Lathe vs milling machine

Chuckle! It'll be my turn tomorrow, Boris.

Harold

Or -- threading a shaft between two larger diameter collars, for that matter.

There are ways around everything, with fancy enough machines and lots of imagination (and lots of money spent on special-purpose tooling.

But -- I would get a lathe before a mill. (Except that I got both at the same time many years ago -- the Unimat SL-1000, which was not very good at either task, but better as a lathe than as a milling machine.

Enjoy, DoN.

While it's true that I often bid on, and ran, lathe work, my lathe sat idle roughly 75% of the time when I was actively machining. A great deal of my work was jig and fixture (tool making) work, the vast majority of which was mill work. Still, when starting out, a lathe seems so much more natural, and is an easier way to begin machining, considering you have only two dimensions over which to worry. Further, it's a lot cheaper to grind cutting tools for a lathe than to purchase typical milling cutters, most of which can not be hand sharpened.

I'd suggest that anyone starting out in machining do so on a lathe, if for no other reason, to help get an understanding of machining concepts, and to make mistakes that are (hopefully) less expensive. The ultimate goal would be to own both machines.

Harold Harold

Well ... I have made special purpose bolts of various sorts which I either could not purchase, or could not get affordably in the quantities in which I needed them.

And I've even made special purpose bolts for my Clausing lathe. The taper attachment came from eBay, and was not complete. I needed special bolts with specific lengths and with square heads to match those on the rest of the lathe and those still present on the taper attachment, just so one wrench would do for all of those.

Granted, I used a small milling machine and an index head to produce the square heads. For hex heads, I often just start with hex stock fed through the spindle of the lathe. I turn off what is needed to make the shank, thread it, and then part off to form the head.

(And I often use the Geometric die heads in a bed turret in the lathe for the threading in this sort of operation.)

Enjoy, DoN.

This is the reverse of the common wisdom. "The lathe is the only tool which can build itself." (In reality, a larger lathe can make a smaller one.) This can even include a lathe boring and facing holes in castings which are bolted to a faceplate. Or even line boring, with the workpiece on the cross-slide, and a long boring bar mounted between centers on the lathe.

And I would love to see a milling machine making the spindle for my lathe. The length to width ratio is such that it would need to be supported at both ends. That is easy to do on a lathe, but not so on a milling machine -- except perhaps with the overarm of a horizontal milling machine, intended to support the far end of the arbor.

Granted, things like the gears are best done by a mix of machines. Blanks turned to size on the lathe, and then the gear teeth cut on a horizontal spindle mill with an index head -- or in commercial quantities, cut on a gear hobbing machine, which is neither a mill nor a lathe.

I feel that it is easier to do some limited milling on a lathe (with the proper accessories) than to do most lathe work on a milling machine (unless you have a *big* CNC milling machine with fancy software for things like thread milling and such -- an even that would have difficulty making a long cylindrical part like either the spindle of the lathe, or the leadscrews.

Enjoy, DoN.

I had to make a gib screw for my lathe. It was basically a 1/4-20 SHCS with a very large head (I think it was 1/2" OD by 1/2" long).

How would you make that on a milling machine (and you can't use attachments, or else I can use a milling attachment on a lathe to make the framework for my hypothetical machine)?

And you also learn a lot about cutter geometry when grinding your own single point tools. Doesn't take fancy equipment to make a fine tool bit from a blank, but one can't even properly sharpen a milling cutter without specialized equipment.

I guess it really depends on what one's objective is. I presume that others are like myself, and like to learn things from the bottom up. That's not to say that I'm not ambitious about the things that I want to do, but I've "over-bought" in the past and then realized that I didn't have the skills needed to put the purchased item to good use. I think I was smart when I bought a lathe as my first legitimate machine tool as it gave me more opportunity to learn the rudiments of machining. Its a deep subject and its easy to get in over your head when you're new at it.

It can be done using a boring head to make the turns, and a die for the thread. No special tools in this case, and no big deal, really, but I agree with you------there's no substitute for the proper machine for the job.

The best training that a machinist can receive is to work in a job shop that is fairly well equipped, and accepts *good* work, something like from the aero-space industry, where slop work isn't acceptable. Given the proper attitude, a machinist comes away from such work with exceptional setup and manufacturing skills. I can say with total honesty that the 18 months I spent in just such a shop taught me more than my apprenticeship did. You get very good at doing the job with the equipment at hand.

