What to make

Hi to all,

Some time ago I acquired a proxxon SD300 baby lathe with the intention to fabricate a merlin hot end for my 3D printer. Tinkering with the lathe turned out to be far more challenging and satisfying than slicing and printing bits of plastic. The printer box now forms a stand for the lathe and I am spending most of my free time researching and making bits for the lathe. I am joining this forum in the hope of actually finding something useful to make.

Any suggestions are welcome.

Tooling for the lathe is usually a good place to start. Beyond that it depends on what your interests are (e.g. clocks, models, steam engines, pens, knives, motorcycles etc...) and what you consider 'useful'. The page below is about the Cowells lathe but lower down he makes a centre height gauge. I made one of these as a first project and use it all the time. I've also made a graver honing jig based on the design on the same site but whether that is useful depends on whether hand turning is something you want to do.

https://watchmaking.weebly.com/cowells-90cw.html

The sites below are also often recommended for project ideas

http://www.homews.co.uk/index.html

https://www.gadgetbuilder.com/

Enjoy your lathe.

Books are a great inspiration

Spareys "The amateurs Lathe" was my bible

Be warned... you are teetering on the edge of a tool junkie precipice, it was a Unimat SL that snared me

Welcome to the forum Ivan.

We are mostly metal manglers but you can talk 3D printing as well!

Neil

Welcome Ivan... Have a look here...

**LINK**

Extracted from Stan Bray's book t'internet

George.