Lathe

From Fozzee.net

In 2009, I acquired a Harbor Freight 7x10 mini-lathe. Google would have me know that the useful dimensions are more like 7x8, but I think that assumes that the chuck remains in place... Other versions of the 7x exist, including a 12" and 14" variety (which are actually 12 and 14 inches, respectively, relative to my 8). My particular lathe was owned by a guy who was cleaning out his father's basement after his death. I called, stopped by twice and ended up buying the lathe itself, and a pretty fair pile of carbide tooling for $220.

Initially, the lathe was purchased for a project building RC car parts for Seth. Since then, it seems to get used for a little bit of everything, from making adapters and drilling holes to fixing electric motors and fabricating windshield washer reservoir caps. So far, I haven't made a ton of modifications to the lathe itself, with the exception of lapping the bottom of the toolpost slightly. I do, however, want to do the cam-lock tailstock modification, and get a quick-change toolpost.

It is true what they say about machining (as a hobby), in that the machines are cheap, and its the tooling that costs a fortune. I haven't had to buy much in the way of cutting tools, though I did have to purchase a tailstock drill chuck (for some reason, the previous owner didn't seem to have one... The son was trying to include tooling as appropriate with each of a few machines he was liquidating) and some center drills. Since the lathe was my first forray into machining, (with the mill being built thereafter), I've also had to invest in some (not directly lathe related) measuring tools including a better pair of calipers and a [digital] dial indicator. I've also discovered how woefully crappy most of my drill bits are, though I haven't replaced those yet.

MT2 Drill Chuck

The MT2 Tailstock drill chuck I acquired actually had to be tweaked a bit, even though it was "meant" for this particular lathe. The taper was a bit too long, and cost an extra half-inch of tailstock ram travel. At Uncle Scott's advice (he's a professional machinist, and sorta like my machining guru), I mounted the (drill) chuck in the lathe chuck, and put the dead center to the back of the taper. Lacking a real parting tool (I'm holding out for a QCTP first), I turned the end down progressively until I could break it off. I then faced the end of the taper smooth again.