Yeah, its a lot of fun. Probably the most useful tool I've bought yet. Aside from making "junk", I've also turned down a pair of rotors for the Olds. They just cleared the bed "by a hair"

I see shaping pistons, boring rod ends, bearings, making tools, etc in my future.

There are several things I intend to use the CNC plasma cutter thing for down the road. Things I've made by hand the hard way:

Turbo Flanges: http://frederic.midimonkey.com/f350/IM001343.JPG

Header Plates: http://frederic.midimonkey.com/f350/IM001344.JPG

Exhaust parts: http://frederic.midimonkey.com/f350/IM001313.JPG

Intake parts: http://frederic.midimonkey.com/f350/plenum-001.gif (most of these I hacked out on a chop saw believe it or not, then bored with a hole saw. talk about doing it the hard way!).

Recording stuff: http://frederic.midimonkey.com/studio/IM000837.JPG

Studio Wiring stuff: http://frederic.midimonkey.com/studio/IM001399.JPG

I purchased the lathe primarily for automotive reasons, but I've designed a child-sized model train for my son and if I got started towards the end of this summer, it would be complete by the time he's five or six. Also, the lathe allows me to make larger pneumatic cylinders out of black pipe - bore down the welded seam on the inside, make a nice finish, and I have a cheap/cheesy pneumatic cylinder casing. Making pistons is easy too, and if I have a nice crosshatch pattern on the inside of the casing, o-rings might have a chance of surviving without being torn to shreds.

Aaah, so many projects, so little time.

 

I can understand doing it the hard way, I made an entire intake for an old 1600cc VW engine for a 2V carb the hard way with a cutting torch, hammer, files, and crude tube bending tools 28 years ago. It worked so very much better than the store bought units. At the time I made it I didn't even know I could purchase one.

It is good the other half lets you buy tools. My wife screams bloody murder if I buy them and would not talk to me for several weeks after I purchased the lathe. She still yells about it every few weeks... The tools in my shop have saved and made me enough money over the years to pay for themselves many times over but she has no concept of that fact. She did finally break down this winter and thanked me for making our heating system so efficient that our bills were about half of those around us.

 

For the money women spend on getting their hair dyed and twisted you could purchase lathe bits, a reamer or two, tools you'll have for years vs her gray hair she'll have again next month and complain about it.
The general question repeated many times over the years at my house from the "WAR DEPARTMENT", "why do you need another tool, is it neccessary?"

.....=o&o>.....

 

I get exactly the same thing. I always prefer to go out and buy the right tool for the job to save on hiring someone to do it for me. I always explain that i can use the tool again and again so its saving money in the long run...

 

Most of the time I've found that after buying tooling, materials at least once, I'm not saving much money, but I enjoy making stuff so it works out and I collect tools this way. My wife knows that any and all projects will have at least a small tool budget. Bigger tools, like the lathe, came out of leftover funds from building my recording studio, which amazingly enough was under budget, and funded seperately through selling items on ebay for the most part.

She does, and she doesn't. The lathe didn't "ding" the house funds at all, even though I'm unemployed, so there was nothing to be said. If I purchased it on the Amex card, that would have been a different story, and rightfully so.

Not my wife. I married a scottish woman - they are hardy and frugal to the max!

 

I am so damn jealous. I would love to add a lathe and a vertical mill to my corner of the world. The financial resources board though sees it differently.


You guys do know of Lindsay Books? http://www.lindsaybks.com/

They offer tons of lathe books, and even some books on machine construction.

I have several books from Lindsay's. And all of them have been excellent. Every project I have tried worked, or would have if there hadn't been operator error.

I did price out the steel needed for one authors lathe project. It was a 12" swing, with a 30" bed lathe. The steel needed to make it, would have cost me almost the same amount as buying a new 7" x 12" lathe from a cheap-o tool dealer.

 

I know you're doing all this on a tight budget, and I admire that, but did you know you can buy lengths of acme threaded rod pretty reasonable? I've built a number of automatic carving machines for guitar makers, and I use linear bearings (like you made), acme threaded rod, and ballscrews. You can buy all this stuff at McMaster Carr. If you've never seen their catalog, go to their website (www.mcmaster.com). I actually dream up ideas and mechanisms and ideas just from perusing their massive catalog. And, unlike some industrial suppliers, they will sell to anybody- you don't have to be a business. And whowey is right about Lindsay books- great for the DIY on a budget, with a sense of adventure. BTW frederic- if you ever have any detailed machining type questions, feel free to PM me. I have been a toolmaker and moldmaker for 30+ years, and I still love doing the hobby stuff. I've built several running gas engines, including one of my own design, and I get a kick out of interesting projects. I've even made components for Olympic bobsleds! FWIW, my wife never questions new tools. Since I do all the home improvement/repairs/car stuff at home (and I'm good at it), she's fine with whatever I 'need'.

