# Lathe work at work



## BritishReactionResearch (Feb 16, 2010)

Hello,
 I thought people might be interested in some turning work I had to do on board ship recently. This was in connection with a repair I was doing. I had to make some threaded bushes. The bushes are 30mm dia, 20mm long and threaded M12. The material is 304 stainless steel.
 The lathe is a British model, its an XL1660, made by the Excel company in Coventry. Its an excellent machine, which unfortunately has been no-ones particular baby for some time, as can be seen. I think I'll take it under my wing. I had to turn the stock down a fair bit to get to the required diameter. I then drilled through and tapped. I use the tailstock to centre the tap and get it going, then tap by hand in the chuck. I don't like running the machine up with the tap wrench braced against the cross slide. despite many books advising this I still see it as bad practice and potentially catastrophic! Finally I parted the bushes and after a few clean up cuts they were ready to go.










Hope people find this interesting.


----------



## itowbig (Feb 16, 2010)

i cant make the pics bigger so i cant really see them all that good (eyes r going hope my mind stays for a while) : )


----------

