Workshop and machinery mods and tips,

600 for that mill? I’d be on that. When I was buying the lathe I asked about mills, the guy led me straight over that that machine.

If going with older better quality drills what brands should one look for?

I have an old German drill press and a Taiwanese one. Generally Taiwanese machinery is a lot better quality than Chinese. Saying that do some research on what your looking at.

Yea i have been looking on scum/Gumtree not much for sale or to expensive and i also checked Graysonline i am waiting for a shop to close and sell up.

Its either i buy on of these new i like that it has its own stand.

Or pay $300-400 for some thing like this? I am not sure on brands when it comes to industrial equipment.

This one appears to be Taiwanese company. They are good tool makers even Snapon had moved some production to Taiwan i have used Tengtools they are made there.

If i could score a mill for that price i would be all over it lol!

Could i get any practical use out of an old Lathe? I would love to restore one. These are both out of Sydney but my partners parents live a few suburbs away from Wyee towards Newcastle and the Hawkesbury on the way there. Wonder how they would feel if i left a Lathe at there place hahaha.
I would love an Aussie made Lathe if i could get one really cheap and restore it just for show that would be okay.

the round colum mill drills have a couple of issues with losing set up if you raise the head to change tools
and also can drift a bit under load.i think there is a 28 a 30 and 32.all very similar.
keep your eyes open after xmas…

My new toy is absorbing my time lately :smiling_imp: Google seems to be making it harder to share pics but I think I got it working….

The other day I did some parting off and got this coil, may not be interesting to you guys but I got a kick out of it since I never achieved anything like this with the old lathe

This next series of pics may interest you though. I have a bit of gear that I never got around to fitting to the old lathe. This one is a 400w spindle. I did some test cuts with different cutting bits but that’s as far as I’ve gone. It still needs tweaking and for me to learn about it before I’m game enough to mount a torch in the chuck.

Nice pp, Did you make the clamp, and drill and tap the cross slide?

I didn’t make the clamp. The spindle and clamp are from those cheap chinese bench cnc routers.

I did drill and tap the compound slide though :smiley:

Still, looks good. :slight_smile:

I was lucky enough to receive this 7/16” arbor and slitting saw set from kiriba-ru
He is still working out pricing so contact him if you are interested.

it is simple enough design and spins nice and true in the machine

I tried a few cutting depths and speeds and seemed happiest around 400 rpm and 1mm
depth in aluminum, I used venom cutting oil to help a little

then I had a try with a piece of mild steel dropped the revs to around 200
and took cuts of around .5mm seemed to chatter a little but did the job
I think slow and steady for steel work, no apparent damage to the teeth
the saw I was using was 3mm width the thickest from the set
I imagine you would need to be very gentle with the thinner discs

Thanks for the review ltp. These would be good for doing fins that do not go all the way around. You’d need a rotary table though.

I wasn’t entirely happy with the spindle setup I did a couple of posts above as I could not swing the cross slide 90 degrees to face the chuck. It took a bit of head scratching but I came up with a method of mounting it to face the chuck. Them main problem was the base of the spindle motor was near flush with the top of the cross slide. I also thought if I mounted it on a quick change tool holder it could possibly have added flex. I’m pretty happy with the result. Of course, if I had space for a mill I probably wouldn’t be going through all this :person_facepalming:

In this last pic I could’ve made that groove with a regular lathe bit but wasn’t thinking at the time. What I ‘can’ do now is make that groove in segments.

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Of course, to successfully use this now I need a radial indicator and chuck stop :person_facepalming:

It never ends pp. :slight_smile: What are you using to index the chuck at the moment?

…eerrm… nothing :blush: Hence I haven’t really been using the spindle. I’ve got plans for it though…. :sunglasses:

:slight_smile: I’ve used calibrated texta marks for years.

What did you calibrate it with ? :laughing: Eyes…? …and how did you calculate…with the universal whiskey units - fingers? :laughing: :smiley:

Of course, I could accurately split a diameter into thirds because of the chuck jaws but anything else would be measuring marking and holding it in position with my hand :disguised_face:

One way you could put degrees on the spindle would be to print out a degree wheel, cut a hole in it the size of the spindle and away you go. :slight_smile:

I used this. https://www.ebay.com/itm/Mr-Gasket-1570-Cam-Degree-Wheel-Universal-7-Inch-/263692855400
I already had it laying around from back in my hot rod days.

nice one pp,
you could try a dressmaking tape and a calculator

Yeh, I put an index wheel combined chuck stop back in post #78 on my previous lathe. I kinda liked how simple and easy that was.

Thanks for the link moderator007. I’m wondering if the smaller increments might be useful in the future….? If it were useful I think I might go with a wheel that has 360 instead of 2* 180

e.g.

This rudimentary device I cant take credit for but is very handy for trueing thin parts in the lathe
I think the thicker the shaft the better

simply clamp part gently in chuck and move the bearing in till it rotates continuously
stop the lathe and tighten chuck completely.