Harold

metalworking?

When it goes full circle, it's quite apparent why there is a wide variety of machine tools, eh?

Harold

Thanks all With all posts my choice gets more and more difficult but it's very very interesting ;-)

Ah...yes you can.

Gunner

The two highest achievements of the human mind are the twin concepts of "loyalty" and "duty." Whenever these twin concepts fall into disrepute -- get out of there fast! You may possibly save yourself, but it is too late to save that society. It is doomed. " Lazarus Long

And my lathes get more use then any of the mills I have.

Gunner

The two highest achievements of the human mind are the twin concepts of "loyalty" and "duty." Whenever these twin concepts fall into disrepute -- get out of there fast! You may possibly save yourself, but it is too late to save that society. It is doomed. " Lazarus Long

helical interpolation

The two highest achievements of the human mind are the twin concepts of "loyalty" and "duty." Whenever these twin concepts fall into disrepute -- get out of there fast! You may possibly save yourself, but it is too late to save that society. It is doomed. " Lazarus Long

Get the lathe. Learn to use it. Then get a mill. Tools are good.

Now the big question..is whether you should get a horizontal or vertical mill.

Gunner

The two highest achievements of the human mind are the twin concepts of "loyalty" and "duty." Whenever these twin concepts fall into disrepute -- get out of there fast! You may possibly save yourself, but it is too late to save that society. It is doomed. " Lazarus Long

No question - get a H/V if you can find one. If you can't find a H/V probably go for a V first since it's a bit more intuitive and I think tool changes are faster. Still look for a H and dividing head after for cutting gears and similar.

Pete C.

I would consider a 3 in 1 machine- look at

You will get a lot of negatives on this board about combo machines in general, but mostly from people who have never had one or bought one of those 695.00 cheapies.

There are some lathes that have pretty good milling attachments for them, especially smaller ones. I have a Sherline lathe, the milling attachment works great. Only does small stuff, but it is great for that.

"Gil HASH" wrote in message news:42fb0b7f$0$3133$ snipped-for-privacy@news.wanadoo.fr...

Here's something that hasn't been mentioned before .. or maybe I missed it. For a newbie, I think that the learning progression is very important. I learned to use a lathe before a mill, and I'm glad I did it in that order. The lathe is a lot easier to learn than the mill. In lathe work, it is easy to tell when the tool is dull and perhaps more important, easy to sharpen yourself. You can't sharpen end mills yourself or even worse, horizontal mill cutters .. unless you are very experienced and/or have some quite fancy tool grinding equipment. The cost of learning, in broken and ruined tooling is significant. Making mistakes with speed, feed, and tool geometry on a single-point lathe tool is far more forgiving and far less expensive. The issues of cutting speed, feed, and depth of cut for lathe work is very intuitive. Usually, when in trouble (chatter, rough finish, etc.) backing off (e.g, lighter cut) solves the problem. In milling, that may be the worst thing to do. I've learned (the hard way) that these issues in milling are often quite counter-intuitive. In lathe work, the direction of the work is fixed... and you can feed toward the headstock (usual) or toward the tailstock .. but it doesn't make a whole lot of difference which if you use a live tailstock center. In milling, the direction of the feed relative to the rotation is very important and can make a big difference in the result. Then there are ll the issues of work holding, which are much more complex in milling. All in all, I'd say that milling is at least five times trickier than lathe work...and ten times more expensive in broken and ruined tools during the learning phase.

Boris

------------------------------------- Boris Beizer Ph.D. Seminars and Consulting

1232 Glenbrook Road on Software Testing and Huntingdon Valley, PA 19006 Quality Assurance

TEL: 215-572-5580 FAX: 215-886-0144 Email bsquare "at" earthlink.net

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You like to mix up the controversy, don't you!!! Talk about trouble makers!!!

Boris

------------------------------------- Boris Beizer Ph.D. Seminars and Consulting

1232 Glenbrook Road on Software Testing and Huntingdon Valley, PA 19006 Quality Assurance

TEL: 215-572-5580 FAX: 215-886-0144 Email bsquare "at" earthlink.net

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