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  1. #1
    Join Date
    May 2005
    Location
    Turramurra, NSW
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    66

    Default Advice re machining tuition

    Just about ready to buy a lathe/milling machine.

    Since my last hands on experience was at school (where I could pretty much manage most operations), I think I need to do a course before making the investment. I could either buy a totally inappropriate machine, or bugger up the thing within minutes of power up.

    Anyone suggest any? Location Sydney Nth Shore.

    Thanks
    Bodgy
    "Is it not enough simply to be able to appreciate the beauty of the garden without it being necessary to believe that there are faeries at the bottom of it? " Douglas Adams

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Jul 2006
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    home
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    621

    Default Tafe

    Contact your local TAFE!

    I did a course about 2 years ago at the TAFE in Ultimo, it was excellent.
    Covers basic metal work as well as milling and lathe usage.

  3. #3
    BobL is offline Member: Blue and white apron brigade
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    Default

    Lucky bugger, Lathes and mills are so much fun!

    Unless you buy both, I guess the first thing to decide is lathe OR mill as they do different things.

    What is it that you want to do?

  4. #4
    Join Date
    May 2005
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    Turramurra, NSW
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    66

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by BobL View Post

    What is it that you want to do?
    BAsically just bugger around. I'll be on a steep learning curve. I just like to fix things in general. Honestly, its just another big boys toy.

    I'm thinking of the compbination lathe/milling machine. Just don't know which one.

    One thing I must do is mill my bandsaw table flat. It has a hollow of about 2 mm in the centre.

    I'll have a look at the TAFE courses, thanks
    Bodgy
    "Is it not enough simply to be able to appreciate the beauty of the garden without it being necessary to believe that there are faeries at the bottom of it? " Douglas Adams

  5. #5
    BobL is offline Member: Blue and white apron brigade
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    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Bodgy View Post
    BAsically just bugger around.
    That's as good a reason as anything else I've heard about.

    I turned up and fitted a J3 - MT2 arbor yesterday - It took me ~3 hours and McJings have them for $14, but what the heck I'm used to working for my hobby for $5/hour. I made plenty of swarf and came home covered in lathe lube but I learnt a lot and reckon I can fit something more complicated now. Today I used a mill to cut out the C-shape for a ww lathe steady from a 6 mm sheet of ally. It would have be a heck of lot quicker to cut out the c-shape with a bandsaw, but hey - then I wouldn't get the play around with the cute rotary feed table. I'm still a rank amateur but I love the precision of those machines -something I seem to be able to defeat without trying to hard.

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Dec 2005
    Location
    Burleigh Waters
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    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by snowyskiesau View Post
    Contact your local TAFE!

    I did a course about 2 years ago at the TAFE in Ultimo, it was excellent.
    Covers basic metal work as well as milling and lathe usage.
    Hi Bodgy,

    TAFE is the go! If you get flexible teachers (not the Yoga class) they might let you bring in some stuff like your bandsaw table, which you might true up with a surface grinder for example.

    I did 2 years, one night per week at Tamworth TAFE. It was so good and my wife insisted I go, too.

    Got to use lathes, mills vertical and horizontal, surface grinder, horizontal bandsaw, drills and all sorts of tools I can't afford.

    Our assessments/tests weren't very structured, however we weren't going to be tradies. Now I think it's more by the book.

    My advice: go for it.

    Regards,

    Richard

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Jan 2006
    Location
    Blue Mountains NSW Australia
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    408

    Default

    You are better off truing up the table with a shaper IMO.

    I haven't taught at TAFE since it was called tech, but shapers were a common bit of gear in every workshop. The have largely been taken over by the universal mill, but your TAFE may still have one.

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Dec 2005
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    Burleigh Waters
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    Default

    [QUOTE=Fossil;705893]You are better off truing up the table with a shaper IMO.

    Hi Fossil,

    I bow to your greater wisdom

    We didn't have one of those at TAFE, but my son used one at school.

    He tried to confuse me by explaining it

    Regards,

    Richard

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Sep 2006
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    A.C.T
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    89
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    190

    Default Bodgy

    Hi
    Two things came to my mind re the bandsaw table in my experience with them the slotted side needs a holding flat method and the way it is mounted can be stuffing things up.

    The slot to allow the blade to be removed and the new one fitted can be fitted with a plate to join the free end,this unevenness unsupported can create strange things.

    The large Bandsaw I use ate the centre plate the other day,it always apparently was about a mm or two too low,it finally kikked up and died with a crack.Replaced it in 15 mins with a perspex centre cut on a smaller bandsaw.It is level and safer.

    Have fun. Peter

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Jan 2006
    Location
    Blue Mountains NSW Australia
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    408

    Default

    Hi Fossil,

    I bow to your greater wisdom
    I don't know about the wisdom quote. When I said I taught at Tech, it wasn't machining. I used to teach Clerk of Works building course, and remedial maths for the panel beating apprentices, at nights. I used to have dinner in the machining rooms with a couple of teachers, as the subject they taught interested me way back then. Fond memories of smoking around the dinner table and bitching about the state of industry etc.

    Metal machining is just a hobby for me, but what a bloody great hobby it is.
    I learn new things almost daily.

  11. #11
    Join Date
    Dec 2005
    Location
    Burleigh Waters
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    Default

    Hear hear,

    The day you stop learning, you're dead.

    And metal is magic, innit?

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