I'm just curious to see would love to have these machines. What would you build. Would you make all kinds of cool parts for our flashlights. There are so many things that we could make. What are the costs associated with running these machines?
for flashlight use? i would want (and i do, lol) a small-ish lathe… i am constantly saving up, trying to get a small one from harbor freight, a small table top model. I know its not as good as a big one, but, i figure for soft metals and materials (flashlights, small tubes, etc) it would be fine.
my “mill” is a large older (heavy duty) drill press. I got a machinists vise (x-y table) on sale at harbor freight, and managed to get the thing running. Its not a “real milling” machine, but… i can make some very nice “facing cuts” on a cut-off aluminum tube… and make some nice flat milling on a piece of plate.
what i CANT do with the drill press milling setup? “side milling” is a no-go. Unlike on a large milling machine, where i can plunge in and rapidly cut a straight line? i get “sawtooth” sides, plus, its dangerous to try it on my drill press setup… the bearing is set to load up going up and down, not sideways like i am loading it up when i try to do that, so, i avoid it.
still? i AM amazed at what i CAN accomplish, and try to not concentrate on what i CANT do with it… if i need a flat sheet of aluminum cut into a square? I use a bit to drill over and over, moving down a line… then i can FILE the “saw teeth” off with remarkable precision if i work slow. With high speed and slow feed? i can “face off” the sheet flat enough it LOOKS like it came out of a “real” machine shop… and i can “polish” the remaining machining marks out perfectly. If i work slow and make good use of a flat edge to find the high spots? its remarkably good.
I just cant raise the table to a “spec”… i have to eyeball it.
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one good bit of prevailing wisdom, that i personally find good advice? get GOOD with…
1) drill press
2) large set of files, small and large
3) hand reamers
4) drilling and tapping
5) etc etc etc
BEFORE you get into a small lathe and mill… because working with metal, is working with metal… you will learn a LOT fooling around with other things before you get some machinery. if someone that doesnt know how to be comfortable around power tools and metal machinery (safe) suddenly buys a mill and a lathe and fires it up and starts having fun with it?? you are bound to break a lathe tool bit off, and send it into your shoulder or head… it still never fails to amaze me, how QUICKLY and with NO WARNING my drill press is just waiting to throw out a chunk of metal, and thru the wall over my shoulder…
you will quickly end up spending TWICE what you spend on the small lathe, in “tooling” and vices and jigs, etc etc… many times, for even a small simple seeming job? i spend a whole DAY thinking about HOW i am going to try to get it done, and how i am going to clamp it down, lol…
i like to “start” with one “flat side”… then, i can face off the other side flat… now, with two flat sides?? i can vise it up on the flats, and get the THIRD side flat… then flip it over… etc etc etc…
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it is amazing, though… what can be accomplished with just a set of files, a hacksaw, a drill press, a vice, etc etc… and it is very valuable to start that way… you learn a LOT about how to shape metal that way…
using a lathe and a mill… takes patience and a long, slow, learning curve… but?
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a small “harbor freight” or “grizzly” small table top lathe?? i think its kind of PERFECT for us fooling around with flashlights…
I am a machinist and have my own Lathe/Mill machine unit.
I have an old 10x20 Enco lathe. You wouldn’t want any smaller if you plan to make a head bigger than 70-80mm. Mine would be about perfect if only it could thread. It came out of a school and some of the feed gears are busted. A cheap round column mill was my second machine tool in the garage. They’re a good way to learn the basics of milling. My CNC mill is a good machine, but in need of some adjustments right now. Nothing feels like walking away and letting it cut for an hour while I go accomplish something else.
Whatever you get, expect to spend at least as much on tooling as you do on the machine unless you find someone selling the machine with a bunch of tooling included. I’ve probably spent more on tooling up the lathe than the $600 it cost me.
Thank you all for the tips and encouragement!
I’ve been thinking about one of the HF ones just to play with. I have no experience and I wouldn’t be doing a whole hell of a lot on it anyway. I just want to be able to make pills. What diameter stock can they handle? I just don’t have the space for a huge lathe, nor do I want to invest that type of money into something that I’d use infrequently.
Look at the through hole diameter of the spindle. It’s the difference between sawing bars into shorter blanks or just parting pieces off a long bar and putting the extra back on the shelf (I much prefer this)
Also, make sure it has a decent selection of metric threading pitches if you plan to make parts for lights. Assume you’ll have half the usable swing the machine is spec’d at unless you make special jaws or tooling.
Stick to aluminum and brass until you have a good feel for the machine. Be prepared to take lots of light cuts. Keep tool overhang and the amount of material sticking out of the chuck to a minimum, and stay away from tools with large nose radii, you won’t have the rigidity to take a deep enough cut to use them to good effect. Carbide or high speed steel bits both work fine as long as you use them at the appropriate times. Carbide is great for large diameters where you can get the SFM up high enough to take advantage of them. Use HSS or cobalt bits for small diameters, interrupted cuts, or large material provided you have a low enough spindle speed to stay in the recommended SFM range.
Harbor Freight lathes are known to be hit and miss. Have someone experienced with lathes come and check it out before the return period expires in case there is a problem. The larger machines they sell have a reputation for higher average quality.
