What was the last thing you made?

[Nitro]

 

[Nitro]

The workholding chuck on this old dinosaur is 20 inches in diameter (508mm)

 

[Captain Jigglypuff]

Some tuna salad made with spinach, tomatoes, shredded mozzarella, and plain Greek yogurt for lunch. I think it should make a nice tuna melt.

 

[AprilR]

A fool of myself

 

[maycontainthunder]

Here is a capture of the drive spindle being reloaded into the bearing saddles on the old Monarch:
View attachment 78970
Heavy and dirty work to put it in proper order, but now restored to operating condition again.
I really enjoy keeping these old girls alive and then getting to actively demonstrate what were considered modern equipment a century ago.

View attachment 78971
No gear guards installed yet because it was still on a 3 hour shakedown run.
I have since reinstalled them and it is good to go

You can always tell a big lathe from fifty feet away... they have a central support under the bed. Mine's a baby compared to yours Nitro; gap bed 6.5" centre height by 30" between centres. It was made in the 70s.

 

[Nitro]

You can always tell a big lathe from fifty feet away... they have a central support under the bed. Mine's a baby compared to yours Nitro; gap bed 6.5" centre height by 30" between centres. It was made in the 70s.

I have an 11x36 in. 1952 Logan 922 in my home equipped with a DRO and a three phase motor running off an inverter box.
Rock solid and still fairly accurate.
There is a South Bend 10K in the same room that is fully cleaned and refinished yet still in pieces.
There is a .0002" resolution glass scale DRO sitting in the wings for it too.
I won't assemble it until I get it's floorspace built.
I also have that beautiful 1957 Atlas 618 sleeping under her blanket so she doesn't get dust on her too

Then there is the Grizzly 7x14 I got in a horsetrade that I won't sell to anyone I know because even brand new, it was junk

 

[Darkkin]

Frozen pizza. Beyond basic food I cannot, in the most profound sense of the word, make anything. I have a severe arts and crafts impairment.

 

[Metalhead]

Virgin margaritas.

I like the sweet lime flavor. Sue me.

 

[Catherine Read]

These pendants then this picture...

 

[Captain Jigglypuff]

This salsa chicken crock pot recipe. I think it could use some more flavor but it could also be my nose being congested from a bad nosebleed that made my sense of taste more dull than usual. It’s still good and versatile enough for me to use it in other things than just what the recipe recommended.

 

[Forest Cat]

I didn't make something, unless we say I made a problem go away. And I have tip, this stuff called JB waterweld is better than sliced bread. And as useful as duct tape.

If you need to plug a hole or fix a waterleak, or any type of leak, or you just need a clay-like substance you can easily shape as you want that turns rock solid, this waterweld stuff is perfect. It can handle high pressure, water, oil, diesel, chemicals, all sorts of things and it turns hard as stone after a little while. So useful.

 

[Nitro]

Riding mower anti-scalp roller.
The drive belt on my favorite mower decided that it no longer wanted to be friends with the machine, so it took a hike.
In order to replace it, it required removing the cutting deck from the machine.
While it was off, I decided to refurbish the roller assembly because it was extremely worn.
Easy enough, grab some high density polyethylene slugs that were drops from making pulley lightening holes on a CNC router and get busy on one of my lathes.

The red arrow indicates the aluminum rollers made to reduce wear on the plastic ones.
The yellow arrow highlights the HDPE that were purposely machined an eighth of an inch smaller to decrease their wear on hard surfaces.

Extreme wear on the support shaft
This shaft was replaced with a new one made out of 5/8" barstock

Roller bore extremely worn.

New shaft fitted with new rollers and spacers.

 

[Nitro]

After some welding and an improved lift arm bushing was installed, it was time for final assembly.

Back in service with an improved design with a very substantial cost saving

 

[maycontainthunder]

After some welding and an improved lift arm bushing was installed, it was time for final assembly.
View attachment 80657
View attachment 80658


View attachment 80659

Back in service with an improved design with a very substantial cost saving

Six jaw chucks are a bit posh! The one I have (a 5" Pratt-Burnerd Griptru) is not suitable for general turning, they are adjustable accuracy for repetition production work.

Your chuck is a little on the small side for the workpiece. Used to get asked for replacement jaws because the teeth had been broken from trying to hold something that was too big. When I was machining 3" square aluminium (making bearing blocks) in a 160mm chuck I stopped, too much stress on the jaws. Quality 4 jaw self centring chucks are really hard to come by secondhand. In this trade you know who to ask... a week later I was the owner of a 200mm Rohm German made 4 jaw self centring chuck. Too big for the lathe really but I kept the speed low and did the job including boring them out by running the lathe in reverse with a left hand boring bar.

 

[Nitro]

No biggie on the fixturing.
HDPE has about the same density as hand soap, so it really didn't concern me.
That is a 6" Buck with an adjustru back on it.
In essence, it gives you the added grip of three more jaws with the truing capability of a 4 jaw independent unit.

