So it seemed like a great idea at the time

Hi everyone, I just thought I would say hello to this brilliant forum. And dip my toe in by asking my first (of many) questions.

So I am standing in front of my brand new SIEG SC3-400 with a true feeling of terror, what have I done, have I bitten of more than I can chew, where do I begin. The good news is that I have a nice space in my workshop for my lathe to live, Ive picked up lots of books and I am watching tutorial videos on YouTube.

The area that I would really like to ask for your support on is, what sort of starter tool cutting sets should I be looking to purchase (unfortunately ARC had sold out of the starter sets when I ordered the lathe), and the more I google lathe tool sets the more confusing it seems to get.

Thank you again for your time in reading my plea for help.

If you want a set of HSS cutters then the 6mm ones that ARC do will work fine on the SC3.

If you would rather go down the indexable tool route then a 8mm righthand tool, 8mm boring bar and 8mm parting blade & holder will get you going and are all in stock. You might also find Neil's bool useful

Thank you JasonB for the really quick reply, I will have a look at those bits stright away.

I agree with Jason above, you don't need a whole bunch of tools if your just starting out.

Tipped tools are an easy option for a newbie (no sharpening) and for your lathe I would go with 8mm or 10mm tools. With the ones below you will be able to do the vast majority turning operations.

SCLCR0808

S08K-SCLCR06

SLTBN 08 02

And as an added bonus the same tips (CCMT06) will fit both of the top 2.

Thank you Hollowpoint, I have to admit I was getting worried about the huge range available, and what I actually needed to get going

Warco sell similar. Not tried one myself but many swear by Eccentric Engineering's Diamond Holder - it's a tangential holder where one simply ground tool covers several purposes. For Warco and Eccentric see the pop up adverts under 'Support our Partners' bottom right pane.

Also pic below shows typical insert shapes and what they're for. There are other tool shapes and you may only need a few of them. I use SCLCR most of the time and it can also be used for facing off. SDNC is good for chamfering and roughing out.

Dave

Thank you guys, I really do appreciate everyones time and advice

As a beginner, I would suggest starting with High Speed Tools. Learning how to grind them will give an understanding of clearance angles and their effects. And, you can make HSS boring tools for small bores, Replaceable tips seem to need larger bores to be useful. Having said that, My boring bars are for replaceable Carbide tips!

A HSS tool will probably survive an inadvertent bang against the work or a chuck jaw. Carbide tips are much less tolerant (in particular, I seem to able to chip a brazed tip by doing little more than put it into the toolpost!

At 8:00 pm on a Saturday you can regrind a HSS tool, a chipped Carbide tip will have to wait until next week, unless you tie up money in packs of tips! Ten tips will probably cost £40 or more.

My favourte finishing tool is Tangential Turning Tool. Only one face to grind, using a simple jig, and can be used for Turning or facing without any adjustment.. You can make, (At least two articles have been published in MEW on making one ) A Centre Height Gauge is almost a necessity though. (Easy to make and set up, and then will be a good time saver )

I have tried replaceable tip Carbide parting tools, and they are good, but one dig in and you are probably in the market for a new tip which will cost a fifth of the cost of a HSS blade which will probably outlast five Carbide tips.

Some 40 years ago, when I bought a secondhand ML7, I was given a fairly large (1" deep x 3/32" ) HSS parting tool. It still has about 40% of the blade left!

HTH

Howard

Edited By Howard Lewis on 11/02/2021 16:31:40

Thank you Howard, I have taken your very helpful advice on board

I have an SC3 and use indexable turning tools in 10mm and they work fine. But as Howard Lewis says I stick with HSS Co8 for the parting tool, had a carbide tip one but in this size they are weak and one grab and the whole thing is toast. Most of my tools are from Arc but similar can be found on Amazon but they seem to be short on stock as well either because of Covid or Brexit. I think it is a case of finding what you can and ensuring it is in stock or you could find yourself waiting weeks for delivery. As with the tools my tips from similar sources, and really have found no problems with them as the cuts on the lathe tend to be light with the limited torque available.

Hi everyone, I agree with what others have already said: start with a few basic tools then get others as you need them and you gain experience. I bought a starter set at first and I still haven't used 3/4 of them. Tom.

