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Thread: Homemade lathe in the making?
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5th Apr 2020, 03:26 AM #16Senior Member
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Actually I have got to stage where I would like to see this built.
Will be interesting to see how many mm out of square, out of round the barrel ends up being. If it gets that far.
GO FOR IT GAZZA.
Tony
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5th Apr 2020, 03:30 AM #17Most Valued Member
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Hey Tony because the chucks backing plate will be machined by this machine before the chuck is mounted wven if the head stock is off by 1mm or if the carriage crab walks but doesnt move i reckon it may still lathe strait but that is just a wild guess
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5th Apr 2020, 09:00 AM #18
Reality check
If it were as easy to make an accurate lathe as you suggest, don't you think all the manufacturers would be taking the same approach rather than wasting all that money and time on precision work and heavy castings? There's a reason that lathes are built as they are.
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5th Apr 2020, 09:46 AM #19Senior Member
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5th Apr 2020, 10:21 AM #20Golden Member
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Hi Gazza,
I would strongly recommend you reread elanjacobs comments above and absorb them.
Then, if you decide to go ahead, sit down and work out exactly how you are going to build each component, and in what order, before you start cutting, turning and welding metal. For example, consider the tailstock. How are you going to ensure that the tailstock quill is at exactly the correct height and in line with the headstock spindle? What sort of centre will you use in it? Can you cut an internal Morse taper? If you intend to drill using the tailstock and don't have a Morse taper, how are you going to hold the drill chuck? How are you going to clamp the tailstock to the lathe bed? Your proposed design would seem to make this difficult. Will the tailstock be capable of sideways movement to line up the tailstock and headstock centres, and to enable cutting tapers? If you do have a Morse taper, how are you going to eject tooling from the tailstock quill? The devil is always in the detail!
How do you propose to mount a 200mm chuck or other tooling on the headstock spindle? If on a thread, (the easiest but least satisfactory way), is your present lathe capable of cutting say a 30 x 3.5 thread? Will the headstock have an internal say 3MT taper? Will the spindle be hollow? If not, how will you eject tooling? And so it goes on.
Don't forget that any sliding surfaces will need either a gib strip or other means of adjustment, otherwise the machine will chatter so badly that it will be useless.
In case you are wondering, I have had some experience relevant to what you propose. Some years ago I built a Blanchard lathe, which works very well, to make the oval section wooden spokes used in car wheels between the early 1900s and 1929. This is a special purpose machine with only one function, which means I could take some short cuts which you won't be able to take if you propose to build a general purpose lathe.
For example, since it always uses roughly the same sized and type of material, I only needed to provide one spindle speed and one feed speed. It has a carriage (nothing like a metalworking lathe carriage) which can be moved with either a hand wheel or automatically using a leadscrew and half nuts, which, believe it or not, was easier for me to make than a conventional rack and pinion arrangement. Needed a mill though. Working out how to make, mount and drive the leadscrew if you go that way would need considerable thought before starting construction of the bed, which, incidentally, in my opinion, would not be rigid enough for a lathe of this size - only my opinion though. A practical metalworking lathe would, of course, need all the above features, but with a selection of speeds and feeds, not just one of each.
When I built the Blanchard lathe I had hoped it would be capable of making all the spokes in a batch the same diameter with a maximum variation of 0.5 mm. In fact, it does better than that. the variation is about 0.2 mm, fine for a wooden spoke. Note that is 0.2 mm, not 0.02 mm. This sort of accuracy is fine for woodwork. It is not acceptable for a metal working machine. The Blanchard, because of its construction and small size is a pretty rigid little machine.
Anyway, I wish you luck - you will need it - and, as others have said, I await the results with great interest!
Frank.
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5th Apr 2020, 01:18 PM #21Most Valued Member
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There’s a link in the off site advertising area to a school in NSW selling three Hercus 260’s for $1000 each. They are 3 phase, conversion to single is around $250-300 depending on the motor you buy.
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5th Apr 2020, 04:28 PM #22Most Valued Member
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There is a Hercus lathe on eBay at present for around $1400 that should/would suit your needs, it needs to be put together as it has been dismantled, this would make it easy to move, it has quite a few extras with it that aren't shown in the photo's of the eBay listing, I believe that this would be a suitable machine rather than trying to make your project.
