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Category Archives: lathe
Take a Mini Lathe for a Spin
[This Old Tony] is no stranger to quality tools, but he started on a mini lathe. Nostalgia does not stop him from broadcasting his usual brand of snark (actually, it is doubtful that anything short of YouTube going offline will stop that). He rates the lathe’s ability to machine different materials and lets you decide if this is an investment, or a money pit.
Lathe parts range from a chintzy start/stop button assembly that looks like it would be at home on a Power Wheels restoration project to a convenient cam locking mechanism on the tail stock which is an …read more
Posted in belt driven machines, lathe, mini lathe, review, tool, tool hacks
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Preparing For A Lathe: How to Move 3000 Pounds of Iron
You say to yourself, “Self, I want, nay, need a lathe”. Being a good little trooper, you then did all your research, having chosen Import or American, Imperial or Metric, and all your feed options and such. You then pulled the trigger and the machine is en route to your shop. Now what?
Choosing a Spot for a Serious Tool
First and foremost, you need to figure out where to put it. Sure, you probably should have done that before you bought it, and maybe a pulling a tape measure would have been a good idea. Never let pesky details …read more
Posted in how to move heavy equipment, Interest, lathe, machine tools, tool hacks, winch
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Mini Lathe Makes Tiny Hydraulic Cylinders for RC Snow Plow
You can get pretty much any part you need online these days, but some specialty parts are a little hard to come by. So if your needs are esoteric, like tiny hydraulic cylinders for RC snow plows, you might just have to roll your own.
To be honest, we never really knew that realistic working hydraulics on such a small scale were a thing, but [tintek33]’s video below opened our eyes to a new world of miniature mechanicals. You’d think a linear actuator would be a fine stand-in for the hydraulic ram on a tiny snow plow for an RC …read more
Posted in hydraulic, lathe, machining, misc hacks, rc, snow plow, turning
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Vintage Logan Lathe Gets 3D Printed Gears
In December 2016, [Bruno M.] was lucky enough to score a 70+ year old Logan 825 lathe for free from Craigslist. But as you might expect for a piece of machinery older than 95% of the people reading this page, it wasn’t in the best of condition. He’s made plenty of progress so far, and recently started tackling some broken gears in the machine’s transmission. There’s only one problem: the broken gears have a retail price of about $80 USD each. Ouch.
On his blog, [Bruno] documents his attempts at replacing these expensive gears with 3D printed versions, which so …read more
Posted in lathe, Logan 825, parts, repair, repair hacks
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Star Chart Watch is a Romantic Tragedy
It’s becoming abundantly clear that [Colin Merkel] doesn’t know the definition of “good enough”. Not only has he recently completed his third (and most impressive) wristwatch build, but he also managed to put together one of the most ridiculously romantic gifts ever conceived. While some of us are giving our significant others a gift card to Starbucks, he made his girlfriend a watch with a chart on the face representing the position of the stars at the time and place of their first meeting.
As per his usual style, the documentation on this build is phenomenal. If paging through his …read more
Posted in lathe, metal working, PyEphem, star chart, watch, wearable hacks
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Fighting Machine Tool Chatter with a 555 Timer
Vibration is a fact of life in almost every machining operation. Whether you’re milling, drilling, turning, or grinding, vibration can result in chatter that can ruin a part. Fighting chatter has generally been a matter of adding more mass to the machine, but if you’re clever about things, chatter reduction can be accomplished electronically, too. (YouTube, embedded below.)
When you know a little something about resonance, machine vibration and chatter start to make sense. [AvE] spends quite a bit of time explaining and demonstrating resonance in the video — fair warning about his usual salty shop language. His goal with …read more
Posted in lathe, milling machine, resonance, tool hacks, variable frequency drive, vfd, vibration
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Engineering and Artistry Meet an Untimely End at Burning Man
Burning Man is so many different things to so many people, that it defies neat description. For those who attend, it always seems to be a life-changing experience, for good or for ill. The story of one man’s Burning Man exhibition is a lesson in true craftsmanship and mind-boggling engineering, as well as how some events can bring out the worst in people.
For [Malcolm Tibbets], aka [the tahoeturner], Burning Man 2017 was a new experience. Having visited last year’s desert saturnalia to see his son [Andy]’s exhibition, the studio artist decided to undertake a massive display in his medium …read more
Posted in kinetic, lathe, misc hacks, redwood, sculpture, segmented wood turning, steel, wood
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