Thoughts for the day

Only that I needed a little shaft, and made it out of some 3/16 welding rod instead of some more generally recognized as machinable material.

Oh -- and whenever I use my Smithy 1.5-in-1 tool it makes me wish I'd spent the money on a clapped out real lathe.

Just curious, Tim, what brought on the third thought? I have a 1220 and it's O.K. for my limited experience. I've had a couple of issues with it but nothing I couldn't solve myself.

Jim

Oh man, you left yourself open with that first comment. A good retort could have been, "I thought you already had one. That's what your wife said anyway!" But I would NEVER think of saying anything like that to you. ;-)

Jim

Tim, I've read your comments regarding the Smithy machine and your present shaft project.

Looking thru past RCM posts regarding Smithy machines will give you an idea of what others have done/do to compensate for the large distance between the spindle and table. Another source of info for combo machines is the Chaski 3in1 forum.

Basically, the table's work surface must be raised with something that's rigid. This is about the only practical approach to working on small parts.

I bought a used Smithy 1220XL machine several years ago, as a second machine to my 9x20 lathe (had drill press and other machines, also). The XL model has a larger table than the earlier versions with the small, square table.

The original Smithy owner had used a section of 4x4" 1/8" wall tubing to elevate the crappy original "angle milling vise", which was barely adequate to even work with, for crude machining. The add-on X-Y table with the round base isn't worthwhile either.

I began purchasing various rigid accessories to use on the table that would enable small parts to be machined with reasonable expectations of accuracy. A 6" Phase II rotary table, a Palmgren single axis angle table and other vises/items enable me to machine small parts fairly accurately with repeatability.

The oddly-slotted table requires additional clamping accessories, some which can be fabricated easily.

Additionally, the spindle absolutely needs to have an indicator added to see changes in thousandths, as the dial markings are worthless for anything other than drilling.

BTW, the x and y dials aren't very useful either, at least on my older machine with metric leadscrews.

WB ......... metalworking projects