There is a huge network of geeks, freaks, and garage machinists online, and an eye watering number of modifications people have made to their HF lathes. If you get a good copy it should keep you busy for years.
Just as stated....the tooling is what costs. In the long run the machine, no matter what it is - that is the cheap part of the equation. While learning you will destroy tooling which is also considered a consumable item. It takes a long time to learn to get the tooling to work in harmony with the material being worked on.
This is not to discourage you at all. Custom fabbing anything leads to custom fabbing all sorts of things. The ideas just start popping in your head. If you are willing to put the proper time in to learn (not just a 10 minute youtube video) it is always a worthwhile endeavor. :)
Oh, and accuracy is 10% machine, and 90% machinist. You’ll struggle to hold a reasonable tolerance for a while till you start to learn the quirks of your particular machine. I’m not a great or even particularly good machinist, but when I need to I can make my clapped out lathe hold .001” on most dimensions because I’ve learned how to compensate for its flaws. I used to struggle to hold .003” on a diameter and sometimes off way over .010” on a length, the longer the part the worse the length error. It takes a horrendous amount of time to hold that kind of tolerance on my machine compared to a good 14x40, but my machine was small and cheap. Two things that were a high priority when I bought it.
That’s how it works unless you plan to start with a $50k machine and a personal trainer.
I am curious as to what the lifting requirements are. Physically. I would be working of course with small parts, nothing large. I know some of the stock can get pretty heavy. But if you buy smaller cuts it should be manageable. I have a bad back is why I am asking. I'm looking at a career change at 50 years of age and love this kind of stuff. I should have been doing this kind of work since I was a kid. But went into a different direction. Plumbing..
And, you guys that have the machines, do you enjoy using them, creating stuff? I would be making all the parts that people need here. It would be so much fun I think. Could make some scratch too I would imagine.
Even a 3 foot bar of brass that’s 1.5” in diameter shouldn’t weigh more than about 20 lbs. Everything else is reasonably light except chucks, and I don’t even have a second one.
The weight depends on what you yourself want to work with. For little metal pieces you can go to surplus yards or metal suppliers and ask where they sell their "drops" (leftovers).
Let me just be blunt about question two.......Once you get the "chips" (shavings) embedded in your skin and your clothes and your hair....you're done. Life as you knew it is over. You will start walking up to things and picking things up to see how they were made...AND you will want to start making everything. 
There’s a HB near me where I saw their small lathe. It seemed to have a lot of play in the gearing of the tool rest, like 1/3 of a turn without movement. It means you can’t be sure of where it’s set.
With a little practice developing your skills to “learn” the machine you eventually get, you can master some great light build projects.
One of my favorite projects was this transformation of a Sipik SK68 to this silver specimen on the left in this photo. ( it was once a SK68 until worked on it in the lathe:
That’s called backlash, and will be present on pretty much any manual machine, new and used, mill or lathe. The amount is not as big a deal as you might think. Do all your cutting in one direction only and backlash never matters.
I do that when adjusting my thickness planer( always back it down and adjust up to correct thickness but it seemed excessively loose on the lathe.
using a lathe or mill? its a lot like PHOTOGRAPHY…
you look at something someone made… and you might really like it!
the photograph MIGHT have been taken by a very cheap camera, with of all things, a cheap (or even home made) lens!
if the photographer is good with composition, light, etc etc… and really knows what he is doing? it doesnt matter it was made on a 20 dollar old camera, with a home made lens, lol…
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my neighbor has a old “clapped out” lathe… its definitely an antique, lol…
but, he knows what he is doing with it… i watched him working? he explained how he can hold .001, maybe .002 or even .003 turning down a round to “SPEC” diameter… when he’s done? he left it a little extra, and he goes BACK and measures it along its length… and hits the high spots with a little bit of abrasive paper, LMAO… brings them all down to less than a .001 of tolerance, LMAO.
its all as much experience and ingenuity, as it is any particular “right way” of doing it.
like i said? its amazing watching someone who KNOWS what they are DOING, with nothing more than common hand tools, and files, and abrasive paper, LMAO…
theres a video somewhere on line? a guy is using a harbor freight 7x12 i think it was? anyways… its running slow on “feed” down the length of the piece… and its his final finishing pass… good lord, he is knocking off PIXIE DUST instead of “chips” or “curls” of metal… all on what was then a 500 dollar “tiny junk chinese machine”…
think of it like this… a GREAT guitarist? sounds pretty dang GOOD even when he picks up his neighbor’s kid’s 200 dollar “junk” guitar…. and a kid that can barely play guitar? sounds horrible on a 2000 dollar high end guitar…
same thing.
Gosh! You have a fantastic set-up/workshop there, DBSAR.
I’m mighty jealous J)
Another very important aspect is safety.
As Dr. Ruth Westheimer would say: always wear protection.
Safety glasses, especially when you’re not working with steel (that can be pulled out of you eye using an enormous magnet).
Safety shoes, you might drop something and work in progress usually has very sharp edges.
Don’t ever leave the chuck key in your machine, or use one that has a spring and has to be pushed in.