up i made it to the nut and bolt shop this afternoon and picked up 12x 4mm bolts i had to use the lathe with the slop in the cross slide just to machine the heads on the bolts thinner to pass over the little bed part below the screws some screw heads turned black i assume this is from the 2000rpm setting and the bolts being either steel or SS but i haven't worked out the gears yet

i reused the old nuts on the new screws i installed only six bolts on the one slide as the other slide is still ok and is tight, i machined this little bit of aluminium peeling off 4mm from the OD in a single pass i thought when i first seen the machine 250w motor i thought it was going to be a weak machine and i would have to spend time machining on it i was wrong it kicks ass uses half the power of a Chinese lathe and works brilliantly

If it is older and singled phase, I would suggest capacitor start run or one of those combinations. Reducing the voltage will burn your motor out. The motors worst enemy is low voltage. If it is belt drive, look at a variable diameter pulley. Sometimes called variable speed or spilt pulley. Bit like the old VW had on the generator to adjust belt tension. Another option is to replace the motor with a 3 phase motor and use a VFD but they also have their negatives.

Hey Glot its working ok now i may leave it as is and just learn to use the gears provided i have a whole bunch and this lathe only runs i think 2 plastic gears the rest are belt pulleys so changing gears may be easier than i think,

If the motor ever quits working or i accidently burn it out learning i will go direct drive but i will look into that down the track, i have seen the youtube Chinese lathes converted to 3 phase direct drive and they peel off huge amounts of steel per pass, i think my machine has enough cutting force for what i'm doing at the moment

After looking at your video you were feeding from the Compound slide and not the carriage, not really critical but your length of cut is limited.

You mention power feed, that handle at the end of the bed can be used for manual feeding of the carriage.

You talk of changing gears for RPM , I think you will find that the 4 speed adjustments you have are by changing belts on pulleys, and the gears are used for screw cutting and feeding, if you are only manually feed you could disengage the gear train to reduce noise and wear.

The screws that you made/ replaced are they for the Tailstock, carriage ,cross slide or compound?

Hey Pipe, yeah i have been using all 3 handles to move the slide around it was yesterday i tried the auto feed on a small piece of aluminium the feed was going left direction i couldnt stop it quick enough the tool hit the job and came to a stop

I had a quick look thru the owners manual last night and it gives speeds for machining different metals i assumed the gears were to reduce the chucks speed and some were for threading am i wrong in thinking this?

The screws i replaced are for the cross slide but i did mention earlier about the tail stock locking screw problem

The gears are used for threading and feeding only.
Speeds are changed via belt and pulley.

I didnt know that just this lathe came with a few gears i will go take a look shortly at the pulley system it currently has the pully on the most outside i didnt see any inner pulleys but i didnt look to hard either thanks for mentioning that

Went out to the shed and had a look there were 2 belts and a possibly 4 pulley combinations i will have to work them out i noticed the tensioner screws lock nut was working it way loose by a few turns

Have a good read of the manual and if it doesn't give you enough information down load one.

Just spent from 4:30pm to 7pm machining one wheel spacer yes u read that correctly shocking isn't it, i could not believe my luck started out with a 100x36mm rod of alloy i machined part of it down that i wanted to use than i drilled a hole thru part of it it ended up getting thrown sideways out of the chuck than the magic belt smoke appeared again i shut it off than realised i needed to cut off the 100mm length closer to the machined size i needed so out came the 150mm drop saw than put it into the chuck i started machining again got half way thru the job and something happen i buggered it so had to start again but in the end i made it almost perfect i may be 00.13mm off one dimension is 19.97mm needs to be 20.10mm but i don't wanna mess it up, my caliper is playing up pretty shocking i need to buy another one

oh i forgot i when the piece was jammed in the chuck from the error i made i wound the chuck fingers out too far WHOOPS!!! what a mistake bloody hell that took around 40mins to get them all correct on the feed screw again at one stage i was putting them in back the front wondering why it wouldnt wind in lol bloody bugger also had a blunt tool i didnt realise untill it was smearing the aluminium and pushing it rather than cutting it

so i took a piece of 100x36mm and turned it into a 28x16mm ID hole 20.10mm it was just easier to buy 3 lengths of 100x36mm than all different sizes of aluminum machine rod


Pipe i have the whole booklet in a folder i looked at the belt change in the book but couldn't work it out i will leave it for now its cutting what i need so I'm happy

Hi Gazza,

An important lesson there ! Always support the end of the work piece if it sticks out of the jaws more than a couple of inches, if you can. Particularly if the work piece doesn't go very deep into the jaws.

I try to work as close as I reasonably can to the chuck, particularly when parting off. With the rear mounted tool post I can part off 2 mm away from the jaws.

HTH.

I am learning Baron learning all the what not to do's once i mad that smaller cut of around 30x36mm piece it was much easier to machine and work with, a little tip i picked up from youtube is how to use the caliper and the long pin that extrudes out of the caliper i don't know if this is the correct technique but i sat the calipers base on the face of the job and used the extruded pin to measure the depth to the face of the chuck i measured beside all 3 chuck fingers as to make sure i was square with the chuck to machine the other side of the wheel spacer it worked out great

i plan on machining the rest of the spacer kit there is around 7 wheel spacers i will post a picture once finished it will be my first lathe job

Hi Gazza, Guys,

Yes that is also the technique that I use, but I always allow an extra millimetre to ensure that I don't bump into the chuck and damage the jaws or the tool.

A useful accessory is a spring lathe saddle stop. The spring needs to be strong enough so that you can easily feel the stop point but not so strong that it breaks the shear pin in the lead screw drive if the saddle hits the stop under power and gives you a second to disengage the feed.

08-04-2019-005.jpg
You can see in this picture the allowance so you don't hit the chuck.

Yeah i had turned the wheel spacer around so i could machin the little lip

Where machining from right to left should i be using the small handle on the top slide or the handle on the end of the machine to the far right? Or does it even matter?

Hi Gazza,

My lathe is a Myford S7B and I have a calibrated hand wheel on the end of the lead screw ! I really only use it when I'm machining a blind bore and want to go to a specific depth. I can easily hit a depth to half a thou or better.

More often I'm using the saddle hand wheel to traverse the work and only use the top slide hand wheel if I'm doing a facing cut with the saddle locked and I want to remove a set amount. Or if I want to turn a taper.

As an example the split clamp pin I made to secure the 20 mm diameter vertical column, was 0.45 mm too long or 18 thou. So I set the tool on the face of the work and wound the cross slide back to clear the work and put on an 18 thou cut with the top slide. Then just faced off the work piece.

11-04-2019-002.jpg
This is the pin I referred to with the scallop machined to suit the post. That screw is an M4 hex cap head.

As far as direction of machining is concerned you need to use a left hand tool to be able to cut when moving the saddle to the right. One point that I will make is not to remove the work from the chuck and turn it round ! You cannot guarantee that the work piece will be concentric. If you get a short piece of bar and turn it for about half its length, take it out of the chuck and put it back in the other way round, then take another cut, all without altering the cross slide, you will see what I mean.

One reason that I use collets or the four jaw independent chuck, is so that I can get a high level of eccentricity. A lot of people do work by only using the four jaw. Its your most precise chuck.

HTH.