Improving A Mini-Lathe With A Few Clever Hacks

November 13, 2021 by Dan Maloney 21 Comments

Like many budget machinists, the delightfully optimistically named [We Can Do That Better] had trouble with some of the finer controls on his import mini-lathe. But rather than suffer through it, he chose to rectify the machine’s shortcomings and in the process, teach everyone a bunch of great tips.

[We Can Do That Better]’s lathe retrofit focused on the carriage handwheel, which appears to lack proper bearings and wobbles around in a most imprecise manner. On top of that, the gearing of the drive made for an unsatisfying 19 mm of carriage travel per revolution of the handwheel. A single gear change made that an even 20 mm per rev, which when coupled with a calibrated and indexed handwheel ring greatly simplifies carriage travel measurements.

While the end result of the build is pretty great in its own right, for our money the best part of the video is its rich collection of machinist’s tips. The use of a wooden dowel and a printed paper template to stand in for a proper dividing head was brilliant, as was using the tailstock of the lathe to drive an engraving tool to cut the index lines. We’ve seen the use of a Dremel tool mounted to the toolpost to stand in for a milling machine before, but it’s always nice to see that trick used. And the mechanism for locking the dial to the handwheel was really clever, too.

Considering a mini-lathe? As encouraging as [We Can Do That Better]’s experience may be, it might be wise to take a deep dive into the pros and cons of such a machine.

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Heavy Metal Lathe Build Doesn’t Spare The Steel

October 27, 2021 by Dan Maloney 22 Comments

It’s common wisdom that the lathe is the essential machine tool, and the only one that can make copies of itself. While we won’t argue the primacy of the lathe in the machine shop, this scratch-built, heavy-duty lathe gives the lie to the latter argument — almost.

We’re used to seeing homebrew lathes, of course, and we’ve featured more than a few of them before. But two things make [Jornt]’s build stand out: how few specialized tools were needed to build it, and the sheer size and bulk of the finished product. Where most homebrew lathes tend to be the bench top variety and feature cast aluminum parts, [Jornt] went with steel for his build, and a lot of it. The base and bed of the machine are welded from scrap steel I-beams, and the ways are made from angle iron that has been ground flat with a clever jig to hold an angle grinder. The angle grinder plays a prominent role in the build, as do simple tools like a hand drill, files, and a welder — and yes, the unfinished lathe itself, which was used to bore out the bearing blocks for the headstock.

The completed lathe, powered by a treadmill motor in a way that [Jeremy Fielding] would no doubt endorse, comes in at a beefy 450 kg. It honestly looks like something you could buy from a catalog, and has most of the features of commercial machines. One thing we’d love to see on this lathe is the electronic lead screw that [James Clough] developed for his off-the-shelf lathe.

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Better Mousetraps (or Screw Drives) Don’t Always Win

August 4, 2021 by Al Williams 114 Comments

I’ve noticed, lately, that slotted screw heads are all but gone on new equipment. The only thing that I find remarkable about that is that it took so long. While it is true that slotted heads have been around for ages, better systems are both common and have been around for at least a century.

The reason slotted heads — technically known as the drive — are so common is probably because they are very easy to make. A hacksaw is sufficient for the job and there are other ways to get there, too. The only advantages I know of for the user is that you can easily clean a slotted drive and — possibly — use field expedient items like butter knives and quarters to turn the screw. I’ve heard people claim that it also is a feature that the screwdriver can pry things like paint can lids, but that’s a feature of the tool, not the screw drive.

The disadvantages, though, are significant. It is very hard to apply lots of torque to a slotted screw drive without camming it out or snapping the head off the screw. The screwdriver isn’t self-centering either, so applying force off-axis is common and contributes to the problem.

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Adjustable, Piston-Damped Hammer

April 19, 2021 by Bryan Cockfield 27 Comments

When all you have is a hammer, every problem is a constant quest for an even better hammer, as the popular saying goes. At least, that seems to be [Ebenisterie Éloïse]’s situation. She wanted a deadblow hammer that not only had an aesthetically pleasing wood and brass construction, but also one that included adjustable dampers to make sure that each hammer swing is as efficient as possible.

For those unfamiliar with specialty hammers, dead blow hammers typically have some movable mass such as sand or lead shot within the hammer head. This mass shifts forward when the hammer strikes an object, reducing rebound of the hammer off of the object and transferring more energy into each strike. This hammer omits a passive mass in favor of four custom-machined brass tubes, each of which holds a weighted fluid, a spring, and brass weight. Each piston acts as a damper in a similar way to a shock absorber on a vehicle, and a screw and o-ring at the top of each one allows them to be adjustable by adding different weight fluids as needed. Some detailed testing of the pistons shows a marked improvement over any of the passive mass varieties as well.