 

I would like pictures of your gas engines as that is my intrest.
20cc single and 40cc twin 4 strokes. I got you beat by 7 months, older but not smarter.

.....=o&o>.....

 

My engines are on the opposite end of the spectrum- old-timey flywheel engines, as crude as can be, popping along at 600 rpm or so. I have a couple full size 'flywheelers', too, but they're too much trouble to drag out and get going.

 

About 7 years ago dad and I rebuilt a 16 HP Hicks for his friends boat, resleeved, bearings, rings thru Gas Engine Magazine and paint. Damn thing runs great in a Montrey fishing boat.
I have a International Harvester Tom Thumb 1 1/2 HP air cooled H&M and a Fairbanks Morse 3 HP Z throttle governed besides model airplane spark ignition motors and a couple Maytag singles.
The queen is a Morton M-5 complete with 3 blade aluminum prop.
In the mix is a 45ci (750cc) two stroke twin drone engine (got to hear it run) made by Mercury Outboard dated 1946 USN.
I sold (stupid me) a Gannet 15cc 4 stroke marine motor with magneto.
A 5 HP FM model N would be nice in the garage.

.....=o&o>.....

 

Progress has been very slow, but at least there is progress.

I have both Y axis rail supports welded, both Y rails drilled, and two slides installed.

http://frederic.midimonkey.com/cnc2/IM001796.JPG

Getting things square was a bit of a hassle, but I finally got it within .01" using a metal rod, and a depth gauge. I machined the ends of the dowel so they were flat, and used a miter clamp to attach it to one of the rails, then used the depth gauge to make up the difference between the end of the rod and the other side's rail, and adjusted position until the depth gauge displayed the same value at both ends of the rail. Then clamped, remeasured a few more times, then welded the supports down to the chassis.

Reassembled the chassis parts (rails and saddles), built a cross-piece to go across the span of the two saddles, installed the X axis rails, then slid the thing forward and back and it's as smooth as can be. Very little play which I can measure, but not feel with my hands. And it's square

Today if I don't pass out from the humidity, I'll be making the second "Y" saddle and the cross pieces between the new one and the one I made a few days ago.

Yanno, this is actually a lot of fun.

Over the past few days, I've won several ebay auctions that will satisfy my need to be frugal, and picked up a MT2 live center, a MT2 5/8" drill chuck, a pair of BXA tool holders for the aloris tool holder on my lathe's saddle, a machinist's handbook from the late 50's for a few dollars, and a few other minimally priced items.

A friend of mine *gave* me a plasma machine torch for this project. While used it's in great condition, it only needs to have the inner cup replaced as it's been arc'd to death. The rest of the torch is in almost new shape. The difference between a machine torch and a manual torch is the manual torch is shaped like a gun, and has a switch on it, whereas the machine torch is shaped like a fat pencil - for mounting on a machine with simple round clamps. It's slightly undersized for the maximum capability of my Miller plasma cutter, but I'm not going to be cutting 7/8" steel on my cnc machine so I'm not worried about it. I'll just not set the machine to "full blast" and the torch will survive just fine.

I have some more pictures than the one above, I'll post those later once I get them out of the camera. I left it in the garage last night as I stopped working on this around 2am and I was getting ready to fall forward face first into my lathe

FLGargoyle - thank you for the tip... I'm going to be ordering the timing belts/pulleys from McMaster... I didnt' buy the leadscrews from them only because I've already threaded some steel rods, and managed to get a nut over them. Though I'm partial to professionally made, near-perfect leadscrews by acme and probably will replace what I've done down the road.

And yes, I'm trying to be as frugal as possible. Not working stinks!

 

http://frederic.midimonkey.com/cnc2/IM001799.JPG
http://frederic.midimonkey.com/cnc2/IM001800.JPG
http://frederic.midimonkey.com/cnc2/IM001801.JPG
http://frederic.midimonkey.com/cnc2/IM001802.JPG

Y axis is complete, though I forgot to take a picture of the final assembly. I'll do that today before I start finishing up the X axis.

 

Great Pictures!

 

Starting to look like something other than a pile of oddly threaded things, huh?

 

I am used to machines looking like a pile of assorted junk b4 they take final form.

It has always been amazing that precision can come from a bunch of hardware store parts assembled with care and intelligence.