The best advice I was ever given/gleaned - Keep it on the Stock!

.Having just completed a job on the lathe which involved turning followed by a cross drilling exercise reminded me of the old pearl of wisdom about keeping the piece part on the stock for as long as possible and to leave parting off as the final operation. Never a truer word was spoken

Or as we used to say. Keep the work as long as possible for as long as possible.

regards Martin

Never cut the tooling lugs off until you are absolutely sure they are not needed any more.

Anyone have any other hints.

Unless you really enjoy clocking things in the chuck try and organise the workflow so you can do as many operations at once without removing it from the chuck.... you'll never get it as true again as it is after you've first machined it....

Edited By Jon Lawes on 23/07/2022 20:43:12

And therein lies one of the challenges of using up those short bits and bar ends that fill up your scrap box....

Whenever possible I like to machine stuff off the end of stock by passing the whole bar through the headstock. I have space for about a metre hanging out of the end of the lathe.

My hint is to take great care to control the protrusion! A rod becomes a deadly flail if it kinks whilst turning.

Short overhangs can be controlled by making a supportive plug-washer thingy to fit into the open end of the spindle. Don't like wooden wedges because they can vibrate loose.

Longer protrusions need some sort of stand: passing the overhang through a hole bored through a length 2x4" wood clamped into a Black & Decker Workmate works OK. But keep well away, spinning a long overhang is one of the most dangerous things you can do on a lathe, even a baby one!

Dave

Edited By SillyOldDuffer on 25/07/2022 14:27:16

So resist the challenge, and don't keep so many. I gained a spare drawer in the toolbox by binning 12 years worth of such scrap. The space is far more valuable than random bits of material too short to be of any practical use.

Thats why I like my Warco 290V nice large spindle bore.

Tony

It's very useful too being able to transfer the chuck with the work still in it, to the mill or bench-drill. I have a Warco dividing-head that accepts Myford chucks, and made an adaptor to hold a Myford nose-piece on the jig-borer (though at some loss of the already limited headroom).

For parting-off though I prefer to cut partially to depth first, to a shade below what will be the floors on such features as flats or scalloping. This gives the parting-tool a continuous surface both starting and completing the operation.

.

I have used the hole in a block of wood trick successfully, but would make a spindle plug reasonably long (1 - 2 inches): a semi-rigid plastic like Nylon or PVC, or even hardwood, would be fine. If you envisage a lot of work using long stock it may be worth fitting a tube on a stand behind the headstock, to support and enclose the bar completely. Even then a support-plug at the bar end as well as spindle would be a wise idea, but consider how to deal with the seam if you use ERW steel tube.

Such a stand was a standard accessory for capstan lathes. The tube could be swung outwards at the lathe end for loading, and for a capstan was also fitted with a bar-feeder that pushed the material up a to stop set as one of the tailstock tools.

FWIW

When making a gear, the raw material is held in a small 3 or 4 jaw chuck on a 2MT / Myford thread mandrel, located with a 3-2MT sleeve in the Headstock, to do all, or as much as possible, of the turning of the blank.

The chuck and 2 MT adaptor are then transferred to the HV6, (Mounted and aligned with the axis horizontal ) on the vertical mill, to produce the teeth.

Hopefully this produces a spur gear with the teeth concentric to the shaft.

Howard

Like many one of the older pieces of advice is measure twice and cut once. With me I measure once mark the piece then measure three or more times and sometimes have still got it wrong especially when I have used the depth mic and read the scale the wrong way

Only take good advice...

Use sharp drills and reduced speeds when drilling phosphor bronze..............

"Good judgement is the result of experience and experience is the result of bad judgement." Mark Twain

Dave
The Emerald Isle

I do the same for milling whenever I can. For me it normally makes putting things in the vice easier.

Never buy anything you can't afford to pay for now (except a house).

There are exceptions, but not many. I borrowed money from my dad to buy a basic car to get to work - not with bells and whistles and unable to burn rubber!
I'm pretty sure he wouldn't have lent me money to get a smartphone. Perhaps the Dad test could be used more often?

Never start anything that you dont know how to stop....

Learn the bench grinder.

I use up offcut leftovers/scraps by mounting in soft jaws or step chucks or, if there is a through hole, stick the piece on a mandrel with some Loctite for between centres turning (keep it cool). The result is not too much in the way of left over offcuts. The other thing I do is dismount the chuck with the workpiece in it for milling/drilling to maintain the work-holding position for as long as possible. Clamping a chuck to the mill bed is sometimes the easiest work-holding for things that have been started on the lathe.

Martin C