The machining and fabricating thread (mills/lathes and more here)

[Sam-Q]

that couldn't fit on the next set of steps on the chuck jaws?

I will take a picture of my rotating table and give you some tips on it.

[takai]

Yeah, AL320G, good lathe decent in size. I bought it second hand though so i cant really comment on the price. The guy who i bought it off had done a bunch of upgrades to it.

Nup, too small for the next steps, the small side jaws were hitting against each other in the center

[Sam-Q]

ah I figured, it just didn't look it in the pic. I do think a mill would be the way to go here though.

[takai]

Yeah, it would be. Decent sized mill with a rotary table would have made very short work of it.

[Sam-Q]

took me a while to get these pictures up, I had to do only 3mm cuts with the mill and even then it very much let me know it wasn't happy doing so





now a few tips:

Hare and forbes sell a small tilting table with a chuck on it: don't buy it it's rubbish. This vertex table on the other hand is great and is of a very high quality. As for the whole buy the dedicated chucks for it, just ignore that. What you do is take the jaws out of any chuck, put them face down on a pedastal drill and drill through the middle of holes where the chucks get bolted from on the back outside edges. If you pick the right drill bit you can drill through the middle of the threads and make it so it can be put straight back on the lathe when done. Then turn the chuck back the right side up and counterbore the holes out the top to have the bolts fit flush. I have no idea if that makes any sense but that's what i did here, this chuck was on my lathe originally.

Also I personally dislike dividing heads, I think having to work in degrees and then convert everything to fractions is stupid.

[takai]

Sam: what is the DRO you are using on your lathe? Im thinking about rigging up something similar for my cross slide.

[Sam-Q]

from here:

[takai]

Ah bummer, they dont have the smaller ones anymore.

Was thinking of getting the 60mm one from ozmestore for the main slide, and then a 150mm for the compound, but i cant find any 150mm ones. Perhaps i should just butcher a cheap set of verniers.

[Sam-Q]

here you go:



I started with one of these but I don't suggest it. If you can buy the proper DRO units.

[Tim.duncan]

lets just say i was in the right place at the right time