Making simple machine tools by hand

Clive hi, do you have any machinery at all, if not, there are a few plans on the internet and in back issues of Model Engineer, I built my first lathe using a wood lathe to turn up round sections, see my post in the dovetail forum, on making dovetails, the base of the lathe was a piece of 200mmx90mmx 600mm long heavy duty channel (10mm) that I got off a building site, the head stock is a mixture of 10mm , 12mm and 16mm plate, the steel merchants were good enough to cut it all to size, all drilled and tapped to take cap head bolts, plus some welding. the bearings were cheap roller bearings, cause I did not have access to a lathe, I was going to make the heastock bearings out of a heavy duty trailer hub, (cut and welded to length) but as I was only making snooker cue joints, ordinary bearing were enough, although I did get two new chucks from a going out of business tool shop, one 100mm CC the other 150mm 4 jaw.The motor is out of a washing machine, I bought and made 4 speed aluminium pullies. It is powerful enough to turn up large trailer hub, which was a bit scarey, till I got used to it. Does this help to get the grey matter working.

John Holloway

Edited By Clive Barker on 30/04/2011 14:50:38

Clive, good morning/arvo I forgot to tell you, the ways/guides are 40mm round bright steel, the saddle/carridge has bronze bushes with foam rubber inside and felt wipers on the outside, they and the bearing holders are split, thus adjustable for wear. The saddle feed screw was fabricated from two G clamps with acme thread (on special), cut the female off one and joined the threaded rods, mounted the female thread under the saddle and on the center line. the handle is on the end, (it's only a short lathe) there's more but Im'e going to bed,its been a long day.

John Holloway.

 

 

Edited By Lawrie Alush-Jaggs on 04/05/2011 14:16:43

Edited By John McNamara on 21/08/2011 03:36:58