Other uses for a lathe around the home.

[SmithDoor]

My ok to polish the knives today as long not over 10 minutes. It get 108° F [42° C]

This what used to polish the knives.

Hope you put your other uses for your mini lathe here for all to see.

Dave

 

[SmithDoor]

I am hoping others post other uses for lathes .

I have it paints lines shafts.
Note use bedway covers I like plywood with cleats to hold in place

Winding coils.

Please post your other uses I hope photos too.

Dave

 

[SmithDoor]

One many uses for lathe was line boring engines back around 1900 . Witch can still be done today . Back 1900 they would make a jig to hold the casting on lathe carriage.
Most lathes back in 1900 had tee slots for jig to bolted to carriage.

Manufacturer would use lathe for almost everything in 1900.

Dave

 

[GreenTwin]

I think typically the early home shop engine builders did not have a milling machine, and so milling was also done on the lathe.

You can do a lot with a lathe, and can do more than most typically use them for.

The Southbend book "How to use a Lathe" illustrates many things a lathe can be used for.

.

 

[cl350rr]

I assume you did but I would highly recommend you cover the ways of your lathe bed before doing any polishing or grinding, and clean them thoroughly when through.

 

[Richard Hed]

I am hoping others post other uses for lathes .

I have it paints lines shafts.
Note use bedway covers I like plywood with cleats to hold in place

Winding coils.

Please post your other uses I hope photos too.

Dave

how about a paper weight?

 

[Richard Hed]

I think typically the early home shop engine builders did not have a milling machine, and so milling was also done on the lathe.

You can do a lot with a lathe, and can do more than most typically use them for.

The Southbend book "How to use a Lathe" illustrates many things a lathe can be used for.

.

It's said that 90% of all machining can be done with a lathe. I wonder what the other 10% is?

 

[SmithDoor]

I assume you did but I would highly recommend you cover the ways of your lathe bed before doing any polishing or grinding, and clean them thoroughly when through.

The photo was taken after I starting cleanup so do no see cover.

Dave

 

[SmithDoor]

It's said that 90% of all machining can be done with a lathe. I wonder what the other 10% is?

Everything I have seen it probably closer 99.9%
I had catalog showing a lathe manufacturer make single cylinder engine on there lathe.
They did line boring. Keying the crank shaft and timing gears. This catalog was before 1900.

Dave

 

[davidyat]

Other uses for a lathe??? OK, I wanted to make some walnut bowls for a wedding gift. I chainsawed some blanks, made a jig to hold the blanks and chucked them up to make the bowls. I don't have a wood lathe and I thought, "What the hell" I couldn't screw up much with wood. But boy, did I make a lot of saw dust!!!! Almost a trash bag full of sawdust.

 

[jcreasey]

I once used mine to repair my pool pump. The pipe needed to be replaced in this fitting which wasn’t available as a spare part. I bored out the old pipe and it worked great.

 

[jcreasey]

I once was so annoyed that I couldn’t find the cap for my tube of lanolin that I made my own cap.

Of course I found the original cap the next day.

 

[Vietti]

I suppose that most have heard the old saying that the lathe is the queen of machine tools because it is the only one that can replicate itself

 

[Joe]

Bought a Colchester Dominion 15 lathe last year. I looked at it in its dark, gloomy and cluttered basement and there was all sorts of "stuff " underneath the lathe including an air compressor cylinder. The wiring was weird, a micro switch under the forward/reverse lever in the neutral position, a water pump pressure switch, an old fuse panel running from an equally old breaker panel. We fiddled around with it for quite a while and got it to spin but didn't know how we did it so we couldn't repeat the process. After buying it I had to get it out of there so I started clearing all the stuff from under and around the lathe. The compressor cylinder wouldn't budge, got some bigger lights and found it was bolted to a scabby angle iron frame that the lathe was sitting upon. So the previous owner had the brilliant idea to rig the lathe to make compressed air when running in neutral, hence the weird wiring. Good idea except the reciprocating load from the compressor caused the gears on the input shaft to chatter themselves into oblivion.

 

[almega]

It makes a nice precision pencil sharpener. Overkill? I think not.

 

[Richard Hed]

It makes a nice precision pencil sharpener. Overkill? I think not.

The roughness is terrible--can't you get the smoothness a little better?

 

[almega]

I absolutely could get it smoother with a change to a much sharper high-speed steel cutter sharpened for wood. That was the first pass with a carbide cutter and the wood was not particularly amenable to smooth cutting. Just an experiment at this point.

 

[clockworkcheval]

On one of our big rivers close to Rotterdam sits an outfit that puts engines in ships. They have a jetty going into the river. On my question how they keep the jetty stable in the stream they told me they use a large lathe from eons earlier as anchor.

 

[Joe]

It makes a nice precision pencil sharpener. Overkill? I think not.

Well if you're up for that you'll have to give corn schucking a go too. Gearbox set for around 7 tpi, spindle full tilt and you'll clean a cob in no time.