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5th Apr 2020, 05:16 PM #23Most Valued Member
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Cheers guys i know its a hard process to make a precision cutting tool and i do also agree it takes a alot of design and workmanship to cut accuratly 0.02mm
I am pretty sure my idea will work it just needs tight tollarances in my building skills, i may mess up parts and cut them slightly over or undersize as im still learning precision work on the little lathe
But it is going to be a bunch of fun in the process
I seen those school lathes but they are 5-6 hours (10-12 hours round trip) up north and we are in lock down for another 2.5 months
My lathe will be designed to be wheeled around on a standard removalist trolley for portability, at the moment just mounting the head stock metal to the bed it cannot be carried by 1 person it is to heavy
I reckon im going to enjoy building this lathe it may be madness but it will suit a cheap budget too under $500 hopefully
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5th Apr 2020, 05:20 PM #24Most Valued Member
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Hey Franco alot to answer there, most of my parts will be made around the head stock as mentioned once the head stock is built along with the carrage and tool post i'll machine the face plate for the chuck than i'll mount a boring bar which will than bore a hole for the tail stock which should all be square to each other
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5th Apr 2020, 08:17 PM #25Most Valued Member
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awaiting a quote from my local steel supplier my carriage, slide, spindle and face plate come to just over 55kg of steel, can anyone work out what i should realistically pay for the (TBA) pieces?
Round Bar
STOCK CODE : 1045RND.3030.0mm 1045 Peeled Round Bar2500 N/A $56.00 1 $4.90 13.60kg $60.90 (slides) Sheet & Plate
STOCK CODE : bplt.88.0mm Mill Finish Steel Plate250 300 TBA 1 $0.00 4.71kg TBA (carriage bed) Sheet & Plate
STOCK CODE : bplt.88.0mm Mill Finish Steel Plate200 200 TBA 1 $0.00 2.51kg TBA (slide bed) Round Bar
STOCK CODE : brnd.3636.0mm Mild Steel Mill Finish Round350 N/A $7.71 1 $4.90 2.87kg $12.61 (spindle shaft) Sheet & Plate
STOCK CODE : bplt.2525.0mm Mill Finish Steel Plate230 230 TBA 1 $0.00 10.38kg TBA ( chuck face plate ) Sheet & Plate
STOCK CODE : BPLT.5050.0mm Mill Finish Steel Plate100 100 TBA 2 $0.00 7.86kg TBA ( spindle bearing retainers) Round Bar
STOCK CODE : brnd.5050.0mm Mild Steel Mill Finish Round850 N/A $37.95 1 $4.90 13.43kg $42.85 ( sliders for carriage and cross slide sliders)
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5th Apr 2020, 08:28 PM #26Gear expert in training
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Just so you know, round bar is not round or straight enough for this job from the supplier. If you're not going to have all the round bar cylindrical ground, you're wasting your time and money.
Also, 1045/mild steel is waaaay too soft for rails, so it's a waste anyway. 4140 is the absolute bare minimum you might get away with without hardening it (at least until a couple of chips get in there and score it all up).
I know you're hell bent on doing this, but I don't want to hear any complaining that you didn't know when it all goes south.
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5th Apr 2020, 08:33 PM #27Most Valued Member
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I looked at crmo but was unsure which rods i will need to weld it, im happy to order those rods and i did already look into the crmo steel for the slides but thought 30mm mild steel would be sufficent thanks for picking that up
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5th Apr 2020, 08:39 PM #28Gear expert in training
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You can't weld the rails in. You need to have adjustment on all the moving parts so that they can be properly set square and parallel. I don't know how to get this through to you any clearer
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5th Apr 2020, 11:02 PM #29Most Valued Member
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What is the difference in having the slides welded or bolted in? They serve one job and that is to be functional the slides do not move the bushings move on the slides, if the slide assembly is tacked down square what is the problem welding it in? Its no difference to bolting it in other than welding is perminant and stronger
Welding means there will be no movement at all, bolts are acceptable to move and have more tolerance than welding
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5th Apr 2020, 11:03 PM #30Most Valued Member
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This guy beat me to the slides lol it doesnt come up in a search as its not in english however it came up on my feed
https://youtu.be/6NWpAWuxwiQ
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