Anyone have a metal lathe?

[mental4astro (Alexander)]

Hi all,

I'm looking to learn to use a metal lathe. I've managed to coerce GeoffW1 from here in IIS to teach me, but we need access to a machine. We're happy to travel to get to use one at the right time somewhere in Sydney. A small hobby machine would do fine too as I'm only looking to make small items.

I've looked into Tafe courses, but these are too expensive, unreliable as to when they run, & inconveniently located for when the course happens to where I need to get from.

Cheers,

Alex.

[Terry B]

Yes but it might be a bit far to come to Armidale.

[mental4astro (Alexander)]

Originally Posted by Terry B

Yes but it might be a bit far to come to Armidale.

Oh you tease, Terry...

[GeoffW1 (Geoff)]

So.........how big is the lathe?

Cheers

[Barrykgerdes]

Hi Alex

You know where mine is

Barry

[sn1987a (Barry)]

I saw this baby one in Broken Hill!

[Steffen]

LOL, there is also a little Thomas Shanks & Co lathe, apparently unused, on Cockatoo Island

Cheers
Steffen.

[Stardrifter_WA]

Originally Posted by Steffen

LOL, there is also a little Thomas Shanks & Co lathe, apparently unused, on Cockatoo Island

Cheers
Steffen.

Just a hobby lathe then!

I am a 1st Class Machinist by trade, but haven't worked at it for quite a few years. I sure would love to have access to a decent lathe and milling machine. Have lots of projects in mind.

Cheers Peter

[Terry B]

Originally Posted by Steffen

LOL, there is also a little Thomas Shanks & Co lathe, apparently unused, on Cockatoo Island

Cheers
Steffen.

My father served his apprenticeship there and use to talk about the "little" lathe. Now I know what he was taking about.

[Suzy]

I have one plus a milling machine but I'm a bit too far away .
Looks like that green one in the pic but perhaps just a wee bit smaller. We had to get a crane to deliver them down the side of our house to the garage. That was a scary day.
I've learned not to sneak up on the hubby when he's using it.
Russ works with a lot of steel and I'm fed up of being jabbed by sharp shavings which often get accidentally transported into the house under shoes no like .
On the upside, he's made the odd thing for my telescopes, and I also call it the magic garage- things miraculously come out fixed or to order, free of charge.

[Barrykgerdes]

I love my lathe. It has got me out of a couple of problems when doing "minor" repairs to my car.

The first one was changing the brake pads on the car (too late). The discs were badly scored. They came off the wheel easy so I stuck them in the lathe. They ran true so I just gave them a light skim with a tipped tool and smoothed them with emery paper. Worked perfectly.

The second was much more complicated. My son broke an axle in the car. I got the new one OK but could not get the broken piece out of the diff. The diff. was part of the rear axle housing but could be accessed OK by removing the cover. The crown wheel assembly was easily removed to remove the broken piece but I decided to replace the bearings. There is no adjustment for the mesh except by spacers of varying thickness (made from cast iron). Unfortunately I dropped one and it broke.

Sunday afternoon! I need the car on Monday morning. What to do! A search through the scrap box produced a lump of steel. I miked the broken bits and made a new spacer on the lathe .

I reassembled the diff. and put the axles back in and did a road test. The whine that had been in the diff.(worn bearing) had gone and everything seemed OK. Three years later (80,000 miles) I traded the car in on a new one.

Barry

PS The car was a HG Holden 308 V8

[g__day (Matthew)]

I had a Aluminum plug with a stainless steel top plate made for me to mate my Atlux to the head of a 150mm tube of a home made pier. Took a machinist in Brookvale, NSW about 2 hours to do - cost me around $120. It was beautiful to watch and the final product made me stunned with how pleasing the piece looked. I'd go so far as calling it therapeutic watching the work (I came back to watch the last 15 minutes).

The machinist told me certain professional - doctors, barristers etc took up training courses with him because they found it just like me - a total break from what they do and incredibly satisfying!