 

[maycontainthunder]

No biggie on the fixturing.
HDPE has about the same density as hand soap, so it really didn't concern me.
That is a 6" Buck with an adjustru back on it.
In essence, it gives you the added grip of three more jaws with the truing capability of a 4 jaw independent unit.

Sorry, I'm just a little OCD on not breaking things. Many of my tools took a long time to find because I will only buy quality items. Some things I get a bit nervous about using because I have little to no chance of replacing them.

 

[Nitro]

Sorry, I'm just a little OCD on not breaking things. Many of my tools took a long time to find because I will only buy quality items. Some things I get a bit nervous about using because I have little to no chance of replacing them.

That chuck was shop-clobbered by a few morons when I got it.
I used a Dumore toolpost grinder to first true the chuck mount face to the spindle, then OD ground the body after indicating it to the spindle center.
A cup wheel was then used to kiss the face.
The holes bored on the faces enabled me to properly load the jaws on a machined ring in order to re-true them.
They were ID ground first, then face ground then the OD of the jaws were then trued to the center.
In all, I likely had over 8 hours in the repair to end up with a high end chuck brought back to life again on the cheap.

 

[maycontainthunder]

That chuck was shop-clobbered by a few morons when I got it.
I used a Dumore toolpost grinder to first true the chuck mount face to the spindle, then OD ground the body after indicating it to the spindle center.
A cup wheel was then used to kiss the face.
The holes bored on the faces enabled me to properly load the jaws on a machined ring in order to re-true them.
They were ID ground first, then face ground then the OD of the jaws were then trued to the center.
In all, I likely had over 8 hours in the repair to end up with a high end chuck brought back to life again on the cheap.

Beyond my skill range to do that!

I look for the shiny items that have hardly been used... in the early stages of tooling up Dad came in "Where have all my new Jacobs chucks gone?" cue me whistling innocently! I have been guilty of raiding his stock boxes multiple times for shiny things.

Mr Naughty here got Dad to buy quite a few lathes... I raided them for things I wanted (rare accessories for a start) and he sold them on at a profit.

 

[Nitro]

I bought one of these and consider it an extremely valuable tool to use on a lathe:
https://www.autismforums.com/media/center-height-level.14088/
The level itself can be calibrated to a box way on the machine so an exacting level on the machine isn't necessary after centering up the bubble.
The arbor provided for it can be chucked or held in a collet.
The spindle can be rotated to find the high and low points then turned 90 degrees to achieve a center.
From there, all that is necessary is dropping the index area of the level on the cutting tool front.
From there, using any kind of toolpost, the tool height can be set exactly on center.
I use an Aloris style quick system and have about 30 tool blocks, so most of my tungsten carbide insert type tools are in dedicated holders that are locked in place.
https://www.autismforums.com/media/cutting-tool-centering-device.11601/
My DROs have the capability of storing 250 individual tool settings, so using that system with it has it's advantages.
https://www.autismforums.com/media/centering-tool-and-spindle-mandrel.11600/
https://www.autismforums.com/media/decent-quality-adjustable-bubble-level.11599/
Edge Technology
Edge Technology tools are available on Ebay to boot

 

[maycontainthunder]

I bought one of these and consider it an extremely valuable tool to use on a lathe:
https://www.autismforums.com/media/center-height-level.14088/
The level itself can be calibrated to a box way on the machine so an exacting level on the machine isn't necessary after centering up the bubble.
The arbor provided for it can be chucked or held in a collet.
The spindle can be rotated to find the high and low points then turned 90 degrees to achieve a center.
From there, all that is necessary is dropping the index area of the level on the cutting tool front.
From there, using any kind of toolpost, the tool height can be set exactly on center.
I use an Aloris style quick system and have about 30 tool blocks, so most of my tungsten carbide insert type tools are in dedicated holders that are locked in place.
https://www.autismforums.com/media/cutting-tool-centering-device.11601/
My DROs have the capability of storing 250 individual tool settings, so using that system with it has it's advantages.
https://www.autismforums.com/media/centering-tool-and-spindle-mandrel.11600/
https://www.autismforums.com/media/decent-quality-adjustable-bubble-level.11599/
Edge Technology
Edge Technology tools are available on Ebay to boot

I do centre height the old way, with a dead centre and by eye. I get a good finish on aluminium but steel is rough. I think I may have the wrong tips but I'll sort it. My holders are a mixture of original Swiss Multifix type A along with some East German and German copies. Not sure how many holders I have but around 25. Here in the UK most lathes have a Dickson or copy of toolpost. Good by not anywhere near as rigid as Multifix which are toolroom grade. I have had a Dickson flex in use; it was done up tight.

Overall I prefer Multifix because you know just going by the numbers what it is. So for example a holder is stamped AD2075. A=type A. D=standard turning holder. 20=max tool height. 75=length of holder. Easy!

No DRO on my lathe. Yet to find one that doesn't block use of the cross slide feed stop (used almost constantly for repetition work) or obstruct other accessories that I might use.

Thanks for the link to Edge, some interesting things there.