What is a lath good for

Nice toy collection! :-) Done the foot thing myself ( x-rayed it myself too) Hey is that a Border Collie or an Aussie with a tail? ( looks kinda like mine!) ;-)

I had (past tense) a pair of those foundry boots with the metacarpal (?) plate. My wife found them and tossed them because they were so ugly.

I don't know where to get a pair of them so now I'm doing something that's really stupid: I'm wearing Reeboks in the shop.

Those old boots really saved me once. I had a Kurt Vise with the rotary base sitting on a table. I needed to put the vise on the mill, so I just sort of slid the vise off the table to carry it. The base wasn't bolted to the vise so it just fell off and landed squarely on top of my right foot with me still standing there holding the vise. I'm sure that base must weigh well over 30 Lbs. When dropped from 3 feet it could have caused crippling damage. As it was it just ripped the leather off the boot and I felt nothing.

They might be ugly and you might not want to be seen in public wearing them but they sure are a good idea for a shop.

Gotta find another pair...

Aussie. We dont bob their tails here in the Central Valley.

Offer stands.

Gunner

"At the core of liberalism is the spoiled child - miserable, as all spoiled children are, unsatisfied, demanding, ill-disciplined, despotic and useless. Liberalism is a philosphy of sniveling brats." -- P.J. O'Rourke

Crotch Center

Make SQUARE things too. It oftens comes as a real shock to non-metalworkers that you can TURN a perfect CUBE on a lathe -- as long as you've got a four-jaw on it.

- Carl

I do not think that he said that the best way to make a cube is to use a lathe. he said that it is possible, that's all.

i

I do not own a lathe, but have learnt on them in the past

Not being rude. Your questions indicate complete ignorance of the lathe.

I would be _certain_ to have a look at the lathe, in the company of somebody who knew lathes. It's a cheap price for a lathe. It may be junk (either crappy make or very old), and a beginner on a junk lathe will be very sorry IMO. You will have no way to try it, or know what you are doing.

"Dave" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...

Almost anything that can be done on a mill can be done on a lathe .. and vice-versa. The choice is one of matching geometries. For example, while one can turn things on a mill, you would be hard put to turn a 1/2" diameter by 24" long shaft on a mill. But a 1/2" thick by 24" diameter might be do-able. Similarly, a rotary table is a slow and inconvenient way to turn things .. but suppose you have to turn only a partial circle. You can, as stated earlier, make flat surfaces on a lathe using a four-jaw chuck or some other holding device but it will get increasingly more difficult as you progress and take far longer than the same operation on a mill. Also, to mill a long item on a lathe would be difficult and tedious using a milling attachment, or require a huge lathe. But the decision isn't difficult. If it's mostly flat, you go for a mill. Mostly round, its the lathe. Also, try threading on a mill without using taps or dies. With very really modest amount of experience, and if you have both tools at your disposal, it is rarely a deep question. The interesting question, though is how to machine things that are difficult on either a lathe or a mill ... a keyway slot in a pulley is the first one that comes to mind --easier on a lathe than on a mill. Also, the question of milling on a lathe should be restricted to not using a milling vice because that's really a kind of cheating. Conversely, except for doing partial circles, a rotary table should be left out because it is to the mill what the milling vice is to the lathe.

Boris

At that point you pull out a shaper :-)

- Carl

The shaper guys owe me a thank you for giving them the straight line. The only thing that keeps me from getting a shaper is the space. I'd have to give up one of my mills to make room for the shaper.. but then having both a horizontal and vertical mill, what do I need that drill press for? Other than keyway slots and dovetails, the biggest advantage to the hobbyist of a shaper is the ease of creating special bits .. which are expensive for either horizontal or vertical mills unless you're willing to use a fly cutter for everything.

Boris

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

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A broach would be my first choice!

You know, I ordered a corner rounding endmill for a job. I could have ground a bit for the shaper and saved a few bucks.. sigh. Oh well. next time.