Very sound advice HowardT and Tom thank you

The advantage of insert tooling is that you know the shape is right, assuming you buy a decent brand with proper inserts following industrial standard codes, and that its sharp when bought. Industry uses a huge variety of types optimised to shift metal fast. Most are too blunt in the edge for our smaller machines. For our sort of work the sharp types made for aluminium are best despite being relatively fragile. Rule 1 with inserts is they don't like being hit and stopping the machine with the tool in cut is not good practice.

The disadvantage of inserts is that should you be careless or make a significant error, highly likely when just getting started, its easy to damage the edge. Novices especially are hard pushed to tell whether poor finish is due an oopsie hurting the edge or whether poor technique due to learner level inexperience is to blame. It all goes much easier if you can find a mentor to look over your shoulder occasionaly rather than trying to do it all from books.

The advantage of HSS is that if you are unsure of the edge its easy to re-sharpen. But most tool book shapes are relatively hard for a beginner to get right. My view is that for the modest depths of cut, up to 1 mm / 50 thou appropiate for inexperienced users on small lathes, most of the fancy shapes are of no great benefit. Simply pushing the tool into the periphery of a grinding wheel to generate a hollow ground edge and swinging round the corner to leave a small taper for clearance from the job after the cut will suffice.

Theoretically the tool can be packed up from the grinding rest to generate near to book angles but so long as the rest is pretty much on centre height it will do. I can do the clever grinds but most of the time I use the simple hollow ground flat top tool, 1 mm / 40 thou for rough cut 0.5 mm / 20 thou for finishing with itsy bitsy teeny weeny cut when I've cocked up a measurement. My machines are ex-industrial and capable of far heavier cuts but, most of the time its not worth it. 5 passes instead of 2 makes little difference on smaller jobs.

Sharpness is far more important than shape, within reason.

Great thing about commercial tangential holders is that you get the jig so you can sharpen it dead right every time and its about as close to a universal tool as could be wished for.

One think I wish had been made clear to me when starting was that paying 3 times as much for the right tool was far better value than 4 or 5 cheap out of the bargain box, remaindered off or "my mate has a stash". There is a reason why the wallflowers were unpopular! Much less excuse now than 40 years ago as we have reputable supplies able to provide decently adequate tooling selected for our needs.

Clive

As HowardT says, cuts on the mini lathe will be light, or should be My Operator Manual says that roughing cuts are 0.010" (0.25 mm) although many exceed these figures without damage.

The motor is, even on the brushless ones, only just over half a horse power, so no 6 mm a side cuts with a 0.1 mm per rev feed!.

A friend has been given one where the previous owner had tried these sort of cuts. I saw the end result!

The bill to restore it fully looks to be well over £200!

But you have a machine that will, within its limitations, do all sorts of work, be extremely useful, and provide hours of pleasure.

Howard

The advice you are all providing is definitely appreciated, and I’ve moved from a position of terror to excitement.

Familiarity should not bring contempt, but expertise. Eventually, you will reach a point where you can coax performance from YOUR machine that almost no one else can!

You will happily attack jobs that once you thought impossible.

Once, I had not screwcut for thirty or more years. Am not expert but manage to produce something useable now.

Nothing succeeds like success!

Making small accessories and tools brings experience and gives confidence.

If you mess up making a Centre Height Gauge, you have not ruined an expensive casting, but learned, and things may yet be recoverable.

And, possibly finding a way to recover the situation will stand you in good stead for sometime in the future.

Example:

A friend had bought an elderly lathe that would not turn parallell, We found that a previous owner had managed to make one of the tappings for the headstock, out of square, so when that nut was tightened it pulled things out of place.We made up a simple jig (A bit of bar with two holes drilled in it ) so that the duff tapping could be drilled out to Tap, two sizes up. Made a bush with internal and external threads, Loctited in to place, and reassembled. It then turned true again!

These are the sort of things that you can do with a lathe!

Regards

Howard

Something you may not know as a beginner and I could not see mentioned in any of the great above posts is :- the SCLCL tool is left handed as it cuts left to right and the SCLCR is right handed and cuts right to left. People do get mistaken in this regard as a RH tool points left and a LH tool points right.

Good luck with your new toy. Any questions just ask and an answer will just pop right up (usually)

regards

dual post deleted

Edited By Oldiron on 11/02/2021 17:48:24

Try JB Cutting Tools, top quality British made and very reasonably priced, and they come with a free insert!

It’s funny, after reading all of the fantastic advice above it has given me such huge admiration for all you pros, and the skill set you have built up over time