Not only is this an incredible amount of detail and precision for a tool that is often wielded in a non-precise way (at least among those of us for who aren’t skilled craftspeople), but it is also made out of wood, leather, and brass which gives it an improved look and feel over a plastic and fiberglass hammer that is typical of most modern deadblow hammers. It even rivals this engineer’s hammer with its intricate custom engraving in craftsmanship alone.

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Vertical Mill Completes Scrapyard Lathe Build

January 12, 2021 by Dan Maloney 12 Comments

One thing’s for sure: after seeing [Roland Van Roy] build a vertical mill from industrial scrap, we’ve got to find a better quality industrial scrapyard to hang around.

The story of this build started, as many good shop stories do, at the lathe, which in this case was also a scrapyard build that we somehow managed to miss when it first posted. This lathe is decidedly different from the common “Gingery method” we’ve seen a few times, which relies on aluminum castings. Instead, [Roland] built his machine from plate stock, linear slides, and various cast-off bits of industrial machines.

To make his lathe yet more useful, [Roland] undertook this build, which consists of a gantry mounted over the bed of the lathe. The carriage translates left and right along the bed while the spindle, whose axis lines up perfectly with the center axis of the lathe, moves up and down. [Roland] added a platform and a clever vise to the lathe carriage; the lathe tool post and the tailstock are removed to make room for these mods, but can be added back quickly when needed. Digital calipers stand in for digital read-outs (DROs), with custom software running on a Picaxe and a homebrew controller taking care of spindle speed control.

[Roland] reports that the machine, weighing in at about 100 kg, exhibits a fair amount of vibration, which limits him to lighter cuts and softer materials. But it’s still an impressive build, and what really grabbed us was the wealth of tips and tricks we picked up. [Roland] used a ton of interesting methods to make sure everything stayed neat and square, such as the special jig he built for drilling holes in the T-slot extrusions to the use of cyanoacrylate glue for temporary fixturing.

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Tiny Chain-Link Fence Made With Hand-Cranked Brilliance

December 6, 2020 by Danie Conradie 24 Comments

Chain link fences are woven with a mechanism that is almost hypnotic to watch, so [Levsha] decided to build his own tiny hand-crank tabletop version to make tiny copper wire fences.

Chain link consist of a series of wires bent and woven in a zigzag pattern. The zigzag bends are made by winding the wire around a rotating flat plate inside a stationary tube with a spiral slot in the side to keep the spacing of the bends consistent. [Levsha]’s version is roughly 1/10 scale of the real thing, and only does the bending and winding parts. Linking the bent wire together is up to the operator. All the components were machined on a lathe and CNC router, and beautifully finished and assembled on a wood base. The hardest part was the tube with the spiral slot, which took a few attempts to get right. [Levsha] initially tried to use steel wire, but it was too stiff and caused the winding mechanism to lock up. 0.4 mm copper wire turned out to be the best choice.

Although there is no practical use for this device that we can see, the craftsmanship is excellent, and it is one of those videos that reminds us how badly we want some machine tools.

Fine attention to detail is really what makes videos like this enjoyable to watch. Wee seen a few other such project, like a beautiful scratch-built lathe, or a pneumatic powered drone that can’t fly.

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Gorgeous Mini-Lathe Makes The Most Out Of Wood And Metal

November 16, 2020 by Dan Maloney 32 Comments

It’s a cliche that the only machine tool that can make copies of itself is the lathe. It’s not exactly true, but it’s a useful adage in that it points out that the ability to make big round things into smaller round things, and to make unround things into round things, is a critical process in so many precision operations. That said, making a lathe primarily out of wood presents some unique challenges in the precision department

This isn’t [Uri Tuchman]’s first foray into lathe-building. Readers may recall the quirky creator’s hybrid treadle-powered and electric lathe, also primarily an exercise in woodworking. That lathe has seen plenty of use in [Uri]’s projects, turning both wood and metal stock into parts for his builds. It wasn’t really optimal for traditional metal turning, though, so Mini-Lathe 2 was undertaken. While the bed, headstock, and tailstock “castings” are wood — gorgeously hand-detailed and finished, of course — the important bits, like the linear slides for the carriage and the bearings in the headstock, are all metal. There’s a cross-slide, a quick-change tool post, and a manual lead screw for the carriage. We love the finely detailed brass handcranks, which were made on the old lathe, and all of the lovely details [Uri] always builds into his projects.

Sadly, at the end of the video below we see that the lathe suffers from a fair amount of chatter when turning brass. That’s probably not unexpected — there’s not much substitute for sheer mass whenit comes to dampening vibration. We expect that [Uri] will be making improvements to the lathe in the coming months — he’s not exactly one to leave a job unfinished.

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