Lathe took a swan dive

[Wagon173]

I'm not sure whether I'm more mad about the damage or that I even let it happen in the first place. But I recently moved into my home and the guy that owned it before me had some cabinet under the work bench that stuck out about ten inches. My lathe was setting on it because there was no more room on the bench for all my stuff. I was trying to move the god awfully heavy cabinet from under it to a location where i could use all of the open counter space and when I turned the cabinet to pull it to it's new home, it nudged the lathe to it's doom. I'm not certain of the damage yet and don't have pictures cause it just happened. I new better than to put it on the bench without bolting it down. It makes me a sad panda. I suppose I aught to knock out two birds with one stone since I'm in this category and it's been a while since I've been on here so here it is in a nut shell. I was in a hurry to make a tool to wind up the recoil spring for the pull start to fix my nieces quad and didn't install the guards on my band saw after I unpacked it. Once I turned on the saw, I reached up to bring down the saw like I always do and the son of a gun chewed through half my thumb. I have first aid kits stashed everywhere luckily and was able to get it really clean before the blood really started coming out (and it REALLY started coming out) and it healed almost without a scar.

 

[aarggh]

Man I can really sympathize there with you, in a hurry to move some stuff, I hastily placed my 12" bc mini lathe on a small trolley, but the top of the trolley was so smooth it just slid straight off soon as I moved the trolley! I put the lathe on a top shelf in the garage, along with the broken bits, and haven't been able to bring myself to look at it yet. I'm still so angry with myself for being so hasty and careless. That was two years ago! Now I try to take as much care as possible.

cheers, Ian

 

[Wagon173]

Well I had a few minutes to assess the damage. Surprisingly, it's not too bad. Other than cosmetic damages the only bad thing was it broke the gear on the lead screw so now I can't (or if I can I haven't figured out how without threading) use my power feed. The spindle is still aligned and all the ranges of speed work well in forward/reverse high/low. Though I wound up blowing the cylinder of my mill engine leading me to believe that no matter how many fancy little tools and whatnot I get, practice or a DRO are my only two options. I don't know how many times I can blow the specs to a part and still keep interest so now I've decided to start saving money until I have enough to get the LMS bench lathe with the dro package. I figure that'll give me enough time to figure out an excuse that will justify it to my wife...

 

[Lakc]

There is no substitute for practice, unfortunately. Even a DRO wont stop you from zigging instead of zagging, it will just tell you how much you goofed up. Each part you send to the scrap bin teaches you a lesson, and makes the parts that dont go there feel so much sweeter. Stay safe and make as many chips as possible, that will get you where you want to be the quickest.

 

[Sshire]

Glad the damage wasn't too bad. One option is to use a windshield wiper motor, $2.00 potentiometer and 12v power supply to make a power carriage feed. Search this forum for mine. I haven't used the lathe's geared feed since.

When I started this engine building stuff, not too long ago, I made plenty of bad parts (I still run across Grasshopper cylinders in the scrap box). Solution: slow down. When you get close, measure, cut, measure, cut, measure.
As far as the DRO; wouldn't be without it. Save your pennies and go for it.

 

[canadianhorsepower]

One option is to use a windshield wiper motor, $2.00 potentiometer and 12v power supply to make a power carriage feed. QUOTE]

You need a pretty dam good potentiometer to handle all that current:fan:

 

[Lakc]

You need a pretty dam good potentiometer to handle all that current:fan:

Yep, not gonna happen.

At that wattage they are referred to as rheostats, and definitely not $2.

 

[Sshire]

The Radio Shack pot has been working flawlessly for over a year. What constitutes a "good" pot?

 

[canadianhorsepower]

The Radio Shack pot has been working flawlessly for over a year. What constitutes a "good" pot?

You must have something else like a current limiter resistor in your circuit
a wiper motor can draw in the range of 15 amp on full load
not a chance that a single Radio Shack handle this

 

[rhankey]

The Radio Shack pot has been working flawlessly for over a year. What constitutes a "good" pot?

The "pot" (actually a rheostat) for the carriage and cross slide feed motor in my unmodified Hardinge HLV is physically almost half the size of the feed motor.

 

[Sshire]

As an electrically-challenged person, I looked at my powered carriage feed. I had forgotten that there is an additional thingee - an H-bridge. I assume that accounts for whatever makes the whole thing work. If I can't see it, ( as in electrons ), I can't explain it.
Thanks guys

 

[Tin Falcon]

As far as hitting tolerances :
In a production environment the goal is to take minimal number of cuts usually 1-3 rough cuts and 1 or two finish cuts. This works great when one is making the same part over and over and it is known how the metal,tool and machine will react.
In the home shop sometimes the act of machining is more of a repeated experiment. So sneak up on the intended dimension if in doubt take half the cut you think you need to take measure cut measure cut until you are there also go for top of tolerance. .
Tin

 

[wgpeters]

Sorry about your lathe. I did the same thing trying to move my Jet BD-920. It fell over onto the concrete floor and smashed the apron. It would have cost more to repair just for the parts than the price of a new one, so now I have a lot of spare parts. It could have been worse, it could have fallen on me.

 

[Wizard69]

Sorry about your lathe. I did the same thing trying to move my Jet BD-920. It fell over onto the concrete floor and smashed the apron. It would have cost more to repair just for the parts than the price of a new one, so now I have a lot of spare parts. It could have been worse, it could have fallen on me.

How bad are those parts? If the bed isn't cracked and you are anywhere near Rochester NY I might be interested. Need parts for a CNC sometime in the distant future.

 

[Wagon173]

Thanks for your sympathies and advice, guys! I haven't gotten a lot of time in the shop since I've gotten home. I've had to concentrate on work and trying to get better work since I've taken about a 50% pay hit plus losing medical insurance since getting out of the army. Fortunately I have two potentially awesome jobs on the brink of happening, one of which is machining helicopter parts! Granted, it's an intro position but it's still something that I'd love to do and I'd learn a great deal and get paid. In the event that any of them go through, I'll hopefully be getting a bigger lathe. I may have too look into the wiper motor though! I'm intrigued!
-Brandon

 

[Nerdz]

vent that any of them go through, I'll hopefully be getting a bigger lathe. I may have too look into the wiper motor though! I'm intrigued!
-Brandon

Junk wiper motors might be easy to come by. But you can get some from here as well. The 3A motors must have some pretty good torque! You just need a controller for speed.

 

[phrodo]

We use those motors for robots for our FIRST (www.usfirst.org) robotics team at the local high school. They have an amazing amount of torque. Geared down we've used them to have a 120 Lb. robot lift itself at the end of an 18 inch arm.