Just bought my first lathe

[Tanshanomi]

Greetings! I just got my first lathe, a South Bend 8K my wonderful wife surprised me with for my 51st birthday. I've ridden, raced and modified motorcycles for 34 years, so I've been around machine equipment most of my life, but I have zero experience operating them myself. I stumbled onto this forum thanks to Mikbul's SB 8K photos thread. Now that my lathe has arrived, I thought I would register here and introduce myself.

I'd never even considered anything like model engine building; I just wanted a lathe to make simple motorcycle modifications (spacers, axles, etc). But now, this seems like a wonderful (and safe) method of gaining some skills and experience, especially with the exact tolerances these sort of tiny parts routinely require. My plan is to try a simple wobbler first, then perhaps an opposed-piston glow engine, but I have to admit that I stayed awake last night reading all of Brian Rupnow's Jaguar/Canadian Cub build thread and that's what got me hooked.

 

[Woodster]

Checkout this little beauty! http://www.homemodelenginemachinist.com/f31/1-4-scale-v8-first-project-13548/

 

[gus]

Greetings! I just got my first lathe, a South Bend 8K my wonderful wife surprised me with for my 51st birthday. I've ridden, raced and modified motorcycles for 34 years, so I've been around machine equipment most of my life, but I have zero experience operating them myself. I stumbled onto this forum thanks to Mikbul's SB 8K photos thread. Now that my lathe has arrived, I thought I would register here and introduce myself.

I'd never even considered anything like model engine building; I just wanted a lathe to make simple motorcycle modifications (spacers, axles, etc). But now, this seems like a wonderful (and safe) method of gaining some skills and experience, especially with the exact tolerances these sort of tiny parts routinely require. My plan is to try a simple wobbler first, then perhaps an opposed-piston glow engine, but I have to admit that I stayed awake last night reading all of Brian Rupnow's Jaguar/Canadian Cub build thread and that's what got me hooked.

It is highly addictive/infectious/epidemic etc to look at Brian's threads. Gus and Paul Swifty & others ended up building three engines. Webster,Rupnow Hit & Miss Engine and now about to finish up the Nemett-Lynx Engine and 2105 the Nemett-Jaguar Engine.Also looking at Jan Ridder's posts.

Welcome from faraway Singapore.

 

[gus]

You will need a Mini/med Vertical Mill. Milling on the lathe is very cumbersome.
A 5/8 -----3/4 max drill press too. A bench grinder to sharpen HSS cutting bits. Later a bandsaw too. Anything above 1/2 OD to manual hack saw,leaves me panting away.

 

[deverett]

You will need a Mini/med Vertical Mill. Milling on the lathe is very cumbersome.
A 5/8 -----3/4 max drill press too. A bench grinder to sharpen HSS cutting bits. Later a bandsaw too. Anything above 1/2 OD to manual hack saw,leaves me panting away.

I do all my drilling/tapping on my milling machine quite successfully. For a hole bigger than 1/2", out comes the boring head. I don't have room for a drilling machine (or a bandsaw).

Dave
The Emerald Isle

 

[gus]

Would be great if I have more space but when you have a three open sided balcony and very limited space,it is unthinkable to add on machine tools.A mini Vertical Bandsaw is very handy to have when you are making engines from bar stocks. Manual HackSaw a 2'' bar would have Gus panting away.
As we continue building small simple engines and move on to ambitious projects,some jobs require the tooling,DIY Jigs and DIY Fixtures to get a good job done.

 

[Tin Falcon]

Welcome jump in have fun a lot nicer lathe than I started with.
Tin

 

[robcas631]

Welcome Tanshanomi!

I started machining back in 2005. I really didn't know a lot, so I spent a lot of time researching. I stumbled on this forum via internet search. Lucky me, because the fine people here have helped me out a lot. I'm sure you too will be successful and create some cool stuff as well.

 

[deverett]

Would be great if I have more space but when you have a three open sided balcony and very limited space,it is unthinkable to add on machine tools.A mini Vertical Bandsaw is very handy to have when you are making engines from bar stocks. Manual HackSaw a 2'' bar would have Gus panting away.
As we continue building small simple engines and move on to ambitious projects,some jobs require the tooling,DIY Jigs and DIY Fixtures to get a good job done.

Question for you Gus - how do you keep everything dry when it rains? And it knows how to rain in Singapore!

Dave
The Emerald Isle