Member postings for Ed Blackwell

Thanks Howard, I have told the " can you just " crowd that I need to learn how to use it before I start and not to expect anything in the near future.

I am pleasantly surprised by the positive reaction from a lot of people on my purchase of an old MD65. I have started a collection of books and picked up a copy of Machinerys Handbook in a second hand bookshop last year. The Auckland libraries also have a very good selection of books so I can try before I buy !

Thanks for the suggestion of useful tools to make. That will give me plenty to work on.As regards cutting tools, I think I would prefer HSs as I have always been envious of people that can sharpen their own stuff and Eccentric Engineering has some interesting goodies.

Unfortunately Zeus tables and lathe tooling appear to be very expensive here compared to the UK and shipping can be horrendous. I will be back in the UK shortly and plan on some serious shopping !!!

Cheers

Ed

Thanks for the welcome. My objective is to learn how to use a lathe. Didn't have metal work at my school and I have always wanted to make stuff. Most of my fathers side of the family were engineers and my father and uncles did their apprenticeship at Holmans in Cornwall in the 1930s.

Howard, I will be asking plenty of questions - only if I haven't managed to work things out myself and am prepared for all kinds of answers !! I have done some research on lathe lube, ways oil, bed butter or whatever people like to call it. There are more opinions on that subject than types of oil !!!!!!

A couple of blokes I work with have already hit me up to: 1, make some bow fishing arrow heads. 2, turn down a .22 airgun barrel to fit a .177 stock. I just need to teach myself how to do it ...

Hello. I have measured the distance from the base of my tool holder to the centre of my headstock chuck. This is 9mm. My initial thinking was to buy 8mm HSS tools and shim them up to the 9mm. However, looking at the geometry of preground cutting tools, an 8mm tool shimmed up to 9mm will still not meet the centre of my workpiece. Am I thinking too hard, or do I need to shim my cutting tools up on an individual basis so the cutting edge of each tool is dead centre ?

How critical is it to get HSS tools exactly to the centre of items being turned ?

Many thanks for any input and apologies if this has been covered before.

Hello Folks,

New member from Auckland New Zealand here. Complete beginner and I have just bought and cleaned up a Hobbymat MD65. Looking forward to learning a lot 😀

Cheers,

Ed