High precision homemade mini lathe.

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0101silent
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High precision homemade mini lathe.

Post by 0101silent »

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sFrVdoOhu1Q
With all the work needed to make a new Chinese or 70 year old American lathe accurate and reliable why not start from scratch? Why you're building a new lathe why not use new ideas and new materials?
alordnapa
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Re: High precision homemade mini lathe.

Post by alordnapa »

Legend has it that he made this entire machine with nothing more than two sharp files and a micrometer, just like all the old machinists I have ever met have claimed to do...
0101silent
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Re: High precision homemade mini lathe.

Post by 0101silent »

Being a machinist is also being an inventor. Every idea isn't original, but adapting those ideas to your machine and adapting your machine to your ideas is often original.

A lot can be done with a just set of files... 1911's https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pq1TXEE_QK4
Historian
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Re: High precision homemade mini lathe.

Post by Historian »

bwp777 wrote: Thu Feb 27, 2020 8:06 am its amazing what can be produced in a garage. machinist are some of the smartest people I know. im not one of those people
I second your astute observation!

In the early 1960's, using only large WW2 American Iron,
the Institute machinists turned out parts that rival what present day
numerically controlled beasts now do. They were the group
that implemented with ME department the first software
that ran a milling machine that carved a hyperbolic surface
,punched in by some sneaky math weenie, in an aluminum ashtray.


One 1960 classifeid project the machinist's native genius was shown.
Starting with a 2.5' plastic cube he had to machine a perfect dome
to protect at very high altitude an automatic 4x5 filming camera
which was to be set in the belly
a highly classified plane for photographing
over unspecified Asian launch sites.

It took the lead machinist 4 days, 12 hours a day, to set up, machine
inner sphere, match with outer sphere, hand polish for days ( final
polishing with tooth paste like present day UltraBrite), fit
metal ring/locks. etc. Just a high school education.

Said freshman brought to final celebration party
a bottle of their favorite beverage ... Schenley O.F.C. ..." ... Only For Catholics" :) :)


Group managed by a curmudgeonly crusty Boston Irish manager, who started
out of Dorchester MA high school in WW1 at 18 in Europe
machining plane, weapons, etc., parts for Pershing's Army,

To a freshman student 'sweep' earning cash after classes for tuition: "A lathe
is a machine that can make itself! It has no feelings. It will tear your
limbs off, drag your loose clothing into its jaws, with no emotion.
With a set of files and this lathe a machinist can make anything!"


My admiration, respect, and appreciation for them and all machinists still stands to this day.
Historian
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Re: High precision homemade mini lathe.

Post by Historian »

Addendum: Student learned something else in that machine shop that
no previous nor later degrees could ever rival:

Epithets at the lathes, parts, engineers, broken tools, etc.,that were eye opening,
pungent, and surpassed only by drunken Russian officers who could
string a non-repeating stream of 'colorful-copulatory-descriptors' for 15 minutes straight.
Inter, Intra, Cross,species,devices, animate and inanimate objects. :) :)

Some here I believe know what I speak of.
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