Weekend workshop upgrade

posted Sep 23rd 2006 10:39am by Will O'Brien
filed under: misc hacks

I finally managed to pick up the 7×10 mini-lathe (on sale!) I mentioned in the diy dive light post. Seriously, there are more mods for this thing than a DS. There’s a great introduction to this handy tool over at mini-lathe.com. I’ve been looking over the mods for a while to build up my buying furvor. Bill exploited the cycle of florescent lighting to make a simple tachometer. Dave streched his (Now there’s a kit for this from the little machine shop.) I’m thinking that I’ll whip up a pic/LED tachometer for my first mod.

Comments [16]

Reader Comments

pssst im first, ha

Posted at 10:59 pm on Sep 23rd, 2006 by greg

first post?

Posted at 11:48 pm on Sep 23rd, 2006 by voyager1713

will, if you’ve used the lathe at all – even simply for practice or screwing around – how well does it work? is it worth the money? sturdy enough? decent power, etc?

Posted at 12:30 am on Sep 24th, 2006 by steve

Nice new lathe there! I’ve been tempted to get one of these but I just can’t think of anything I’d actually get around to using it for. (Though I am going to need some new speaker stands soon… hmmm… $400 tool + $50 in materials = one confused girlfriend… I might have to take the risk though!) I think I need a mini-mill more.

Tell us how it works out!

Posted at 1:59 am on Sep 24th, 2006 by blip

i recently got a different HF device (44142-3vga) -one of the things they may have in common is that the grizzly manual for a very similar device may be far superior than the HF one, http://www.grizzly.com/products/G8688
and there is a very active yahoo group

Posted at 2:13 am on Sep 24th, 2006 by knuckleberger

The hf mill and lathe are amazingly good (for the price.) I just bought the mini mill and if you have an entertainment book lying around (they’re pretty easy to come by) it had a 20% off one item at Harbor freight coupon that saved me a bit on the mill at ~$450 dollars. Theres alot of sites such as thelittlemachineshop mentioned that give pointers on gettnig the best out of these machines and doing mods. The Grizzly model pretty much is this one just different branding there all the X-2 mill from china I believe.

Posted at 3:17 am on Sep 24th, 2006 by Eric

I really could have used this when i was building my wheeled ROV!

Cool stuff to be sure!

(blanket party at first post’s house)

Posted at 1:35 pm on Sep 24th, 2006 by strider_mt2k

hey, all the “read” links for every article over one month old have disappeared….

Posted at 5:59 pm on Sep 24th, 2006 by pretorious

Funny, I work for the company that buys stock from hf in Canada. If fact, it’s one of the reasons they won’t ship to Canada. If your a Canadian DIY’er, you can find some interesting buys (Try the “Surplus” section). Enough plugging for Princess Auto. (BTW, that same mini lathe here is about 800$ CDN regularly, though it was on sale recently)

Posted at 11:36 pm on Sep 24th, 2006 by rogue

“You can construct a weapon. Look around, can you form some sort of rudimentary lathe?”

Posted at 10:14 am on Sep 25th, 2006 by dan

STOP! Return the lathe before you use it, and get the 8×12 model (http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=44859) The 8×12 costs about the same, but is a MUCH better lathe. The 8×12 is considerably more rigid (and heavier), and is much more heavy duty than the toy 7×12. You might think the only difference is 1′ of swing, but that’s just the beginning. Check out http://www.fignoggle.com/machines/8×12lathe/firstlook.htm

If you ever plan to add CNC to the lathe, the 8×12 is much more suitable than the 7×12

-Brian

P.S. I bought my 8×12 from HF

Posted at 4:43 pm on Sep 25th, 2006 by Brian

I considered the 8×12, I really did.
But, The electronic speed control and weight meant I went for the 7×10.

I’m avoiding the really heavy gear until I own my workspace.

Posted at 6:38 pm on Sep 25th, 2006 by will o'brien

Buy some spare fuses. Especially if you’re working with brass. The fuse will protect the lathe (and you, to some extent) but it’s really annoying to be in the middle of a project without the right fuse…

Posted at 8:58 pm on Sep 25th, 2006 by bEN JACKSON

cool

Posted at 10:37 am on Sep 26th, 2006 by teefa

as if.. princess auto thats where my electrical teacher did all his start of skool shopping.. good old PA.. j/k we didnt call it that

anyways..

Posted at 1:50 pm on Sep 26th, 2006 by g0d

for those anal types and those of us in a profession that require precision (instrument manufacturing), the Micromark lathe has standard screws instead of all the other china models that are metric and require ugly conversions on the dials.

http://www.ares-server.com/Ares/Ares.asp?MerchantID=RET01229&Action=Catalog&Type=Product&ID=82710

Posted at 10:18 pm on Sep 26th, 2006 by thelip